Dismissing her attendants, with an order to remain at hand,
however, the heiress of Willading soon found means to enter the humble
abode in which the proscribed family had taken refuge, and, as she was
expected, she was soon introduced into the chamber where Christine and her
mother had taken refuge.
The sympathy of the young and tender Adelheid was precious to one of the
character of Christine. They wept together, for the weakness of her sex
prevailed over the pride of the former, when she found herself
unrestrained by the observation of the world, and she gave way to the
torrent of feeling that broke through its bounds, in spite of her
endeavors to control it. Marguerite was the only spectator of this silent
but intelligible communion between these two young and pure spirits, and
her soul was shaken by the unlooked-for commiseration of one so honored,
and who was usually esteemed so happy.
"Thou hast the consciousness of our wrongs," she said, when the first
burst of emotion had a little subsided. "Thou canst then believe that a
headsman's child is like the offspring of another and is not to be hunted
of men like the young of a wolf.
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