Whilst Heinz knelt in front of the chapel without noticing Sister Perpetua, who was praying before the altar within, these thoughts darted through Eva’s brain like a flash of lightning.  Now he rose and went to his horse, but ere he mounted it the dog, barking furiously, again broke from the thicket close at her side.

Heinz must have seen her white mourning robes, for her own name reached her ears in a sudden cry, and soon after—­she herself could not have told how—­Heinz was standing beside the basket amidst the flowers, with her hand clasped in his, gazing into her eyes so earnestly and sadly that he seemed a different person from the reckless dancer in the Town Hall, though the look was equally warm and tender.  Whilst doing so, he spoke of the deep wound inflicted upon her by her mother’s death.  Fate had dealt him a severe blow also, but grief taught him to turn whither she, too, had directed him.

Just at that moment the blast of the horn summoning the Emperor’s train to his side echoed through the forest.

“The Emperor!” cried Heinz; then bending towards the flowers he seized a few forget-me-nots, and, whilst gazing tenderly at them and Eva, murmured in a low tone, as if grief choked his utterance:  “I know you will give them to me, for they wear the colour of the Queen of Heaven, which is also yours, and will be mine till my heart and eyes fail me.”

Eva granted his request with a whispered “Keep them”; but he pressed his hand to his brow and, as if torn by contending emotions, hastily added:  “Yes, it is that of the Holy Virgin.  They say that Heaven has summoned me by a miracle to serve only her and the highest, and it often seems to me that they are right.  But what will be the result of the conflicting powers which since that flash of lightning have drawn one usually so prompt in decision as I, now here, now there?  Your blue, Eva, the hue of these flowers, will remain mine whether I wear it in honour of the Blessed Virgin, or—­if the world does not release me—­in yours.  She or you!  You, too, Eva, I know, stand hesitating at the crossing of two paths—­which is the right one?  We will pray Heaven to show it to you and to me.”

As he spoke he swung himself swiftly into the saddle and, obeying the summons, dashed after his imperial master.

Eva gazed silently at the spot where he had vanished behind a group of pine trees; but Ortel, who had gathered a few early strawberries for her, soon roused her from her waking dream by exclaiming, as he clapped his big hands:  “I’ll be hanged, Jungfrau Eva, if the knight who spoke to you isn’t the Swiss to whom the great miracle happened yesterday!”

“The miracle?” she asked eagerly, for Els had intentionally concealed what she heard, and this evidently had something to do with the “wonderful summons” of which Heinz had spoken without being understood.