After mentioning what had excited young Ulrich Vorchtel’s animosity, he related that, soon after his interview with Heinz, he had met young Vorchtel, accompanied by several friends.  Ulrich had barred his way, loading him with invectives so fierce and so offensive to his honour, that he was obliged to accept the challenge.  As he wore no weapon save the dagger in his belt, he used the sword which a German knight among Ulrich’s companions offered him.  Calm in the consciousness that he had given his former friend’s sister no reason to believe in his love, and firmly resolved merely to bestow a slight lesson on her brother, he took the weapon.  But when Ulrich shouted to the crusader that the blade he lent was too good for the treacherous hand he permitted to wield it, his blood boiled, and with his first powerful thrust all was over.

The German knight had then introduced himself as a son of the Burgrave von Zollern and taken him to the castle, where, with his father’s knowledge, the noble young Knight Hospitaller concealed him, and the point now was to show the matter, which was undoubtedly a breach of the peace, to the Emperor Rudolph in the right light.  The young Burgrave thought that he, Heinz Schorlin, could aid in convincing the sovereign, who would lend him a ready ear, that he, Wolff, had only drawn his sword under compulsion.  So truly as Heinz himself hoped to be a happy man through Eva’s love, he must help him to bridge the chasm which, by his luckless deed, separated him from his betrothed bride.

Heinz had had this letter read aloud twice.  Then when Biberli had gone and he rode to the fortress, he had resolved to do everything in his power for the young Nuremberg noble who had so quickly won his regard, but the sorely stricken imperial father had refused to see him, and therefore it was impossible to take any step in the matter.

Yet Wolff’s letter had showed that he believed him in all earnestness to be Eva’s future husband, and thus strengthened his resolve to woo her as soon as he felt a little more independent.

After the thunderbolt had killed the horse under him, and the old Minorite had again come and showed him that the Lord Himself, through the miracle He had wrought, had taken him firmly and swiftly by the hand as His chosen follower, it seemed to his agitated mind, when he took up the letter a second time, as though everything Wolff had written about him and Els’s sister was not intended for him.

Eva was happiness—­but Heaven had vouchsafed a miracle to prove the transitoriness of earthly life, that by renunciation here he might attain endless bliss above.  Sacrifice and again sacrifice, according to the Minorite, was the magic spell that opened the gates of heaven, and what harder sacrifice could he offer than that of his love?  “Renounce! renounce!” he heard a voice within cry in his ears as, with much difficulty, he himself read Wolff’s letter, but whatever he might cast away of all that was his, he still would fail to take up his cross as Father Benedictus required; for even as an unknown beggar he would have enjoyed—­this he firmly believed—­in Eva’s love the highest earthly bliss.  Yet divine love was said to be so much more rapturous, and how much longer it endured!