In this way you will at least save your lives."
She entered Richard's house, but there a new trouble awaited her, for
Marguerite had become suddenly ill from the fright and the shock, and
lay unconscious, sick with a high fever. The Countess wished to nurse
her child back to health, but the doctor would not hear of it, and
advised her immediate flight. Richard and his good wife promised to care
for the sick child, as if it were their own.
Countess Berlow knelt beside the bedside of her beloved daughter, and
said: "If I must bow to this decree, I leave her in your care, my good
people, and ask God in His mercy to watch over her and restore her to me
in His good time." She paused for a moment, then rose quickly from her
knees, kissed her unconscious child, took her son by the hand, and
trembling and swaying, hastened out of the house, without one backward
look.
CHAPTER II
THE RETREAT
Richard now conducted the Countess and her son to John, the fisherman,
who quickly rowed them over the river to safety. As there was no time to
rest, with the help of a guide, the fisherman's friend, she hastened on
with her son to find the hut which Richard had suggested.
After days and weeks of journeying hither and thither, over hills and
through valleys, they found that their strength was almost exhausted. At
last they came to a little low hut in a thickly wooded country. The
guide pointed to it with his staff, saying: "That is the hut; there live
the old shepherd and his wife who will harbor you.
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