Sharing some shock not unlike his own in extent and sharpness, the girl with the violin-case had paused just perceptibly in an unconscious attitude which kept in the lamplight her bust, tightly encased in a faded but elegant Genoa brocade jacket, with copper lace ornamentation, coming down upon a promising curve, clothed in a similarly theatrical skirt of flowered satin and China silk braid.  On her wrists were bracelets and on her ungloved hands many rings, with stones rather too large to be taken for genuine on a woman promenading alone at such an hour.  Conjoined with the musical instrument, the attire confirmed the student in his first impression after the tragic one, that this was a performer in one of the numerous dance-houses of the popular region, bordering the fashionable one.

He almost regretted this conclusion, for the girl’s forehead was so high, her eyes so lofty and her delicate mouth so impressed with a proud and energetical curl that no ambition would seem beyond the flight of one thus beautiful and high-spirited.

Whatever the revolution she had exercised over him, he dared not avow it, such respect did she inspire, and on her recovering from her fleeting emotion, he let her resume her way without a word to detain her.

She had not reached the first plank of the bridge before he suddenly remembered the officer, like himself, in ambush; and in the same manner as love—­if that were love—­had clutched his heart with the swiftness of an eagle seizing its quarry, another sentiment, as fierce and overpowering, jealousy, stung him to the quick.

As he glanced—­but he had not taken his eyes off her, not even to look if the military officer were still at his post—­she had swept her worsted wrapper round to set her foot on the first board of the bridge; and he caught a glimpse, delightful and bewildering, of a foot, long but slim and delicately modeled, and of a faultless ankle, in a vermilion silk stocking and low-cut cordovan leather slipper—­as theatrical as the rest of her attire.  Something innately aesthetical in the student, which made him adore the exquisitely wrought, impelled him now to be the slave—­the devotee—­the worshiper of this masterpiece of Nature.

Perhaps she stood in need of a defender?

CHAPTER II.

SOLDIER’S sword and Wander-staff.

The place was historically favored for adventures.  In 1543, the riot of Knights and Knaves had begun here.  On the bridge which preceded this structure, a band of young noblemen had taken possession of the passage more important then, as this now foul and noisome channel, into which the effluvia of the breweries and tanneries was discharged, was a strong and pellucid tributary of the Isar.  They levied tribute on the burghers, kissing the comely women and not scrupling to cut the purses of the master-tradesmen; in this, imitating the mode of operation of their country cousins, the robber barons in the mountains to the south, or over the river in the opposite direction.