"To-night?" exclaimed the man, staring with astonishment.

"G.o.d'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.

XXV

HOW FATHER CHRISTOPHER SENT FOR ALBRECHT.

After Albrecht had been left by Erna in the corridor, he stood for a s.p.a.ce 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 cl.u.s.tered 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 cas.e.m.e.nt 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 abas.e.m.e.nt,--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!"

XXVI

HOW ALBRECHT AND ERNA FORGAVE EACH OTHER.

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 a.s.surances 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 G.o.d. 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 n.o.ble?"

"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 Neiderwa.s.ser valley."