The woman burst into tears, and turned to the bed again.
"No, you shall not starve, poor little orphan--you cannot help it!" and she seated herself on the edge of the bed, took the child pitifully in her arms and unheedful of the monk clasped it to her breast; the child drank eagerly while her tears ran down upon it. The Prior turned away and stood puzzled. He remembered how in his childhood he had never dared to vex his mother while she was nursing his little brother for fear the baby should not thrive, if the milk were turned by her anger. What should he do now to soothe the wet-nurse?
"Listen to me," he said at last, "I know of another way out of the difficulty for you; I will allow you to see your husband again, outside the convent gate, now and then for half an hour; that I will take upon myself. If that will satisfy you, we are all content--the child, ourselves and you."
The woman sighed, but she nodded assent in silence. It was better than nothing, and she felt she could not let the child starve, she could never be happy with her husband again, if she had loaded her conscience with such a dreadful sin for his sake.
"Are you content with that?" asked the Prior again, for he had not seen her nod. The child had drunk till it was full and had gone to sleep; she laid it on the bed, she could not speak, but she went up to the Prior and kissed his hands in the midst of her tears.
"That is all right then," said he, glad of this happy turn, "I will see whether your husband is already waiting with the child and then you can speak with him at the little gate while we baptise this one. You shall be allowed to do so once every week. And I will get our brother, the carpenter, to carve you out a cradle that you may lay the baby in it, and you will see that you will not want for anything."
The monk closed the door behind him and the woman went up to the little loop-hole and pressed her hot brow against the small round panes. In the early dawn she could hardly see the roofs of Burgeis deep down in the valley and the scattered huts around it on the declivity and on the opposite side on the mountains freshly covered with snow. Hers was down there too, she could distinguish it quite plainly, for her sturdy, industrious husband had built it better and bigger than the others, and had loaded the thatch with heavy stones. The crowing of cocks from far and near came up from the depth below--so homelike! and hers among them--she knew his voice! She pressed her hand over her eyes--it was like a dream that she should be mounted up here in the lonely turret-chamber--so lonely; so high, high up, as if she were in prison.--Oh! if it were but a dream, if only she could wake up again in her husband's arms, in her own humble hut; never again would she follow any one who might come to tear her away from her husband's fond heart. How could she have done it--how ever could she have done it.