"The bird flies jocund through the sky,And sports in upper air,Only too soon fluttering to lie,Caught in the fowler's snare,The wind constrains the forest tall,The tempest rules the sea;The mighty hold the weak in thrall;And only love is free."Nor bonds, nor bars, nor word of hate,Can love's sweet will control;Or quench the flame resistless fateHath kindled in the soul.The mind may bow to slavish law,As kings in chains may be;Reason to wisdom bend in awe;Yet still will love be free."What's plighted troth or formal vow,When hearts are turned to fire?As chaff on tempests blown, I trow,Such bonds before desire!Let whosoever come between,To part my dear and me,I'd beat down all to reach my queen,And make our loving free!"
"The bird flies jocund through the sky,And sports in upper air,Only too soon fluttering to lie,Caught in the fowler's snare,The wind constrains the forest tall,The tempest rules the sea;The mighty hold the weak in thrall;And only love is free.
"Nor bonds, nor bars, nor word of hate,Can love's sweet will control;Or quench the flame resistless fateHath kindled in the soul.The mind may bow to slavish law,As kings in chains may be;Reason to wisdom bend in awe;Yet still will love be free.
"What's plighted troth or formal vow,When hearts are turned to fire?As chaff on tempests blown, I trow,Such bonds before desire!Let whosoever come between,To part my dear and me,I'd beat down all to reach my queen,And make our loving free!"
His voice rang out with a strain of passion as he sang these last words. His eyes shone, and he bent forward toward Erna as if he would constrain her to understand the message of his song. And when Erna, rising hastily, dropped her embroidery and hastened out of the hall, there came into his face a look of triumph which it was ill to see. He bent over the hound at his feet to conceal it from Lady Adelaide, who looked after her niece with astonishment.
"Body of Saint Fridolin," quoth the old dame for the hundredth time that morning, "but she is becoming flighty instead of settling down, now that she is married."
Meantime Albrecht sat in the chamber of the priest, learning the wonders of that soul which had been so lately bestowed upon him by Heaven.
It was on a glorious autumn afternoon, when all the air was fragrant with the odor of pine trees steeping in the warm sunlight, and dim with the hazes which were smoke-like without being smoke, that the folk of Castle Rittenberg set forth to hunt the stag.
While the hounds were baying in the courtyard eager to be off, and the sound of trampling horse's hoof and jingling bridle-rein, with cry of groom and laugh of page, came through the open window, Erna and Count Stephen stood in the hall waiting for Albrecht. At a little distance stood Fastrade and Elsa, both of whom were to ride with Erna to follow the hunt; and Elsa said to her companion, pointing to the boar-spear which still stuck in the head of the deer that hung above the chimney-place:
"If the baron can but make such another shot as that he made when he thrust that spear into the bone from the other end of the hall, may I be there to see!"
The eyes of both Erna and of Count Stephen turned to the spear, as the damsel spoke; and most vividly before the mind of the countess came up the picture of Albrecht as he had flung it on his wedding eve, full of buoyant life and of joyful love.
"I have noticed that spear before," Count Stephen said, turning toward his cousin. "How came it there? Did the baron in sooth throw it across the hall?"
"Yea," she answered; and then she was silent because there came over her a feeling that she had been untrue to her husband by the leaning toward her companion of which she had been half conscious in her secret heart.
"It was indeed a shrewd shot," observed Count Stephen, looking upward to the spear, which was high above their heads.
Erna did not reply. Suddenly there came into her mind, with the picture of that evening when the spear was thrown, the remembrance of the ring which had been given her by Herr von Zimmern and taken from her by Albrecht. She tried to recall exactly what had been said, but she had forgotten her husband's words, only half heard when they were spoken. She wondered why the ring had never been restored to her, and dimly she recalled to mind the fact that it had been engraved with symbols which had looked to her in the brief moment she had seen the jewel, strange and mysterious.
"Albrecht," she said to him when they had mounted and were riding out of the courtyard into the way which led down the hill, "dost thou not remember the ring that Herr von Zimmern would have given me on the eve of our wedding day?"
A faint shadow crossed his face. He did not look toward her, but pretended to busy himself with the bridle of his horse.
"Yes," he said, "I remember it. It was overbold of him."
"I see not that; but that is no matter now. What I was wondering was that thou didst never give me the jewel."
"Hast thou not rings enough?" he asked lightly, although Erna could see that her words troubled him. "I will give thee more jewels if so be that there were not enough in the caskets."
"But why not that ring?" Erna persisted, urged on by a secret conviction that here was some mystery. "I seem to remember that Herr von Zimmern said something about wonderful powers in that ring which other jewels have not. I would have the chance to test the matter for myself."
"The ring," Albrecht answered with a seriousness which impressed her, and which yet rendered her only the more anxious to possess the jewel, "had indeed strange powers, but they were unhallowed ones. It were not fitting that a Christian avail himself of the spells which have been wrought by sinful sorceresses."
"Thou art truly become virtuous," Erna retorted with a tone in which she had never before spoken to her husband. "Good sooth, when thou camest to Rittenberg I heard nothing of scruples so nice!"
Albrecht turned and regarded her with a glance so reproachful and so full of pain that she could not bear it. She struck her palfrey sharply with her whip, and dashed recklessly down the hill, crying out to Count Stephen, who had been in advance a little until she thus ran by him, to race with her. Tears of vexation were in her eyes as she dashed down the woodland path, and the sting of her own words wounded her to the quick. She became recklessly gay, and all through the afternoon when she was not separated from her cousin by the chances of the chase she jested and laughed with demonstrative merriment.
Through the thickets where the leaves had begun to fall, under pine boughs which had strewn the ground thick with brown spicy needles year after year until the horses' feet bounded upon an elastic cushion, past rocks violet in the sun and rose-hued in the half shadows, over meadows set with jewel-tinted autumn flowers, sped the hunt, the mellow baying of the deep-mouthed hounds ringing out upon the air, and the horn from time to time waking all the echoes into inspiring music. Erna kept well to the front. She had never ridden so recklessly, and never before had the passion of the sport so fired her blood. She was, moreover, trying to escape from the smart of the taunt which she had flung at her husband, and her palfrey flew so fast that sometimes she even led the way for the huntsmen to follow.
Count Stephen was never far away from her. Close behind or beside her as the ways through which they sped allowed him, he pressed forward with the countess; and Erna was well aware that he had set himself to keep with her, and that his quest that day was not simply the stag which was fleeing before the deep-baying hounds, but rather the love of the woman with whom he went crashing through the thickets where the leaves came down in showers about the horses and the wood-scents rose balsamic or musky under the beat of the swift hoofs of their steeds. She was so conscious of his presence that she could not look at him, but kept her face turned away, urging her palfrey forward rather as if she were fleeing than as if she were of the band of pursuers.
And now and then, too, she had a strange sense that she was not alone with her companion, but as if some unseen creature were following and were watching her. She tried to shake off the notion; but when the thickets rustled after they had both drawn rein to listen for the hounds and to recover again the trail which they had for a moment lost, she had started and shivered, remembering the sprites of the wood that have the power of walking invisible. Then she would glance at the count and backward to where Fastrade strove to urge her palfrey forward lest she lose track of her mistress altogether, and with a new smile upon her lips would once more rush madly forward.
The hunt was not long. It was swift and dashing, the stag seeming to exhaust himself in one grand burst at the outset; and before the light of the autumn afternoon had waned the yelping of the hounds and the baying of the beagles told that they were almost upon their prey. Erna and Count Stephen were riding desperately, following the trail; but now the countess, who knew the country better than her companion, suddenly struck off along the side of a hill which the hunt had crossed.
"Come this way," she called back over her shoulder to her cousin. "We shall intercept them thus at the end of the valley. The stag has doubled."
He followed without hesitation, and in brief space they burst through a thicket to find themselves at the head of a little valley carpeted with turf still green and untouched by the frost, and set around with beech trees whose leaves were shining with the slanting beams of the sun, which shot through a break in the hills at their left hand. The whole vale was illumined with the red light, and into it, just as they came out of the wood, dashed a superb stag of ten, the dogs already at his throat; and close upon his track, almost within arm's length, madly rode Albrecht.
"I thought the baron had been behind," Count Stephen exclaimed in astonishment.
"His woodcraft is too good," Erna returned. "It is idle to match with him; he has outridden us. He must have cut across our track at the last turning. Mother of God!"
Her cry was one of mingled astonishment and of dread. Her husband had taken advantage of a stumble which the unhappy stag made, the good dog Gelert being already at the beast's throat, to drive his horse abreast of the deer, to leap from his saddle, and to seize the fleeing animal by its mighty horns. The pair on the hillside opposite drew rein involuntarily, and Erna tried to call out to Albrecht, in the vain hope that he might free himself from a position of so much danger. Before she could speak, however, he had thrown all his force into one powerful effort, and before their eyes had twisted the head of the stag half-way around. The creature dropped with its neck broken, falling among the yelping hounds and at the feet of Rupert, the master of the pack, as suddenly as if an arrow had reached his heart.
"By the wounds of God!" cried Count von Rittenberg, pricking his horse forward down the hillside; "what a giant is this!"
Erna hastened after, her heart beating, and all her body burning with the sudden rush of blood that for one breathless instant had seemed to gather itself into her heart, leaving her cold and lifeless. She had never seen her husband as in this act he had revealed himself to her, and she was divided between wonder and a fearful admiration. He had seemed a creature more than human as he bent the mighty neck of the great stag, and there was in her proud sense of his prowess not a little feeling of dread and too of strangeness, as if this hunter were not only the husband she knew, but some strange being whose true nature she had never before suspected. As her palfrey carried her across the narrow valley, she remembered the taunt she had flung at him as they left the castle, and it flashed through her mind that anger at herself might have mingled with the excitement of the chase to move him.
The hunt was all about the dead stag by the time Erna reached the spot. Albrecht came forward to help her dismount. His eyes were shining, his cheek was flushed, and under the open collar of his hunting-jacket, pushed back from his throat, his chest rose and fell. He had never looked handsomer, and as he swung his wife down from her palfrey, she brushed his hand with a quick kiss. The restless fancies which had been weaving themselves about her and drawing her nearer as in a net toward Count Stephen seemed to be snapped and swept aside in an instant, and her heart was as truly her husband's as on the day when she had wed.
For a night and for a day Erna's love of her husband burned again with its most ardent flame; but Albrecht, so far from rejoicing as she did in the mighty feat he had done at the stag-hunt, seemed to be repentant that his old-time mood should have got the better of him, and when Erna told the tale of his prowess to her great-aunt the baron hastened to change the conversation, and that with the air of regretting and being ashamed of having given way to the impulse of the moment.
So strangely changed was Erna from the maiden who had welcomed Albrecht to Rittenberg that she could not even understand a feeling so nice, but only felt with a secret irritation that contempt which any mortal feels for a prejudice which he has outgrown; and nothing appears more foolish and contemptible than a scruple that has been outlived. Albrecht and Erna had changed each other, but the impetus in each case had been so strong that both were carried beyond the point where their tastes and desires came together. It was as if two stars had attracted each other, and then shot past the place where they met, parting again from the stress of the very force which had drawn them toward one another. Every day they seemed to have less in common. The glories of the spiritual drew Albrecht as strongly and as irresistibly as the delights of the senses attracted Erna, to whom all this was a new world. They had passed each other, and now they were parting more and yet more widely.
However little he understood the cause of this, Count Stephen was keenly aware of the fact that Albrecht and Erna were not fully in harmony, and he neglected no effort which might increase the breach between husband and wife. He had set himself to win the love of his cousin, and it was an important part of his game to nourish the growing lack of sympathy between Von Waldstein and the countess. Nor was the count without a deal of cleverness in the way he set to work to accomplish his purpose. He said nothing directly; he made no move openly; but with a thousand insidious words which in themselves meant little but which together were a mighty power for evil, he nourished the sparks of discontent in Erna's mind, and continually kept her attention fixed upon the fact that her husband was more engrossed in his studies with the priest than with her wishes and her beauty. He surrounded her with a dangerous and seductive atmosphere of devotion and of passionate admiration, furnishing her conscience with a ready excuse, should it take alarm, by claiming the right to admire her in virtue of his cousinship.
How much of this Albrecht saw or knew, Von Rittenberg could not divine. Sometimes he had an uncomfortable feeling that the baron was better aware than appeared of what was going on, but as Albrecht gave no sign he consoled himself with the belief that his host was too deeply absorbed in his pious studies to heed whether one made love to Erna or not.
It was not many days after the stag-hunt that Herr von Zimmern suddenly appeared at the castle. Whence he came no one knew, but as they sat at breakfast in the hall he entered, and with no more greeting than if he had parted from them all on the evening before, he took his place at the board and ate with the rest.
Count Stephen regarded him closely. There was something in the manner of this man which attracted his attention, and it had seemed to him that a shadow crossed the brow of the master of the castle when the new-comer appeared. Von Rittenberg instinctively felt that here might be an ally. He understood that Von Zimmern had been a retainer of the baron, and it seemed to him natural enough to suppose that the man might be in possession of secrets concerning the former life of Albrecht which, discreetly poured into the ear of Erna, would aid him in his dishonorable wooing.
He greeted Von Zimmern with warmth, recalling their meeting at Mayence, and expressing pleasure at seeing him again. The cunning eyes of Herr Frederich twinkled upon him as he spoke, and Stephen felt that here was a man to understand him, and more than before was he sure that in Albrecht's former tutor he should find one to assist him in his schemes. He watched for what speech should be between the baron and the other, and as they left the hall, he saw the master of the castle lay his hand upon the man's shoulder. Hastily the count approached them, and while he seemed intent upon searching in his pouch for something which he wanted, he contrived to overhear what was said between them.
"Herr Frederich," Albrecht said, his voice so even that the listener could not determine whether he spoke in approval or in disapprobation, "we had not thought to see thee again at Rittenberg. When I set thee at liberty, it was to rejoin thy family."
"My family, gracious Sir," the other replied in a voice as passionless as Albrecht's own, "my family I found not. Only their graves were left to tell that they had ever been."
The hand of the baron dropped from the shoulder of the cripple, and an expression of pain contracted his features. He stood an instant in silence, and then with an evident struggle he held out his hand.
"Regret cannot change the past," he said; "but for the future—"
He seemed suddenly to become conscious that the count was so near him, and broke off in his speech, going hastily out of the hall. Nor did it escape the notice of Count Stephen that Von Zimmern looked after him with an expression of hatred so intense that his whole face was transformed by it into the likeness of a demon.
The coming of Herr Frederich to Rittenberg seemed to increase the gayety that already reigned there. He devoted himself to devising fresh amusements; and although Count Stephen suspected that his jollity was but feigning, he was the merriest of them all, and provoked them constantly to laughter and to jesting.
"Body of Saint Fridolin!" cried Lady Adelaide, when one night he had made them all shout with laughter over the merry tales which he told as they sat around the fire in the hall, "thou art a mad wag. One can see that no care or sorrow ever trouble thine heart."
And Count Stephen saw how Albrecht regarded the story-teller from where he sat somewhat in the shadow, sighing as if he were aware that under this gayety there were both pain and bitterness.
From day to day as the time went on, Count Stephen discovered that without his having asked aid from Herr von Zimmern, the latter was working for him. There was nothing open, and nothing which by itself might not have been the result of accident. It was only that Herr Frederich would engage Albrecht in conversation or lead him away that Count Stephen might be left alone with Erna; or again he would remark casually that he had seen the countess sitting by herself, and that her husband was with Father Christopher; hints which enabled Von Rittenberg to be with his cousin almost constantly, and much of the time without witnesses.
As warmly as he dared, the count pressed his suit. He was too determined to win to risk a rash declaration in words of the passion which really consumed him. He was a man so accustomed to succeed in such a quest as this that the difficulty of the present endeavor increased his ardor an hundred-fold. The looks, half of reproof and half of invitation, which Erna gave him, the beauty in which she glowed yet more richly every day, incited him to a madness which was fast reaching a point beyond his control. He trembled as he approached his cousin, and he felt that she was aware of his passion; and yet, though he saw her cast down her eyes when he came and follow him with longing looks when he went, he dared not speak. He was too well aware that when he spoke he put all to the test, and that he must lose or gain upon a single cast. He knew his cousin well enough, and the Von Rittenberg blood, to feel sure that if she did not listen with yielding favor to his suit, she would no longer tolerate his presence at the castle; and he feared to put into word that which he yet told her by look and mien a hundred times each day.
He was not without some fear, too, of Albrecht. Count Stephen was a brave man, but the baron was one of whom the bravest could not think lightly, and when it came to a question of wronging him through his wife, the count was well persuaded that if this thing were ever discovered, it would be no easy matter to hold against the wronged husband. Just now Albrecht was greatly engaged in looking after the state of his thralls and churls, and seeing that they were properly housed for the coming winter; a business in which he had been encouraged by Father Christopher, but which the guest declared should be the affair of the steward and not of the lord of the castle. Also Albrecht set himself to bringing peace among the dependants of Rittenberg, and so far as might be justice between man and man, and friendliness. He was evidently none the less attached to his wife, but every day was Count Stephen more confident that Erna found herself less in sympathy with her husband and more nearly drawn to him.
One morning Erna found her cousin sitting alone by the great window of the hall, and came toward him with a smiling and mischievous face.
"Now," she said, "thou shalt see something wicked. I have only half looked at it myself, and I doubt it would be wise that I look further; but thou art not one, I trow, who will wince lightly."
"The wickedness which thou shalt tempt me into," he answered, "I will gladly bear the penalty of, at least, fair Cousin. What wickedness can be hidden in that roll of satin?"
"Thou shalt see," she answered, unrolling the embroidered cover, and bringing to light a parchment scroll. "It has been put away this many a day, and I only now bethought me of it."
"If it is written wickedness," the count observed, languidly regarding it, "it is likely to do me small harm. I have never bothered my head to learn their clerkly nonsense."
"This is in signs that one may understand if he cannot read," Erna replied, putting into his hand the parchment.
It was the scroll of Ovid which for years she had kept hidden away because of the worldliness of its pictures. The count regarded the images wherewith some gross clerk had decorated the works of the heathen poet, and the smile upon his broad lips deepened into a laugh. He was surprised that Erna should have shown him a parchment so marked, and he looked up from one of the pictures to see if she were really aware what she had given him. She intercepted his glance, and smiling bent forward to see what the picture might be at which he looked. As her eyes fell upon it a crimson flush covered her face, and she caught the parchment from his hands.
"Let me have it," she exclaimed. "I did not know it was like that. I should have examined it before I showed it to thee. I only thought it might amuse thee."
As she spoke she turned quickly, hearing footsteps behind her. Albrecht and Herr von Zimmern had come together into the hall, and were witness of her confusion.
"Herr Frederich has a plan for repairing the southern tower which he wishes to tell to thee," Albrecht said to his wife, apparently without noting her excitement.
He stood there so calm, so noble in his bearing and his appearance, that even Count Stephen, for the moment deeply concerned lest the scroll of Ovid should fall into the husband's hands, could not but admire him. He did not look at the guest, and in his manner toward his wife there was nothing to denote that he suspected that aught was wrong.
"But perhaps," the voice of Herr von Zimmern suggested, "this is not the time to talk of such matters. Perhaps we interrupt something. That scroll may be of importance."
He spoke with a careful appearance of humility; yet the count, watching him with attention which was quickened by irritation, detected a gleam of malice in his eye, and from that moment suspected the friendship of the cripple.
"The scroll is naught of importance," Erna replied haughtily; and for that time no more was said of the scroll of Ovid.
Not entirely had Albrecht and Erna lost the old fashion of reading and of talking together, although after the coming of Count Stephen and yet more after Herr von Zimmern had returned to the castle, so greatly was the time taken up with the chase and with jocund sports and with feasting, that there was little space in which to carry on the former studies. One morning when the rain was beating against the castle casements and the spirits of the storm were shrieking over the forest, they sat together in a chamber, and talked of the things which now were of chief interest to the husband.
"I cannot tell how it hath chanced," Albrecht said, "that we read so little together now."
"In the long winter there will be time enough for that," Erna answered. "Thou wouldst not have me like a clerk that cannot get his nose clear of a book. In sooth, I might as well be a nun at once and done with it."
Her husband looked at her in troubled silence a moment.
"Meseemeth, sweetheart," he said wistfully, "that I have made thee like to that which I was myself when first I came to thee out of the wood."
"And meseemeth, certes," she answered, with a faint touch of scorn in her tone, "that I have made thee like to that which I was when thou camest. I was but a dull brooder over pious scrolls, and not in the least did I know what life meant."
"And what does life mean to thee now?" he asked.
"That thou needest not to ask, for of a surety thou knewest when thou didst come to Rittenberg."
"But tell me, sweetheart."
"Life means delight; it is to be glad and jocund. To be sad and moping is to be dead," Erna cried impulsively. "Life is the chase and the dance and the feast; it is joy. Life is to-day, and not to-morrow; life is to do, not to wait; it is to rejoice, not to mourn. Callest thou that life which mews itself up in a cell like the dungeon of a felon, and flickers out like a candle in the dark? I trow that that is not life; it is only the poor, pale shadow of it."
"That is life as thou sayest," Albrecht returned, "that rejoices, and that takes delight in the chase and the feast and the dance; but even the beasts of the forest and the nixies and the kobolds can share all of these things. Surely thou dost not count this the whole of life?"
"Not the whole; no. Yet it is all that one can be sure of finding pleasure in; all that—"
"Nay," Albrecht interrupted softly; "since thou thyself hast taught me that man has other within him than the sense of the beasts and the wood-folk in the forest yonder, thou shalt not now belie thyself by putting thy kind on a level with the brutes. It is to foster the spirit which he alone of all living beings hath, that man should make his cumber, rather than to feed upon the delights of the body."
"Beshrew me," cried Erna, "but thou talkest as if I had indeed taken thee in hand to instruct thee as a master teacheth a pupil."
"It can scarce be," he responded, "that two live together, the more if they love each the other, without that they do teach and mould each the other. Thou hast in sooth instructed me in much more than thou knowest, sweetheart; and I would that I had as well influenced thee as thou hast me. Of a truth our lives now are that which we have made each other; and it behooveth us to look to it well that it be the life of the soul rather than of the body, which engageth us."
"In good sooth," Erna laughed back mockingly, "now thou talkest like a priest. Father Christopher shall give thee his gown, and thou shalt be sent to preach to the Huns and the Saxons in the north."
Albrecht cast down his eyes and sighed so heavily that Erna put her hand upon his arm and added coaxingly:
"Nay, dear heart, thou shalt not be vexed with me. I did but jest. I feel all that thou sayest, but the joy of life overcomes me. I cannot see why I should let to-day slip when to-morrow may be I know not what; when old age will come so soon, and I shall have strength for naught but to sit in the chimney-corner and think of what I would have done or of what others may still do."
"Thou art right, sweetheart," Albrecht said, "in that thou wouldst live to-day; but thou art wrong in that thou thinkest the best joys are in the sports of mirth and wantonness. Surely thou hast tasted the pleasures of the spirit within thee, and thou knowest that these are no less but rather more than those of the body. And for old age and its coming, since thou canst not tell of to-morrow, thinkest thou that it were a better preparation for a joyful morrow to live in jollity and in earthly wise, or to cherish the soul that is within thee to the end that in after time it shall be a companion to thee?"
Erna tossed up her hands with a wilful gesture of mockery and determination. Then she sprang to her feet and threw her arms about her husband's neck and kissed him.
"Come," she cried, "thou wert not wont to be so dull and so clerkly. Leave these things for Father Christopher. Is not my kiss better than aught thou canst find in the scroll of Saint Cuthbert? When we are old we will sit in the ingle together and learn all manner of pious lore for the good of our souls; but now we are young, and it is wisdom to seize upon youth while it is ours."
"Truly," he answered; "and yet it were well, too, to consider that the youth of the spirit should not be disregarded more than the youth of the body. Of a truth," he went on, his voice dropping, and a new light coming into his eyes, "what am I, sweetheart, to tell thee what the spirit is, when thou hast changed me from a wood thing that knew not of the spirit of man, into that I am; and yet so vast and so holy do these things of the spirit appear to me that I tremble, and all my heart is stirred. It is as if one approached the place of a god, is it not, Erna, only to think upon the possibilities of what is within us. How can I be content to become once more that which I have been, a creature as insensible to all this as the wolf that howls in the forest down there, and only cares for what he shall eat to-day? I am overwhelmed only to see how great and how noble are the things to which the soul of man may reach out."
Erna was silent a moment, impressed by his earnestness; then she shook herself and laughed.
"Hast thou then been a beast in the forest, or one of the wood-creatures?" she demanded mockingly. "Of what good is all this talk? Let us go down to the hall and hear Count Stephen sing the ballads he hath learned at court."
"And it seemeth to me," Albrecht said, detaining her yet a moment longer, "that thou goest to the forest too much. The creatures of the wood are on the side of body; and not that only, but they make for evil, and thou canst not tell how they may lure thee on to do that which is forbidden."
"Am I not, then, of strength great enough to guard myself from the ill counsels of the wood-folk?" she asked, smiling upon him. "Methinks that they can do small harm to Christian folk."
"They can do no harm to him that is in himself armed against them," Albrecht answered gravely; "but they are ever in wait for those whose mind may turn toward them and toward forbidden pleasures."
Erna flushed faintly, and her lips parted as if she would speak in impatience or anger; then she controlled herself, and replied with a show of gayety:
"Then it were wise not to forbid me aught, since then there will be no chance for me to follow after forbidden things."
And so she departed out of the chamber, and sought out Count Stephen with the petition that he sing to her; a request which he was not slow to grant.
The wood was filled with whispers in the autumn afternoon, as if the trees were telling one another things which were to come to them soon, gossip leaning toward gossip with confidential mien. The sense of unseen creatures, presences quick with the keen life of their kind yet not sharing in human being, was diffused through the air like the scent of the fallen leaves. The Countess Erna, who rode here to-day, felt a vague dread, even in the sunlight and with her troop to come to her aid in case harm threatened her. She had a feeling as if she were watched and followed by the wood-folk, and had it not been that she was much engrossed with the consciousness of Count Stephen's presence she might have turned homeward.
As it was she struck her palfrey sharply with her whip, and went galloping through the wood, with her cousin close after. On her wrist was her favorite falcon, his bell tinkling as she rode. The west wind fanned her cheeks, hot with the flush which had sprung in them at the soft words Von Rittenberg had been whispering into her ears as they came through the pine wood below the castle steep. She heard the hoof-beats of his horse behind her like an echo, which repeated the things he had been saying, and although she knew beyond peradventure that she should lose in his esteem by not showing him that she was angry, yet withal so little had she been in sooth displeased, that she could but illy feign displeasure.
As they rode, the mind of the countess was busy with an endeavor to understand her own feelings, as a fly which hath been ensnared by the spider struggles to regain the freedom of his wings. She was herself entangled in a web of circumstance and of passion, and she glowed with a warmth which was at once shame and desire. She was not without some proper indignation against Count Stephen, and yet she desired with a curiosity which was not all unwilling, to learn what more he would dare to whisper in her ear before they came again to the castle from this hunt upon which she had ridden against the wish of her husband. Her blood seemed on fire. She repeated to herself the words in which she had for the first time set at naught the wishes of Albrecht, and with strange inconsistency she was angry that he had not forced her to remain at the castle. She said to herself that when she had declared her defiance of his will that she go not with the count to fly the falcon, her husband should have constrained her to obedience. She could not divine why it was that Albrecht seemed to look upon her as a being higher than himself, and to yield to her will as if it were that of one who had the right to command. He seemed less strong and noble than she had believed him when he failed to bend her pride to his wish.
Erna was a woman, and she did not ask herself what would have been her feelings had she at this moment been a prisoner at home, instead of careering thus across the forest with the soft west wind blowing in her face and a tingling sense of the hoof-beats of Count Stephen's steed just behind her. Though it be not when they are most kindly entreated that women be most just, yet are they not to be constrained into doing justice to those who love them.
Very lovely was the countess to-day, as she rode through the greenwood. She was clad in a robe of green cloth, the color of the new tips of the pine branches in the springtime. Her cap was embroidered with gold, and its tuft of heron's plume was held in its place by a clasp of jewels. Her hawk was a jerfalcon as white as the snow new-fallen, upon which the sun shines ere yet it hath been smirched or sullied; and his hood and jesses were of crimson, of the same hue as her gloves, which were richly enwrought with golden thread in quaint devices. The spotless plumage of the bird against the red of the glove was wondrously fair to see, and wondrously fair was the lady as she carried the falcon against her breast.
Little did it please the temper of Erna that Herr von Zimmern should have taken it upon himself to suppose that she rode to-day because he had been to the trouble of riding in the early morning to the meadow by the lake and bringing word again that the ducks, now on their way southward, were there. She was well assured in her own mind that she had been minded to please no one but herself when she had insisted in setting out despite the wish of Albrecht that she go not. Certainly she had no longing to show friendliness to Herr von Zimmern for his service, since to say sooth the prejudice which she had from his first coming held against the cripple had in no wise softened with time, albeit he had seemed to be devoted to Albrecht and to her; neither had it been her wish, she assured herself, to pleasure Count Stephen, however his earnestness in the matter might seem to give color to such a supposition. She was only of the mind to come, and to show her husband, who each day became more and more wearisomely given to devout matters, that she was not to be ruled by his unreasonable whims and to shut herself up as if she were a nun in a cloister instead of being lady of Rittenberg, the fairest holding in all the country round.
She was not without a secret anger that Albrecht gave no sign of seeing how his guest was striving to steal away the heart of his wife. She set her teeth with vexation that no token indicated that the baron was even aware of the peril in which his happiness stood. She said to herself that there could be little love where one saw only such indifference. Her clear cheek flushed hotly as the thought came that it might after all be indifference rather than blindness which made her husband so calm. She recalled that while he wooed her he had found the kisses of Elsa to his liking, and the doubt whether he were not one of the men whose affection goes as lightly as it comes, pierced her heart. The very suspicion made her hot with rage.
Yet surely Albrecht had declared that the caress of no other woman could evermore be sweet to him; it was only that he was sunk into this mire of religious musing in which Father Christopher encouraged him. She half hated the old priest at the thought. She wondered how far it would be possible for Count Stephen to carry his wooing before the wrath of Albrecht would break out. The question affected her almost as if she already felt the caress of the lover. She became suddenly so keenly conscious of the presence of the count behind her that she glanced back as if in fear. Then she reined in her palfrey so that her damsel Fastrade, who rode discreetly in the rear, might overtake her.
For a time she paced forward demurely, feeling the sidelong glances of the count upon her like a hand, and with difficulty restraining the impulse to look up and meet his burning eyes. She knew well that he watched her as a fowler might watch a bird that is fluttering ever nearer the snare; and every moment it became harder for her to maintain her calm. Suddenly the impulse seized her to dash wildly forward along the woodland way.
"Come, Fastrade!" she called imperatively.
She struck her palfrey sharply, and onward she flew, her damsel following as well as she might. She felt as if she were escaping from danger; the wood seemed full of beings in league with Count Stephen; she even seemed to hear wicked whispers in her ears, so clear that she could have sworn that they were pronounced by unseen lips; some presence tried to hold her back, and only the need of escape made her forget for the moment to be afraid; for a brief time a wild exhilaration thrilled her blood, as if in leaving Count Stephen behind in the beech wood she were overcoming the unseen powers of evil and freeing herself from temptation.
"Ride, Fastrade!" she called backward over her shoulder, conscious in the brief glance behind that the plume of the count was still to be seen as he galloped easily after them. "Ride! faster, faster!"
The falcon fluttered against her breast, almost thrown from her wrist by the swiftness of her pace; her heart fluttered beneath, half in fear and half in a dangerously delicious confusion. The very air, soft and perfumed, languorous and enervating, seemed to melt her resolution and to help to overcome her. She held up her arm, and shook her falcon until he reeled again, tossing his hooded head so that his bell rang right merrily. She broke into wild laughter, and along the green arches of the wood she heard the soft voices of the unseen ones laugh with her; but she no longer felt as if she were combating the powers about her; she did but jest with them and they with her. She trembled without fearing and yet without knowing why.
"On, Fastrade!" she cried still. "Faster, faster!"
Suddenly, as she looked through the beech-tree boles, which here began to grow more sparsely, as the riders approached the meadow where they were to throw off the falcons, Erna saw two figures. Her first thought was that they were creatures of the wood, but in a moment more she saw that it was her husband riding with Herr von Zimmern. The sight sobered her instantly. She reined in her palfrey so abruptly that Fastrade, who had much ado to keep up with her mistress, hardly now escaped dashing against her. Erna could not divine why Albrecht should be here when she supposed him to be at home. Her first fearful thought, which the guiltiness of her mind conjured up, was that he had come to play the spy upon her and the count; but the openness with which he allowed himself to be seen, and the grave courtesy with which he saluted her as she rode by, showed her that this was not the object of his ride. Albrecht did not attempt to join her, but rode into the wood so quickly that neither of Erna's companions saw him, albeit had Fastrade been less occupied with her palfrey, thrown into confusion by the suddenness with which he had been checked, she might have perceived the baron.
Although Erna could not in the least determine why Albrecht was there, the sight of him had instantly subdued her wild mood. She became quiet and thoughtful, and for all the afternoon while they flew their hawks, she watched almost in silence; so that the count jested upon her soberness.
"Didst thou, then, see a ghost in the wood?" he demanded; "or was it that thou hast ridden across the track of the Wild Huntsman? Certain it is that something has come to thee since thou fleddest from me to ride on with thy damsel. Thou art too beautiful to be trusted in the forest without a knight beside thee; sooner or later is a kobold sure to capture thee if thou ridest thus recklessly."
Something in his tone angered the Lady of Rittenberg. Since the hour when she had thoughtlessly put into his hand the scroll of Ovid with its pictures of such wickedness that a modest dame might by no means give them unto the gaze of another, and which she blushed to see when she examined the parchment more closely afterward, it had seemed to Erna that Count Stephen accosted her with a freedom which he had not carried of old. She turned from him now, and bent her regard upon the jess of her falcon, as if she were making sure that it were secure, as the bird rested upon her wrist after having struck down a brace of ducks.
"Nay," the count continued, laughing and speaking in a tone which was of itself like a caress, "and thou takest to being angry with me, Mistress Cousin, I am indeed undone. It is but that the light of thy beauty hath so dazzled thy slave that I know not what I say, and so in sooth may unwitting offend thee."
"Now thou art minded to jest and to mock me," Erna returned, instantly relenting. "I am not angry. Why should I be? Only that it is perhaps not customary for the guest to praise the beauty of his hostess as thou hast of late fallen into the fashion of doing."
"No," the count answered gravely, and with a look into her eyes that she could not meet unabashed; "but then it is not often that the guest so truly and so heartily loveth his hostess."
"It hath a savor as if thou wouldst flout at my poor face," she continued, making her countenance as if she heard not his bold words; "and surely it is not seemly that one should mock his hostess."
"Of a truth, fair cousin," Count Stephen began eagerly, "I—
"Hush!" she cried softly, her manner changing. Then aloud she said, moving nearer to the spot where stood Fastrade: "Have we not a brave quarry to-day? I have never seen the hawks do better."
The day was well worn when the train started to return to the castle, and in the beech wood the shadows were gathering so that one could see but dimly there; and it might be that when Erna turned her head as she rode through a leafy covert and spoke as if to Fastrade, she in truth believed her damsel to be behind her, albeit the ambling of the maiden's palfrey was little enough like to the trampling of the stallion upon which Count Stephen rode, so near that the nose of his steed was all but touching the haunches of Erna's. And yet before she turned the countess hesitated and flushed there in the shadow, and her voice as she spoke the name of her damsel had in it a tremor which could hardly have been there had she in all verity spoken for the ears of Fastrade.
Count Stephen pressed his horse forward so that their steeds were abreast in the narrow way.
"Nay, it is I," he said, so close that as he leaned toward her in the dusk she felt his breath hot upon her cheek.
She reined her palfrey away from him, but it seemed to her as if something unseen thrust itself in her way so that she could not escape. It came upon her that the wood-folk were in league with her cousin, and her terror made her turn again toward Count Stephen, although she shook the reins of her palfrey to urge him forward. But the path was too narrow for two horses to run together in it, and Count Stephen kept his steed close beside her own. Her falcon she had given to Rupert, who rode far behind, and it occurred to her now that had she but kept it with her she might have let it escape and so produced an excitement by means of which to be freed from her entanglement.
"Dearest!" breathed the count at her ear; and the passion of his voice stirred her pulses with fiery dread.
She felt as if she were suffocating; she longed to flee, and yet she longed also to stay. Some resistless fascination seemed to overpower her, and without speaking she rode by her lover's side for the space of a falcon's plunge at his quarry. Then Count Stephen half threw himself from his horse to hers, cast his strong arm about her, and kissed her.
The touch of his lips broke the spell which passion and opportunity had been weaving about her. She tore herself out of his embrace with a vehemence which nearly threw him from his saddle, and struck her palfrey with all her force. Before he recovered his seat she was fleeing down the forest path with all her speed, panting and weeping, and urging her palfrey with voice and with whip toward the castle.
Hardly had the hawking-party set out that day, when Herr von Zimmern, with a smile of cruel craft upon his face, went limping in search of Baron Albrecht. He found him with Father Christopher, and between the two lay upon the oaken table a scroll of parchment in which they had been reading.
"Pardon me that I disturb your studies," Herr Frederich said, with the air of one who strives to seem humble in his demeanor; "but I would that the Lord Baron come forth and ride with me. I have that to show which it were well for him to see."
"What is it, and whither should we ride?" the knight asked, looking up calmly; while Von Zimmern noted with amusement and mingled anger that into the face of Father Christopher there stole an expression of dismay.
"You are more cautious than of old, when it booted not whither we rode so be it that our steeds were good and the quarry fair," the cripple responded with a discordant laugh. "For to-day trust me in the old fashion, and come without question."
"The old fashion is no more possible," Albrecht answered; "but nevertheless I will go with thee, if it be only that the occasion may serve for the saying of certain words that must sooner or later be spoken between us."
Von Zimmern looked at the baron in some surprise, but returned no other answer than a profound bow which seemed mocking in its excessive deference. He waited a moment while the other laid aside the parchment and prepared to accompany him, the priest all the while looking as if he had it in his desire to prevent this sally from the castle did he but know how to accomplish his wish. Herr von Zimmern found it not easy to accustom himself to this new Albrecht who had been developed out of the kobold lad whom he had trained and shaped at his will, and of whose simple wits it had been so easy to get the better by a little human guile. He had for long years foreseen the time when Albrecht should gain a human soul, and for this he had schemed; but now that the thing was accomplished he was confused by the result. Albrecht with a soul was not the being that Herr Frederich had expected him to be, and the fact continually filled the cripple with a baffled sense of confusion.
Together Albrecht and his companion got to horse, and without further speech they rode down the hill and into the shadow of the forest. The instant the shadow of the pines fell upon him Albrecht knew that there were evil influences abroad that day. He caught a glimpse among the tree boles of the shadowy form of a kobold, and he heard in the air the whispers of beings to which his sight was growing dim as he became more human. He looked at his companion questioningly, as if he suspected the truth; but Herr Frederich held his face under control, and did not betray the feverish glee which burned within him. Herr Frederich was secretly full of malicious triumph. He had gathered from the burning looks of Count Stephen when that morning the cripple had brought tidings of the quarry to be had in the meadow and from the ambiguous speech of the lord of Schaffhausen, that to-day was the lover determined to bring his wooing to a climax; and he had promise that opportunity should not be lacking, since the kobolds of the forest, urged on by Von Zimmern and angry at the desertion of their brotherhood by Albrecht, had given pledge to bring Erna and her lover together alone in the wood.
Herr Frederich had brought Albrecht forth from the castle to follow on the track of the hunters, feeling sure that the wood-folk would contrive opportunity, and that Count Stephen would not be loath or slow to avail himself of it to press his passion; and it was with the surety of being able to show to Albrecht his wife listening to the vows of another, perhaps even clasped in her lover's arms, that the malicious cripple led the way through the forest.
So still in silence they rode, until they did in truth come upon the hawking-party, as hath been told. When Herr Frederich beheld how the damsel Fastrade rode in advance with her mistress while the Count followed, as it at that moment happened, he muttered under his breath a curse bitter and deep.
"Now they have beheld us!" he exclaimed in vexation; and involuntarily he turned his horse toward the deeper shades behind the spot where they rode.
Albrecht followed the other as he wheeled, and rode after until they were out of sight of the hawking-party. Then he drew rein.
"Hold thee still there!" he commanded.
Herr Frederich, with a sudden thrill of rage and no less of terror, checked his horse, feeling that his quarry had escaped him. He sat glaring at the baron with eyes from which blazed the hate he would no longer take the trouble to conceal.
"Thinkest thou," Albrecht said in a voice so perfectly calm and self-controlled that it stung his hearer like the lash of a whip, "that I am so dull as not to understand that thou hast brought me forth into the forest to play the spy?"
"You were brought here," Herr Frederich answered furiously, "to see how your lady and her lover—"
No more could he say, for Albrecht with a sharp thrust of the spurs made his horse leap forward, and caught the other by the throat. For an instant, as the two confronted each other with blazing eyes, it seemed that the death-hour of the cripple had surely come. Then the strong fingers of Albrecht loosened their hold, an expression of regret softened the splendid rage in his face, and Herr Frederich wrenched himself free from the grasp that was strangling him.
Albrecht reined his horse backward.
"Beware that thou dost not provoke me too far," he said. "I was prepared for the foul thing that thou wast minded to say, but I will not listen to the name of my lady from thy lips. Dost thou think, forsooth, that I am so besotted that I have not seen that thou wast minded to play a part too foul for one to name it, and to bring about my dishonor in mine own house to the intent that I should be—Nay, to what intent thou best knowest. I had fortified myself to the end that to-day for the last time I should bear with thee patiently, but if thou takest the name of my wife upon thy lips, I will not answer for my forbearance."
Herr Frederich, panting and dishevelled, leaned upon the pommel of his saddle and regarded his companion with looks of burning ferocity.
"I did but try," he sneered, "to warn you in time, that you might save yourself from—"
The threatening look which gathered blackly upon the brow of Albrecht warned him to be more guarded in his speech, and he broke off abruptly, leaving the rest unspoken.
"The faithful service of the best part of my life," he went on, endeavoring to cover his anger with a show of wounded zeal and faithful affection, "counts for nothing with you, and it is not strange that this endeavor to serve you should bring to me only abuse. It was to do you a service that I adventured the rage of Count von Rittenberg, and—"
Albrecht put up his hand with a gesture which once more cut the speaker short.
"Why is it," he asked, "that thou hast gone about to do me harm? What cause hast thou to hate me? If I was not over-thoughtful of thee in the old days, I was at least never cruel, and I took care that thou shouldst fare as well as might be. Thou wert set next to myself, and never did I let that one of those under my hand should so much as speak to thee lightly."
Herr Frederich threw the reins down upon the neck of his steed, and with folded arms he sat confronting Albrecht. The supreme hour of his life had come. Now at last would he pour forth all the wrath that for long years had been festering in his soul. There was not more a need of prudence, of concealment, of a cloak with which to hide the intents of his heart. He labored only how to frame his speech so that it should sting and burn Albrecht to the very soul, like the lightning shafts, or the poisoned spear of the Wild Huntsman that leaves an incurable wound at its lightest touch. He glanced about with an instinctive, cowardly desire to see whither he could flee if the other's rage should overleap all bounds, and he muttered a spell to summon the sprites of the wood.
"Ah, thou art, then, in league with the folk of the forest?" Albrecht said, hearing him. "Couldst thou not trust thine own powers for evil, that thou hast called upon them to help thee?"
The cripple gave no heed to the interruption. He was lost in the fierceness of his feelings. He was determined that of the bitter joy of this moment he would lose nothing through craven fear. He cast all prudence to the wind.
"It is true," he began, in a tone which was at first low, but which increased as he went on, and the fierceness of his anger burst out more and more, as a fire that is opened to the wind blazes higher and higher, "that you had me treated well at the hands of the wild crew at Neiderwasser, since, forsooth, I was too valuable a thing to be lightly handled. If your underlings were forced to treat me with respect, were they ever allowed to forget that I was an underling also; I, who had been born a man and a freeholder? Oh, the fool of a kobold, that thinks himself able to understand men because, forsooth, he hath stolen a soul through his wife! Why do I hate you? You who kept me in thralldom among creatures no better than the wild beasts save that they speak and go upright! You, whose father stole me from freedom, from home, from the wife that belonged to me only, and from the children that were helpless without me! Why do I hate you? God's wounds, I had much cause to love you!"
His bitter laughter rang through the forest. Albrecht shuddered, but he drew nearer to the cripple, and Herr Frederich saw in his face an expression of compassion. The fierceness of Von Zimmern's rage was increased twofold that he could excite in the knight only pity and not the anger which he longed to provoke.
"Fool of a kobold!" he cried again, his voice rising ever higher till the hollows of the wood rang with it; "do you know why I taught you to long for a human soul, and why I spared no pains to fit you for the part you had to play to gain one, so that you should by no means fail? It was because till you had a soul my vengeance could have no hold upon you! It was that I was not content to hurt you for the short life which would have been yours in the forest; I would bring on you a punishment that should be eternal! When you were a lad I could scarcely keep my hands from tearing and maiming you, and I should have laughed had your accursed kobold father rent me limb from limb for doing it; but I waited for a better vengeance! The only thing that is wanting to my content now is that your father cannot know how I have paid my debt to his son."
He seemed to have gone mad, and Albrecht shuddered and crossed himself at the sight of fury so demoniacal. The cripple shivered and trembled with excitement; the tears gathered in his eyes, and the foam specked his lips. The knight's own eyes were dim, as he leaned forward and laid his hand upon the other's arm.
"I have indeed much for which to ask thy forgiveness," Albrecht said; "but I was, as thou hast said, only a kobold, and what could I know better than the rest of my race, save what thou didst teach me? Meseemeth that if thou hadst but cumbered somewhat to teach me mercy in my callow youth, all soulless as I was I might perchance have learned somewhat of it."
"Oh, without doubt!" retorted Von Zimmern scornfully, as he shook off the hand which lay pleadingly upon his arm; "but that was reason enough why I should not teach. I was willing to suffer if thereby I could the better compass my revenge in the end."
"And yet," interposed Albrecht, inquiringly, "when my marriage was about to take place, thou didst all but prevent it when thou gavest to the countess a ring by which she might know kobolds from men?"
"Yea," Herr Frederich replied, grinding his teeth; "for a moment the thought of your present bliss was too much for me. I saw you look on your bride with longing and delight, and I thought of mine from whom I had been stolen. To see you so blest was a trial too great for even my patience; and for a moment I was so weak that had you not interfered, I had spoiled all, and cheated myself of the vengeance wrought out by all those years of waiting and suffering. I thank you for that!"
There was silence in the wood for a moment while the two confronted each other with piercing eyes. Overhead the wind soughed in the pine tops, and to the mind of Von Zimmern the sound brought the memory of the many long, weary days and nights he had listened to this wail in the tree-tops of the Neiderwasser valley. A new frown of hate came over his black face.
"Year after year," he burst out, "I pined in that cursed slavery, and longed and longed for those I had left behind; and you offered me nixies, and promised that I should be free to return to my own when I had married you to a mortal wife."
"And that promise was kept," Albrecht responded.
"Kept!" the other echoed with fierce scorn. "You kept it when all that I loved was gone. You set me free to seek a row of graves; to carry my miserable, broken body about the world alone. God's blood!" he went on, dashing the spurs into the bleeding flanks of his steed and still reining the animal back with a strong hand; "at the grave of my wife I took new oaths of vengeance, and I hastened back to keep them. It was not hard! The folk of the wood were eager to help me by bringing the count and the lady alone together in the forest, and he already had the work of winning—"
"Silence!" broke in Albrecht, in a voice of thunder.
The wild excitement of Herr Frederich was infecting him also, despite all his efforts at self-control. His cheeks were flushed, and he breathed deeply and pantingly between his teeth. The cripple was not slow to perceive these signs of growing passion, and he fanned the flame with new taunts and deeper reproaches.
"Fool of a kobold!" he cried out yet again; "to think you could play with a soul and be safe! Was it then like a boar-spear with which your hand could have its own will? Oh, the wise wood-creature!"
He broke into shrill laughter and bitter, till all the forest resounded; and among the dark recesses of the pines it seemed that unseen lips joined in the evil peal of wicked scorn and merriment.
"Now," he cried, and in his voice was a new ring of triumph, "our kobold hath ruined not alone his own soul, lightly gotten and quickly lost, but hers which could by no means be satisfied with such a brutish, half-human thing as her husband. It is not a marvel that she must needs turn toward a human lover after—"
The knight sprang upon him with a face distorted with rage and jealousy, and caught the cripple by the throat. He dragged him from the saddle, and Herr Frederich was as helpless in the grasp of those powerful hands as if he were in the clutch of a lion. Albrecht dashed him to the earth. His head was grazed by a stone, and for an instant everything swam before his eyes. The thick-growing ferns closed over him like the waves of the sea, and then they were parted by the face of Albrecht, who stooped toward him.
"Thou art a craven and a liar!" Albrecht hissed between his set teeth.
Then again with strong hands he seized Herr Frederich, and lifted him out of the bracken as if to dash him again to earth.
With a moan and a mighty effort to speak, the cripple, swinging in air, flung at the knight one last bitter taunt.
"It is bravely done," he cried, "to kill the man your father maimed!"
The clutch of Albrecht relaxed instantly. He lowered the other until he could lean against his horse, and then stood confronted to him with a face which kept Von Zimmern silent.
"Thou art right," he said. "God knoweth that I and mine have done thee evil enough already. I have need to ask thy forgiveness; and I would to God that there were reparation which man might compass, so be it that thus I could do by thee that which would undo what my father hath done unto thee. Only, since that may not be, I warn thee that thou come not in my sight again. I spare thy life when thou hast said words for which death were the only fitting meed; but I pledge not myself if I see thee again."
And as if he might not trust himself to say aught further, Albrecht vaulted into the saddle and rode swiftly away through the wood.