“Ah, that accounts for my ignorance.  I never saw Sayn Castle, although I seem to have heard of it.  Are you its owner?”

“Yes; I told you I was wealthy.”

“Where is the Schloss situated?”

“Below Coblentz, on the eastern side of the river.”

“Then why not let me take you there instead of to the convent?”

“Willingly, if you had brought your barge-load of armed men, but in Sayn Castle I am helpless, commanding a peaceful retinue of servants who, although devoted to me, are useless when it comes to defense.”

“I cannot account for it,” said Roland in meditative tone, “but the thought of that convent becomes more and more distasteful.  You will be free of your guardian, no doubt, but you merely exchange one whom you know for another whom you don’t, and that other a member of your own sex.”

“Do you disparage my sex, then?”

“No; but I cannot imagine any man being discourteous to you.  Surely every gentleman with a sword by his side should spring at once to your defense.”

The girl laughed.

“Ah, Captain Roland, you are very young, and, I fear, inexperienced, despite your filibustering.  However, this lovely, still, summer night, with its warm, velvety darkness, was made for pleasant thoughts.  Enough about myself.  Let me hear something of you.  Did you come up the river or down, with your barge?”

“We came down.”

“How long since you adopted a career of crime?  You do not seem to be a hardened villain.”

“Believe me,” protested Roland earnestly, “I am not, and I do not admit that my career is one of crime.”

“Indeed,” said the girl, laughing again, “I am not so gullible as you think.  I could almost fancy that you were the incendiary of Furstenberg Castle.”

“What!” exclaimed Roland in consternation.  “How came you to learn of its destruction?”

“There!” cried the girl gleefully, “you have all but confessed.  You are as startled as if I had said:  ’I arrest you in the name of the Emperor!’”

“Who told you that Furstenberg Castle was burned?” demanded the young man sternly.

“Yesterday morning there came swiftly down the river, with no less than twelve oarsmen, a long, thin boat, traveling like the wind.  It did not pause at Pfalz, but the man standing in the stern hailed the Castle, and shouted to the Pfalzgraf that Furstenberg had been burned by the outlaws of the Hunsruck.  He was on his way to Bonn to inform the Archbishop of Cologne, and he carried also Imperial news for his Lordship:  tidings that the Emperor is dead.”

“Dead!” breathed Roland in horror, scarcely above his breath.  “The Emperor dead!  I wonder if that can be true.”

“Little matter whether it is true or no,” said the girl indifferently.  “He doubtless passed away in a drunken sleep, and I am told his drunken son will be elected in his place.”

“Madam!” said Roland harshly, awakened from his stupor by her words, “I must inform your ignorance that the Emperor’s son is not a drunkard, and, indeed, scarcely touches wine at all, being a most strenuous opposer to its misuse.  How can one so fair, and, as I believed, so honest, repeat such unfounded slander?”