"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.

XXIV

HOW COUNT STEPHEN MET HERR FREDERICH.

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 pa.s.sion 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.

"G.o.d'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 hoa.r.s.e 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."

"G.o.d'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 G.o.d'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 pa.s.sions, 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 a.s.suming the speech of an equal, "that I wish thee success in thy quest. If it can but be compa.s.sed that--Ah," he cried, breaking off and with his voice falling into a strain of the most pa.s.sionate 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 compa.s.s 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 the _Morgengabe_ was 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 c.o.c.k 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. "G.o.d'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.

"G.o.d's blood!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 carca.s.s 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.