San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-08-17
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her knee and give thanks to heaven for her
great happiness But she opened wide her
scornful eyes and held her naughty head the
higher and made answer:
"Now care | naught for God and his angels,
for have indeed found my paradisew
And the angels wept again in heaven, and
the just God saw that she had not been suf.
ficiently humbled.
But the followers of Foulques the Beauti-
full chafed at the delay. And messengers
came to the Castle Of Pierreluce to seek him
and they brought him tidings of the terrible
wars waged by the infidels in Provence.
They told him of the wives and daughters
led to hfdeous bondage by these the foes of
God and his church And there were muir
murs among the men who rode after Foul
ques the Beautiful, and he heard his name
spoken in bitterness among them when they
knew not he was nigh, and he saw the frowns
upon their faces when he came unheralded
into their midst
His own heart child him and he fretted to
be gone, and yet the face of Bathilde held
him as though she were a sorceress who had
bound him to her side by chains.
But a day came when messenger rode in
hot haste to Pierreluce with word that hands
had been laid upon the sire of Foulques the
Beautiful in his own country of Theoxle, and
he called his men to horse and threw himself
upon his palfrey and daring not to look again
on Bathilde, he rode away without glance
behind
She spoke no word.
YEARLY she went up into her tower. There
she sat alone and no one heard her voice in
lameptaton OF could say that she was desc
late
But from that window where she had first
looked down on the coming of her lord, there
sat she, from the first gray of dawning until
the shadows of the night, and watched and
waited for his return.
No one heard her weeping and none could
say that they had seen her shed tear.
But there by her window she wept the ST.
lent, bitter tears which scald and scar the
cheeks they fall upon.
And in the night the watchers of her castle
saw her in her trailing robes of black wan
dering through the long corridors, or stood
aside that she might pass into her courts and
gardens and walk the paths and show her
sleepless eyes to the cold pity of the stars.
Thinner and paler she grew until her black
robes seemed to float about her and scarce
touch her slender limbs
She was conscious neither of hunger, thirst
nor fatigue.
And at last she ceased to hope for the re-
turn of Foulques the Beautiful. He was
dead or faithess.
Then she summoned her Servitors and babe
them take from her castle walls all the mir
rors of glass and steel which were won't to re-
fleet her beauty. She would look no more
upon the face which he had ceased to love or
which he never more might look upon with
living eyes.
From her window in the tower, where still
she sat-though hopeless, for the place was
dear to her because 1T first yielded her the
sight of him-she one day saw a troop of
horSemen enter the road from the mountains
Straight she went down from her tower
and out at her castle gates to meet them
She went among them and questioned them
herself and trusted to none other
But they knew naught of Foulques the
Beautiful.
After that day she went out and questioned
all who jouIneyed on the road, and took into
her white hands the hands of pilgrims and
beggars and entreated of them tidings of her
lord.
But none could tell her of Foulques the
Beautiful
And now she prayed to God and all his
angels Each day she went to the church
and bruised her delicate knees on the rough
stones where knelt the poor to pray, or tore
her tender feet with pilgrimages to shrines
where she might lay offerings of flowers and
burn tapers and pray for the return of her
lord. She emptied her Golfers of their stores
of wealth and scattered her silver among
Gods poor and gave her gold in aims to alb
bots for the building of new monasteries and
churches, where masses might be said for the
safe return of her lord. And when her cot
fers were empty and she had sold her jewels
her rings, her glittering girdles, her golden
strings with their clasp of amethyst, and no
jewel remained to her, she took her silken
robes and mantles of rich brocades and laid
them as offerings to Our Lady, and they
were taken by the church and used to drape
thcsblessed saints.
And she kept only her robes of black and
she was as poor in her castle as any beggar
upon the roads which led unto its gates.
Then came monk to the donjon gates to
ask forFLady Pierreluce.
White and thin, in her black garments,
she came and stood before him.
The friar told her woeful tale of his es-
cape from the wars with only his life, and
that threatened by wounds given him through
his sacred garments by the enemies of his
church They had surprised him while bind
ing the ten wounds of FOulques the Beauti
full, now Lord of Theoule, who had been hurt
unto death in battle, and one hundred against
two, they had borne away the lord and
chased him with thrusts of many weapons to
die, as they thought, in the woods. He had
fingered long enough to learn that the ransom
placed on the head of Foulques the Beaut-
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