` Wait a little still , ' pleaded Renelde . But the young man grew weary . He came more rarely to Locquignol , and very soon he did not come at all . Renelde felt as if her heart would break , but she held firm . One day she met the Count . She clasped her hands as if in prayer , and cried : ` My lord , have mercy ! ' Burchard the Wolf turned away his head and passed on . She might have humbled his pride had she gone to her spinning-wheel again , but she did nothing of the sort . Not long after she learnt that Guilbert had left the country . He did not even come to say good-bye to her , but , all the same , she knew the day and hour of his departure , and hid herself on the road to see him once more . When she came in she put her silent wheel into a corner , and cried for three days and three nights . VII So another year went by . Then the Count fell ill , and the Countess supposed that Renelde , weary of waiting , had begun her spinning anew ; but when she came to the cottage to see , she found the wheel silent . However , the Count grew worse and worse till he was given up by the doctors . The passing bell was rung , and he lay expecting Death to come for him . But Death was not so near as the doctors thought , and still he lingered . He seemed in a desperate condition , but he got neither better nor worse . He could neither live nor die ; he suffered horribly , and called loudly on Death to put an end to his pains . In this extremity he remembered what he had told the little spinner long ago . If Death was so slow in coming , it was because he was not ready to follow him , having no shroud for his burial .
He sent to fetch Renelde , placed her by his bedside , and ordered her XXXXX once to go on spinning his shroud .
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