“Wolff!” shrieked Eva, whose hand had already dropped from the horse.  “Wolff!  He is so terribly strong, and if he drew his sword in anger——­”

“He dealt his foe one powerful thrust,” replied the imperial magistrate with an expressive gesture.  “The sword pierced him through.  But I must go on Only this one thing more:  Ulrich was borne back to his parents as a corpse.  And Wolff Where is he hiding?  May the saints long be the only ones who know!  A quarrel with such a result under the Emperor’s eyes, now when peace has just been declared throughout the land!  Who knows what sentence will be pronounced if the bailiffs show themselves shrewder this time than usual!  My office compelled me to set the pack upon him.  That is the reason I am so late.  Tell Els as cautiously as possible.”

He bowed gallantly and trotted on, but Eva, as if hunted by enemies, rushed up the staircase, threw herself on her knees before the prie dieu, and sobbed aloud.

Young Vorchtel had undoubtedly heard of the events in the entry, taunted Wolff with his betrothed bride’s nocturnal interview with a knight, and thus roused the strong man to fury.  How terrible it all was!  How could she bear it!  Her thoughtlessness had cost a human life, robbed parents of their son!  Through her fault her sister’s betrothed husband, whom she also loved, was in danger of being placed under ban, perhaps even of being led to the executioner’s block!

She had no thought of any other motive which might have induced the hot-blooded young men to cross swords and, firmly convinced that her luckless letter had drawn Heinz Schorlin to the house and thus led to all these terrible things, she vainly struggled for composure.

Sometimes she beheld in imagination the despairing Els; sometimes the aged Vorchtels, grieving themselves to death; sometimes Wolff, outlawed, hiding like a hunted deer in the recesses of the forest; sometimes the maid, fleeing with her little bundle into the darkness of the night; sometimes the burning convent; and at intervals also Heinz Schorlin, as he knelt before her and raised his clasped hands with passionate entreaty.

But she repelled every thought of him as a sin, and even repressed the impulse to look out into the street to seek him.  Her sole duty now was to pray to her patron saint and the Mother of God in behalf of her sister, whom she had hurled into misfortune, and her poor heart bleeding from such deep wounds; but the consolation which usually followed the mere uplifting of her soul in prayer did not come, and it could not be otherwise, for amid her continual looking into her own heart and listening to what went on around her no real devotion was possible.

Although she constantly made fresh efforts to collect her thoughts, and continued to kneel with clasped hands before the prie dieu, not a hoof-beat, not a single loud voice, escaped her ear.  Even the alternate deepening and paling of the reflection of the fire, which streamed through the window, attracted her attention, and the ringing of bells and braying of trumpets, which still continued, maintained the agitation in her soul.