"My Lord, you spoke just now of a woodlander--"

"Ah, there is one then. Indeed, I feared as much, for there can be none
on all the Rhine as beautiful or as good as you."

"There are many woodlanders, my Lord, and many women more beautiful
than I. What I was about to say was that I would rather be the wife of
the poorest forester, and lived in the roughest hut on the hillside,
than dwell otherwise in the grandest castle on the Rhine."

"Surely, surely. But you shall dwell in my castle of Schonburg as my
most honoured wife, if you but will it so."

"Then, my Lord, I must bid you beware of what you propose. Your wife
must be chosen from the highest in the land, and not from the lowliest.
It is not fitting that you should endeavour to raise a serving-maid to
the position of Countess von Schonburg. You would lose caste among your
equals, and bring unhappiness upon us both."

Count Herbert grasped his sword and lifting it, cried angrily: "By the
Cross I serve, the man who refuses to greet my wife as he would greet
the Empress, shall feel the weight of this blade."

"You cannot kill a whisper with a sword, my Lord."

"I can kill the whisperer."

"That can you not, my Lord, for the whisperer will be a woman."