Mighty was the struggle in the mind of Albrecht as he rode swiftly through the forest when he had left Herr Frederich in the wood. His good steed of his own instinct took the way back toward the castle, and strained every sinew that he might the sooner come thither, for that his master sharply spurred him on. Albrecht had only the thought that it behooved him to put all the distance he might compass between his angry heart and the temptation from which he fled, and he heeded not whither he rode. The falling leaves of the beech trees, yellow as topaz, rustled downward in bright showers as he sped; the pitchy cones of the pines, glistening with unctuous drops, fell now and then with a dull thud upon the soft carpet of brown needles beneath his horse's feet; the squirrels chattered indignantly at his intrusion upon their wild and quiet domain; and now and then some wood-bird flew startled from the thicket, oftentimes so close as almost to touch him.
The cheeks of the knight burned with a fever which the wind of the autumn afternoon, cool though it was and loaded with refreshing balsamic scents, could not allay. His heart beat hotly with rage and love and hatred and jealousy, until its fierce throbbing seemed wellnigh to choke him. Through a rift in the trees he caught a glimpse of the towers of Rittenberg; and he recalled the sight of them which he had when he first came hither, and how Herr Frederich had pointed them out to him, saying with his smile which now Albrecht so loathed:
"Now I will ride homeward, and await tidings of the speeding of your wooing. Yonder is the castle, and there shall you find both bride and soul!"
The memory surged over the mind of Albrecht like a bitter wave of the northern sea, black and stinging with its icy cold. He struck his clenched hand against his breast, and a groan escaped from his lips.
"It were better never to have had a soul!" he murmured.
A hollow laugh from unseen lips answered him. He looked around, suddenly checking his horse with a wrench of the bridle which wellnigh threw the good steed upon its haunches. He was silent an instant, as if he waited for some one to call out in mockery. There was no sound save the panting of his steed, the murmur of the soft wind in the tree-tops, and the distant hoarse cry of a heron scared by the fowler and fleeing toward the deeper recesses of the forest.
Albrecht put his hand upon his forehead like a man who awakens.
"I know ye, kobold crew!" he cried. "Ye shall not conquer. I defy ye, for I have a soul."
Then again he struck the spurs into the horse's flanks and flew onward toward Rittenberg. The dread that Erna might indeed be lost forever beset him like a flame, and he did not pause even on the steep below the castle gate. As if urged on by the furies he flew up the hill, and dashed into the courtyard spattered with foam from his horse's bridle.
He threw his rein to a servitor, and hastened to his chamber. He dashed his cap, its heron-plume torn and ragged from his wild ride through the wood, upon the rush-strewn floor, and with great strides he began to pace to and fro. He was confused by the emotions with which he struggled. Never in the months since he became a man had so fierce a rush of contending passions swept through his mind, and he was dizzied by their force. Below in the courtyard he heard light laughter, and a snatch of song which one of his men-at-arms had taught some serving-wench; and the sounds carried him back to the wild, free life of the forest. For a moment it seemed to him that he would gladly give up all that he had won could he but be once more the gay, soulless Albrecht who had come to Rittenberg; so strong was the rush of the old memory, the desire for the old lawless, jocund kobold life, that he was ready to curse the day that brought him to the castle and gave him a human bride. Yet the thought of Erna and the passionate love for her which filled his heart were too strong to be overcome, even by the swelling disquiet of his soul. He could not yet think first of the high spiritual blessings which the gift of a soul made possible to him, since ever the image of his bride rose before his mind as the chief desire of his life.
So long did Albrecht wrestle with the temptations which raged within him like ravening wolves, that the dusk began to rise from the forest to the height where the castle stood, as a night-mist rises from beneath. He thought of the wood-creatures who had mocked at his pain, and full well did he know how fain were they to do his bidding did he charge them to waylay Count Stephen in the forest and do him harm. Were it not madness to let all the instincts of his whole life go because of the fetters which were laid upon him by this thing which was so wondrously within him, and which had changed him from the most blithe and most bold of all the kobolds of the forest to the tame thing that dared not avenge himself upon the knight who would steal from him the love of his wife? The rushes were crushed and ground into dust beneath his heel as he strode to and fro, and the great drops stood upon his forehead.
Suddenly in the gathering dusk he stood still, as does a knight who turns at last upon his enemies and stands at bay, bidding them defiance. All the might of his soul did he call up to aid him in the conflict with the passions and temptations which beset him. There came into his splendid face a look of boldness, of confidence, yet too of horror, as of one who at last sees his foes for what they in truth are. A moment he stood motionless; then with firm step and resolute mien he went down the long corridor, which echoed to his tread, and descended the private stairway which led to the castle chapel. There before the altar he bowed himself in prayer.
Half an hour later, as Albrecht, calm and firm once more, was returning to his chamber, he encountered Erna in the corridor. She had been to his chamber to seek him, on her return from the hunt. The attendants had stared open-mouthed when she rode into the courtyard unattended, but she had given them no heed. She longed to fling herself into the arms of her husband, that he might shield her from the danger and the temptation which lay about her; but when she found his chamber vacant, suddenly she recalled seeing Albrecht in the forest, riding with Herr von Zimmern like an evil spirit behind him, and the thought brought with it a great fear of what he might have seen. At that moment she heard his step in the corridor approaching her. Her first impulse was to hide like a guilty thing; then she remembered that she was not guilty. She saw Albrecht standing on the threshold as if he were an angel of light. His splendid strength seemed to her that of a god. She ran to him and flung herself, sobbing wildly, into his arms.
It had seemed to Albrecht in the cool and holy quiet of the chapel, that he had conquered passion and come to desire spiritual good even above the love of this beautiful woman who now flung herself into his embrace, weeping so sore; but now that he held her fast he thought again of the folk in the wood, and how speedily they would rid him of his rival did he but bid them. Even were they in league with Herr Frederich, as well might be, they would obey him and do his will. He strained Erna to his bosom in a strong and jealous clasp; then, as a wave returns that has swept down the sea-beach, came again his will to conquer evil and to beat down this temptation. When in a moment he spoke there was in his voice no trace of the feelings which stormed within him.
"What hath affrighted thee, sweetheart?" he said, kissing her fondly.
She had clung to him, hiding her face, and feeling that his strong arms could protect her from the world; that now was all harm put away and all evil trodden down. Then when he spoke, it seemed to her, all unwrought and excited as she was, that his voice, though soothing and compassionate, was that of one who is no more cumbered by troubles such as hers. He was to her like one who is removed from passion, and the turmoil of a strife such as that which tossed her spirit, by the width of half the wide sky. He was so calm, so kind; he soothed her like a tired child when, forsooth, her soul hungered and thirsted to be comforted with the apples and flagons of love. She knew not for what she yearned, but she did not find it in his embrace, albeit he was full tender and fond.
Albrecht saw that she strove with herself that she might recover her calmness. She freed herself from his embrace, and stood wiping her tears, and calming herself in woman's wise.
"It is only that thou hast wed a foolish and timorous wife," she answered him; "I lost the hunt and rode home alone. Methought I heard voices in the forest, and it hath unnerved me."
Albrecht changed color. What peril from the wood-folk might not Erna have escaped! He started forward to take her again in his arms, but she turned away with a smile.
"Belike it was nothing but my own wild fancy," she said. "Indeed, now that once again I am safe at Rittenberg I know not if I heard aught. I cannot have left the hunt more than half an hour agone. I did but turn aside in the beech wood near the ford to follow a bird-cry for a little, and I lost my way thereby."
She cast down her eyes, for in truth as she thus put by his question with a feigned excuse she could not meet his gaze; and Albrecht, remembering what had been said to him in the forest concerning the estrangement of her affections, thrilled with a keen pang. She left him, and passed down the corridor toward her chamber; and he stood and watched her like one who seeth his dearest hope flee away before his face.
It had been after a wild ride homeward that Erna met Albrecht and turned away from him. When she dashed away from Count Stephen in the forest the tears had gathered so thickly in her eyes that she was perforce minded to trust to the instincts of her palfrey rather than to her own guidance to bring her home to Rittenberg. Perchance they were tears of remorse, of rage, of indignation, and perhaps not a little of excitement. Her horse made his way bravely along the bridle-path, now brushing the thickly set ferns and brambles, now skirting close to the banks of the frothy river, and anon hurrying through the gathering shadows of the black pine-wood; and still it seemed to Erna as if she were fleeing from a pursuer who might at any moment rush upon her. She felt that her only safety lay in her husband's arms, and with the thought came a bitter pang in the sense of the wrong she had done Albrecht in listening so long to the whispered love-making of her cousin.
And it befell Erna, as she rode home thus swiftly through the forest, to come in mind to a burning sense of the change which had befallen her since she had bidden Count Stephen farewell when he set out for Strasburg. She seemed to look back from the depths to that height of purity and virtue where she then stood, and it was with the pricking of despair most profound that she felt how great was the distance between what she was and what she had been. A sob of passion and of terror rose in her throat as she thought of her husband, and for perhaps the first time since their marriage she appreciated how he had risen from what he had been. She did not realize that although she had been sinking, it was from her that Albrecht had gained his inspiration, and that it was he who had awakened in her those desires and instincts which had been her temptation. She only felt degraded and unworthy to stand before him, but with all the love of her heart she longed to fall at his feet and implore his forgiveness.
And yet how could she confess to him how she had fallen? She could not tell him that she had been kissed in the forest by another than himself, and she feared if she might compass that he should understand that after all she was not to blame. She had but been friendly to her cousin; had listened to him as any lady might listen to a knight who was handsome and debonair, and had responded only as might the dame of a castle to her guest, or at most as might one reply to a gallant warrior of her own blood. It had been but a glance now, and a pressure of the hand then; a whispered word, a sigh with which the count had looked into her eyes; and until to-day there had been nothing more. To-day——
Her cheeks glowed with the remembrance of that fervent kiss! She thrilled again with the ardor of the glances with which Count Stephen had regarded her as they rode to the meadows where the falcons had been thrown off, and when now and then his eyes had encountered hers as they watched the flight of the birds.
"My falcon outsaileth thine," he had murmured, "but his master's heart can never leave thee!"
She lashed her palfrey afresh as she recalled the words; they seemed to be again whispered into her ears, as if the sprites of the wood had heard them and repeated them to her shame and bewilderment. Her thoughts whirled through her head as the band of the Wild Huntsman, tempest-driven, might sweep through the forest. Had she forgotten, then, her love for her husband, she questioned herself, or was it that she had been bewitched and entangled perchance in the meshes of wicked sorcery? Surely, could she once take shelter in the arms of Albrecht and feel his strong clasp about her, she should be safe from these wild and sinful thoughts. She fled ever faster, hearing in the echoes of the hoof-beats of her own palfrey the trampling of Count Stephen's steed behind her.
Yet when she indeed stood face to face with Albrecht, it has been told how his calm and his seeming coldness did so repel and chill her that she was fain to escape from him without delay. He was to her as one withdrawn from the turmoil and the temptation of things earthly; and although she misjudged him gravely, yet none the less did she hasten speedily to her chamber, there to be alone with herself, that she might calm her mind and do away with the signs of agitation which Count Stephen would too surely mark on his coming.
She had scarcely reached the quiet of her chamber when she heard the hunt come clattering into the courtyard below, and the cries of page and groom as the horses were led away, and the damsels and the retainers entered the castle; and presently her woman Fastrade came into the chamber, while close upon her heels followed Elsa, both of them a-quiver with excitement and curiosity over what had happened, and of which they had been able only to guess a part from the little which they had seen. They might not ask their mistress concerning what had befallen, but they endeavored to lead her on to tell, if so be they might.
"The gracious count was like to one distracted," Elsa said volubly, "at that he had lost sight of the countess. He cried out that the Lady Countess was lost in the forest, and we could not persuade him that there could be no fear of that. He would remain to seek in the thickets, despite whatever we could say."
"Sooth, I know the wood-ways too well to miss my road," Erna assented.
"So in truth did I tell the gracious count," Fastrade quoth, with a nod of self-satisfaction; "but none the less was he still troubled lest some mishap should have befallen."
"He was so deeply concerned," continued Elsa, taking up the word, "that we feared lest perchance he might have offended—"
"Or that he might in sooth be to blame," remarked Fastrade, as Elsa judiciously left her sentence unfinished.
"And Count von Rittenberg is so desirous of pleasing—"
The cunning wench once more let the words die on her lips half spoken.
"And such a gallant rider as he is," chorused Fastrade.
"And no one, sure, could in the round world cast a falcon better."
Erna sprang to her feet, her cheeks burning red with fiery shame.
"Get thee gone," she cried to one and then to the other; "and thee also! Leave me!"
It came upon her burningly that it was to this that her dalliance with the count had brought her. That the very damsels of the castle were so well aware of her relations with her cousin that they thought to please her by sounding his praises. Low indeed had she fallen! She cast herself prostrate upon the stone floor, and grovelled there with weeping and with the bitterness of shame. Was it that she who had so long been as proud as the white heron whose plume she wore in state, had come to be gossiped about by her own train, to be the jest of menials, to be spoken of lightly and in very likelihood to be jested of with the tongue in the cheek! The very thralls belike had the tale of her weakness by heart by this, and could say it pat, as Father Christopher had never been able to teach them to say the catechism.
Surely it was since her husband, Albrecht, had come to Rittenberg that she had thus fallen from what she was; and yet he, in sooth, had constantly waxed in faith and in godliness. Erna groaned in spirit, since it appeared to her that it must indeed be that her nature was in itself wicked and prone to fare downward, while that of Albrecht was by some inner sanctity led ever in the way of grace. She fell into a passion of tears and lamentation until her tears had run dry, and she was exhausted with sobbing. Still prone upon the ground, her face hidden in her dishevelled hair, she heard footsteps approach; and presently the Lady Adelaide, her cane tapping sharply as she walked, stepped briskly into the chamber.
"Body of Saint Fridolin!" cried the old dame, in a tone of shrill amazement and anger; "what has happened? Elsa declares that thou wert wroth without aught of provocation, and that thou dravest both her and Fastrade out of the chamber, albeit she could not tell wherein they had offended thee. In the name of Heaven's Queen, what hath come to thee?"
The tone in which the old dame spoke showed some traces of compassion as she proceeded, for, to say sooth, she could not unmoved see the grief of her niece, and she ended by bending over to lay her withered and trembling old hand upon the fair prostrate head. Erna raised herself into a sitting posture, and taking the wrinkled fingers in her own, she kissed them warmly.
"Dear heart," she said, "I am in sore trouble, and I know not if there may be comfort for such as I; but wilt thou not go thyself to Father Christopher, so that none may know, and bid him that he come to me in mine oratory? Let him not delay."
And thus Erna resolved to confess to Heaven the sin which had been in her heart, albeit it had been only a vague desire.
It was in sooth with angry mind that Count Stephen dashed about in the wood, seeking for his cousin. He did not in his secret heart expect to find her, but it seemed to him that if she had really fled to the castle this would mean a giving up of the hope of her love. If she was ready to yield to his wooing, she might indeed have been so taken by surprise and so overcome by shyness at the moment as to seek instinctively to escape him; but he refused to own to himself that he should not find her lurking in some thicket, waiting to be discovered and forced by kisses and caresses to own that her heart was his. It was that if this were true they might be alone that he had insisted that the rest of the hunt should return to the castle while he remained to seek in the by-paths, and he concerned himself very little whether his story that the palfrey of the countess had taken fright and run away with her was believed or not.
It was with a growing despair and a kindling anger that Count Stephen rode from thicket to thicket, finding in the bosky nooks only the gathering shadows and the birds and squirrels which fled at his approach. Though he had not truly expected to find Erna, none the less was he enraged and disappointed that she was not here. His passion for his beautiful cousin had taken too strong a hold upon him not to stir him now with deep feeling as he thought of the possibility of losing her. He dashed his heavily gloved hand against his brow, and the bosses of his hawking gauntlet left their imprint upon the flesh.
"God's blood!" he cried, in impotent wrath, "I will not lose her!"
He had hardly spoken when his ear caught the sound of a horse's hoofs upon the pine-needle-carpeted ground, and the soft thud sent a thrill through his whole being.
"Who goes there?" he called.
"The devil!" shouted a harsh voice, in reply; and with a burst of hoarse laughter Herr von Zimmern came riding out of the dusk of the tree shadows.
Count Stephen stared at him an instant, in mute surprise at his sudden appearance and the wildness of his manner.
"Whence dost thou come?" he demanded in a moment, regaining his composure and speaking with a haughtiness which betrayed his vexation.
"Out of the wood," the other answered coolly. "And thou?"
"What is that to thee, sirrah?" retorted the count.
It was so great a relief to have some one upon whom to vent his wrath that he made not the slightest effort to restrain himself, and his tone was so insolent that he was astonished that the cripple did not reply in anger.
"I crave pardon," Herr Frederich said, suddenly changing his manner, as if it occurred to him that it was not his wish to offend. "I was astonished to find you alone in the forest when I had thought that haply one we will not name might be riding with you."
Count Stephen ground his teeth, but he struggled with himself that he should give answer calmly.
"There is none with me," he said, "and in sooth I do not know by what right thou dost trouble thyself concerning my affairs. What is it to thee who may or who may not be abroad with me?"
Herr Frederich laughed mockingly.
"Now, by the True Cross," he returned, "you are indeed in an evil mood. It was but that I wished you well that I said it was strange to find you alone, when I had myself bought from the wood-folk a promise that you should this day have opportunity to be alone with one who is not here."
"God's blood!" cried the count; "what hast thou to do with the wood-folk?"
"But since forsooth you are in so shrewish a mind," continued Herr Frederich, ignoring his words, "we will not speak of it further. Haply I might have had that to tell which it would have been well for you to know had you been angry at being left thus alone; but it is of no account. Fare you well, Sir Count!"
He turned his horse as he spoke, as if he were minded to return into the gloom of the forest whence he had come. Count Stephen dashed forward, and caught his rein.
"Not so fast, sirrah!" he said angrily. "If in truth thou hast anything to say, out with it speedily, or by God's wounds I will slay thee on the spot. Thou mayst see if I am in the mind to be lightly trifled with."
"Nay," the cripple replied undauntedly; "you do not seem wholly calm and peaceable in your temper. It may be that it will mend if you can wait the issue of the errand upon which I am bound, since then it will go hard but you shall come nigh to the fulfilment of your heart's desire."
The count regarded the other somewhat askance. He doubted himself of this swart knave, and while he was not over-scrupulous concerning the means by which he came to the desires of his passions, he had yet a contempt for the traitor who could thus betray his own master. Moreover, although he had been indebted to Herr Frederich for many an interview with the lady of the castle, since the cripple had brought Albrecht into the hall on the morning when Erna had shown the scroll of Ovid, the count had shrewdly doubted but the man was a traitor to all, and bound only to make mischief. Nevertheless, so deeply did the heart of the count long for the love of Erna that he was ready for anything, short of the blackest villany, which would bring him nearer to the fruit of his quest. He bent forward in the dusk of the covert where they had met, and rested his hands upon the pommel of his saddle.
"Speak on," he said.
"It is not from any love of thee," Herr Frederich began with careless insolence, suddenly assuming the speech of an equal, "that I wish thee success in thy quest. If it can but be compassed that—Ah," he cried, breaking off and with his voice falling into a strain of the most passionate bitterness, "if I can wound him through his lady, I shall have it all; it is through his wife that I must reach him; that will give me my revenge here and hereafter! I can gloat over his soul in torments through all eternity!"
The count did not speak, but he drew back a little as if such fiendish hate made even him afeard. He could not compass the reasons for the bitterness of the other's mind toward Albrecht, and he waited for what more Herr Frederich might say.
"She is, in sooth, coy now," the other went on. "I saw her flee from thee through the wood. She has been bred by a priest, and she is afraid of her own desires. Her blood stirs for thee, but she is yet timid. Have patience yet a little till I come again. Then we shall see."
He had grown wilder in his air until he seemed but a madman raving; and Count Stephen, who knew not of the meeting of Albrecht and the cripple in the wood when Herr Frederich had thrown off all his disguises, was bewildered by the fashion of his companion's speech.
"When thou comest again," he repeated. "Whither, then, dost thou go?"
His companion bent nearer, as if he feared that in the shadows about them might be ears which should hear the secret.
"Listen!" he said. "When theMorgengabewas given, the Lady Adelaide put it into my head that if the Huns could be but told of the richness of the jewels that were brought to Rittenberg, they would not be long on their way hither. With me for a guide they will not linger. Ah, ha! My Lord Baron," he cried, throwing up his arms in a wild frenzy of rage and excitement, "when the red cock crows on the towers of Rittenberg, and the wife is fled in the arms of her lover, I will forgive both thee and thy cursed father!"
The count regarded him in amazement and dismay.
"Art thou mad?" he demanded. "Wilt thou in truth bring down the Huns upon Rittenberg?"
"Yea; and when they are come, it will not be hard to bear the lady away whither it pleases you. Who is there at Rittenberg to let the Huns of their will?"
"I!" cried Count Stephen, with sudden rage. "God's wounds, dost thou take me for a villain such as thou?"
He flung himself upon Herr Frederich so forcibly that they both went down among the feet of the horses together. He caught the cripple by the throat with one hand, while with the other he drew his dagger.
"Take this to the Huns in token!" he exclaimed, dealing the fallen man stab after stab; "and this, and this!"
The other struggled fiercely for a moment. It was so dark there on the ground that the count struck at him blindly, and it was only when the blow had been repeated several times that the cripple was quiet. Count Stephen held him by the throat in his powerful grasp until he ceased to struggle; when he rose he became aware that Herr Zimmern's horse had escaped into the darkening forest. It was only from the chance that as he leaped from his own steed the rein had been thrown over the broken limb of a tree by which he was standing that he was not himself left horseless.
"God's blood!" ejaculated Count Stephen, wiping his dagger on the doublet of the dead man; "there is one less knave in the world."
He touched the corse contemptuously with his foot, wondering why Herr Frederich had so bitterly hated Albrecht, and for the moment considering that, after all, Herr von Zimmern had been his only ally at Rittenberg, and that it was not wise to have disposed of him thus. Yet when he reflected that if he had been left alive it would have been simply that he might have opportunity to bring in the dreaded Huns to devastate the land, he was satisfied that it had been well to kill the knave and put an end to his scheming. Count Stephen knew what the Huns were. They had overrun not a little of the country in the neighborhood of his home; and as he thought of them he became well pleased with himself for having slain one who would have helped the heathen.
But even the pleasure of having killed a varlet who would have given the land to the fire and the spear of the Huns could not for long put Count Stephen from the thought of Erna. He got upon his horse, and rode slowly toward the castle, as completely forgetting the dead man behind him as if he had never existed, and leaving the body to the wolves with as little compunction as if it had been the carcass of a hound.
He wondered how Erna would receive him, and whether she would have said anything to her husband of the happening in the forest; and at last he bethought him of a means by which he might test her feelings.
"I will send her word," he said to himself, "that I wish to take my leave. Surely, if she forgive me, or if there is hope for me, I shall be able to tell it when I see her. She cannot be so angry as to refuse to come; and besides, she would fear that her husband should ask the reason if she treated me with disdain. She must at least come to bid me farewell, if not to urge upon me a longer stay; surely she must come."
And with this design in his mind, Count Stephen rode on more briskly, reaching the castle a little before sunset.
"Gather the men and be ready to ride at once," he commanded his captain, whom he encountered in the courtyard.
"To-night?" exclaimed the man, staring with astonishment.
"God's blood!" stormed his master in reply, "it is necessary that I give orders twice? Now, I said; at once!"
And striding on, he left the retainer holding his horse by the bridle and staring after him open-mouthed.
After Albrecht had been left by Erna in the corridor, he stood for a space as if he had neither the power to go nor yet to stay. He was full of jealousy and of fear at the thought of what might have befallen in the wood, and the agitation of his wife showed him that though Herr Frederich had failed of fulfilling his mission of evil, yet had something unusual taken place there when the baron had not been present to see. He had long understood that Count Stephen would fain win the love of Erna, and mighty had been the struggle in his soul as he questioned with himself whether in truth it would not be easy for the knight to gain the love of a woman from one who had been born of the wild race of wood-folk.
He went sadly and slowly back to his chamber, where the shadows clustered as thickly as the trees in the forest, and there came to his mind how the creatures of the wood, angry that one of their race should have won a human soul, had been eager to give their aid to the schemes of Herr Frederich; and anew there came over him a sense of the mighty struggle in which he was engaged. The stinging taunts of the cripple wounded him afresh, singing themselves over again in his ears as he stood by his casement in the gathering darkness, looking out over the mighty stretch of the forest. He recalled the cripple's threat that the soul of Erna should be so dragged down by his own that they should be lost together; and the twofold terror of bringing upon her whom he loved the doom of eternal death overwhelmed him. The serenity which he had on his knees won in the chapel deserted him, and he cast himself down upon the rushes in agony of soul.
He hardly knew whether it was moments or hours that he grovelled in the dust,—nor could he know that apart in her chamber Erna, too, had fallen into a like abasement,—when the coming of a thrall disturbed him. He started to his feet, and waited for what message might be come to him. It had grown so dark that the glimmer of the torch which the servant carried shone in a golden line beneath the door. Smoothing his disordered hair with his hand as he went, Albrecht went to the door and opened it. The glare of the torch blinded him so that for a moment he could see nothing.
"If the gracious Lord Baron will," the thrall said, "Father Christopher prays that he come to him with no delay."
Albrecht stood a moment in surprised silence. Then he recovered himself.
"Is Father Christopher in his chamber?" he asked.
"Yea, my Lord Baron," the servant answered.
"Give me thy torch," Albrecht said, taking it, "and I will go at once. Thou need'st not come."
Not since the morning after his wedding had Albrecht climbed to the little room high in the western tower; and as he made his way thither he seemed to be once more on his way to confess to the good old priest the strange story of his life. As he climbed the winding stair of the tower his glance fell through a narrow window, and afar he saw the moon rising over the great forest where the kobolds were gathering for their nightly sports. All the old life came before him, and for the moment he seemed to have lost the one without that he had gained the other. He was no longer either kobold or man. Then, with the fierceness of one who fights temptation, he shook off these thoughts, and went on until he stood before Father Christopher.
The priest was walking up and down with his eyes fixed upon the floor. For a moment he did not pause or look up. Then he paused beside the seat upon which Albrecht had thrown himself, his kind eyes hardly higher than those of the other, so tall was the knight in his woodland strength, and stood looking into the baron's face with a regard penetrating but full of tenderness.
"The time hath come," he said, "when thou must tell to thy wife everything that is hid in thy heart."
"Everything?" Albrecht echoed, dismay and wonder in his tone.
"Everything," the priest repeated solemnly. "My son, dost thou remember that once in this very chamber I said to thee that thou couldst not hope to save thy soul alone, but that the fate of hers by whom thou didst win it was bound up with that of thine own? Now is it the hour when thou must save both hers and thine."
"Truly I would freely give mine that hers be not lost," Albrecht returned.
"It is in thine hands," Father Christopher went on as if he heard him not. "She loves thee still."
"Still!" Albrecht echoed in a piercing cry, springing to his feet.
His face was white with the terror of the fear which seemed to lurk behind the words of the priest. He caught Father Christopher's robe by the sleeve, and looked at him with terror and appeal in his face.
"Nay," the priest said, putting out his hand, and speaking with mingled sweetness and reproof, "we are speaking of the gracious countess and thy wife. Thou hast nothing to fear. It is only that the longings which thou hast thyself awakened in her are yet strange and not wholly mastered by her will. It is thou who hast given her these temptations as surely as she has given thee thy soul. There is never a gift between two; something is always given in exchange."
Albrecht bowed his head upon his hand. His eyes traced the long shadow which the torch, thrust into a ring upon the wall, cast along upon the floor, bare of rushes.
"But how may it be," he asked sadly, "that I, forsooth, can hope to save either her or yet myself?"
"Because," Father Christopher returned tenderly, laying his hand upon the bowed head as if inwardly he blessed the strong man before him, "thou hast the soul of a child and the strength of a knight; and because," he was fain to add, with a soft voice that was like a caress, "all that see thee must needs love thee."
"But why," Albrecht asked, "sayest thou that it were well that I tell all to my wife?"
The priest smiled with an expression which was at once tender and wistful, and through which yet a gleam of humor played.
"My son," he answered, "I am an old man, and I have in sooth seen much of the ways of the world, and of the ways of womankind not a little. Trust me that I rede thee good counsel in this matter. Thy wife is a woman, and so it is well that thou tell her. It is not always easy to say why one should do thus or so with a woman, but it may be wise to do that for which one cannot give a reason. And besides," he added more soberly, "anon perchance thou wilt thyself perceive a reason for what thou now doest blindly. Go, my son; and Heaven bless thee in thy going!"
Erna came from her interview with Father Christopher calmer in mind, but still full of unrest and disquiet. She feared to see Albrecht, and yet she had asked the priest to send him to her. She had confessed to Father Christopher how far she had gone astray, but his assurances that all would be well, and that she had turned in time from the temptation which beset her, could not console her without the forgiveness of Albrecht, and in her secret heart Erna did not lack that keen fear of her lord which is the necessary foundation of a woman's love. She believed that Albrecht had observed nothing of her intimacy with Count Stephen, and she dreaded lest his old imperiousness should break out at the disclosure which she must make to him.
Fastrade came to summon her to supper, which was already served in the hall; but Erna sent her away, and waited in the dusk longing and yet fearing to hear the approaching steps of her husband. When at last she heard him coming, she could not control the terror which seized her. She felt that kiss which Count Stephen had pressed upon her lips in the beech wood burning as if it were a spot of living fire, and she sprang up with the desire to escape overpowering all other feelings. She met Albrecht on the threshold of her chamber, and in the darkness she had touched him before she realized how near he was.
"I must hasten to supper," she said breathlessly. "Fastrade summoned me."
He put his arm about her and led her back into the chamber. She clung to him for support, for her strength left her, and she could scarcely stand.
"Wait yet a little," he said. "First I have that which I must say to you."
She submitted with a feeling of despair. She thought, with a terrible throb of pain, of the wedding night when he had first entered that room, and of all that had befallen since then. She was utterly abashed and humiliated, and in her own sight she was viler than the vilest. Albrecht led her to a seat, groping his way in the darkness to the very spot by the window whence she had first seen him riding out of the pine forest below like a forest god. She sank down beside him, and for a moment both of them were silent.
"I have to confess to thee," Albrecht said at length; and the strangeness of his tone and of his address struck her with so deep an amazement that for the moment all her own fears were forgotten in wonder. "If thou canst forgive the wrong I have done thee—"
He broke off and bent forward in the darkness as if he would have kissed her. Then he drew back.
"Forgive thee?" stammered Erna, confused and amazed. "How hast thou wronged me?"
"If one should come," Albrecht said, his tone lower than before, "and should win thee and wed thee when thou knewest not what he was, or how unworthy, couldst thou forgive him if afterward he loved thee truly and more than tongue could tell?"
The fear of some horrible revelation came over her. She forgot that she had shrunk at his coming. The thought that she might have been deceived drove from her mind all recollection of her own fault. She sat up with sudden energy.
"Albrecht!" she exclaimed. "What is it that thou hast to tell me? Art thou not noble?"
"I have not lied to thee," he answered with a touch of bitterness amid his humility which did not escape her. "My father was indeed lord of the Neiderwasser valley."
"Then what hast thou to tell me?"
It was some moments before he answered, but then, with a voice full of passion and pain, he told her all that he had related to Father Christopher on the morning after the marriage. Erna listened with eyes wide stretched, as if she would pierce the darkness, her heart beating so that it seemed to her that it would suffocate her. It seemed a thing so impossible to understand that she had indeed wed a strange creature from the forest, and not a man at all, that at first she refused to believe it.
"If this were true," she said, "surely Father Christopher would have told me. He would not have suffered me to imperil my soul by such a union had it indeed been true that thou wert—Oh, Albrecht, thou surely art human! I should not love thee else."
"And dost thou indeed love me?"
She flung herself forward into his strong arms.
"I have loved thee," she cried, "from the first moment when I saw thee ride out of the wood below."
"And now?"
"And now," she repeated, "thou tellest me that thou art not a man, but that thou art a monster of the wood."
"Truly I was a monster, but thou hast made me other. Thou hast given me a soul, and now I am human as thou art. It was that I might have a soul that Herr von Zimmern trained me, and only to-day I know that it was because he wished me ill, and schemed that I should be lost forever."
"And must thou indeed be lost forever?" Erna cried, starting away from him and then clasping him more closely.
"Nay, sweetheart; thou hast given me a soul, and I have striven that it be not lost. Thou hast given me a soul, and thou wilt help me that it be for me all blessedness instead of the ruin that he in his wickedness meant."
"I?"
The remembrance of all that she had not told him swept over her like a wave of the sea. She slipped from his side down to his feet, and crouched there, clasping his knees. She remembered all her old longing for spiritual greatness and for virtue, and how she had fallen into the temptations of the lower things. Bitter tears gushed from her eyes, and a sob choked her voice.
"Oh, it is not for me to help thee!" she cried. "Thou art above me, kobold though thou hast been. Thou shouldst not confess to me; it is I who must confess to thee. It is thou who must forgive. Thou canst not guess why Father Christopher sent thee to me to-night."
"Sweetheart," Albrecht answered, bending over to raise her, "I have seen all from day to day, and I knew how the count would have ensnared thee; but I had no fear that in the end thou wouldst understand what danger lay in him. It is I who am at fault, since it is I from whom thou hast learned the longings that have made thy temptation. If thou canst forgive me, and love me still, it may be that in the end we may help each other, and our souls that are one be together lifted up."
Beneath in the courtyard there was a stir as of horses and of retainers, and upon the ceiling over their heads there flashed the light of a torch which some servant carried down below. In the faint reflected light Erna could almost see the face of her husband, and with a sob of perfect peace and of swelling aspiration she cast her arms about his neck, and felt herself gathered into his strong embrace.
As they sat there talking and telling each other all the things which they had hitherto kept secret, the bustle in the courtyard increased, and presently came the damsel Elsa to say that the Count Stephen had determined to take his leave of Rittenberg that night, and prayed the countess to receive his farewell.
"To-night?" Albrecht repeated in astonishment. "Surely he is jesting."
"So the gracious Lady Adelaide said," returned Elsa, with saucy demureness, "and she swore it by the body of Saint Fridolin; but still the noble count declares that he will set out."
"But the darkness, and the danger of missing the way," Erna said; "and above all the wolves!"
"The Lady Adelaide mentioned them all," the damsel responded, "and witnessed them all by Saint Fridolin's body; but quoth the knight that if he could not keep his bones from the wolves he deserved to have them picked. Only on one charge will he stay."
"And what is that?" demanded Erna; but she saw the look askance which Elsa gave toward Albrecht, and the blood rushed into her cheek.
"It is that the gracious countess insist upon his staying," Elsa answered, courtesying so profoundly that the rushlight she carried wavered and flared.
Erna waved her hand in dismissal, and the damsel with her rushlight took herself out of the chamber. Left together in the darkness, their eyes blinded by having looked on the flame, Albrecht and Erna drew close together, and she clung to him as if he had saved her from some mighty danger.
"Wilt thou that he go or stay?" Albrecht asked, the tenderness in his voice showing her that he did not ask the question from any doubt of her. "Do not dismiss him for fear I shall be troubled if he stay."
She led him to the window where the torches below shone strongly enough for them to see each other's face, and there she looked into his eyes a moment.
"What I desire," she said, "is that he go and leave us alone together as we were before he came. Wilt thou not go down and receive his farewells? I wish not to see him again."
He kissed her with fervor, and yet with something of solemnity in his manner.
"We have forgiven each other," he said, "and now we will help each other."
Then he went down to meet Count Stephen; and Erna, left alone, looked out upon the lights of the courtyard with a sigh and yet with a great peace and joy filling her breast.
POEMS.
BERRIES OF THE BRIER.
SONNETS IN SHADOW.
PROSE.
A LAD'S LOVE.A Story.
PRINCE VANCE.A Story of a Prince with a Court in his Box.ByEleanor PutnamandArlo Bates.Illustrated by Frank Myrick.
ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers.