Eva felt painfully how incapable of rendering assistance the others considered her, and her pride forbade her to urge it upon them.  Even her Aunt Kunigunde scarcely asked her a question.  It seemed to the abbess that the right hour for a decisive enquiry had not yet come, and wise Aunt Christine never talked with her younger niece upon religious subjects unless she herself requested her to do so.

The mass for the dead was to be celebrated at an unusually early hour, for another, which would be attended by the whole city and all the distinguished persons, knights, and nobles who had come to the Reichstag, was to begin four hours before noon.  This was for Prince Hartmann, who had been snatched away so prematurely.

The Ortliebs, with all their kindred and servants, the members of the Council with their wives and daughters, and many burghers and burgher women, assembled soon after sunrise in St. Sebald’s Church.

Those present were almost lost in the spacious, lofty interior with its three naves.  At first there was little appearance of devotion, for the early arrivals had many things to ask and whisper to one another.  The city architect lowered his loud voice very little as he discussed with a brother in the craft from Cologne in what way the house of God, which originally had been built in the Byzantine style, could be at least partly adapted to the French pointed arch which was used with such remarkable success in Germany, at Cologne and Marburg.  They discussed the eastern choir, which needed complete rebuilding, the missing steeples, and the effect of the pointed arch which harmonised so admirably with the German cast of character, and did not cease until the music began.  Now the great number of those present showed how much love the dead woman had sowed and reaped.  The sisters, when they first looked around them, saw with grateful joy the father of the young man who had fallen in the duel with Wolff, old Herr Berthold Vorchtel, his wife, and Ursula.  On the other hand, the pew adorned with the Eysvogel coat of arms was still empty.  This wounded Els deeply; but she uttered a sigh of relief when—­the introitus had just begun—­at least one member of the haughty family to which she felt allied through Wolff appeared, Isabella Siebenburg, her lover’s sister.  It was kind in her to come notwithstanding the absence of the others, and even her own husband.  Els would return it to her and her twins.

The music, whose heart-stirring notes accompanied the solemn service, deeply moved the souls of both sisters; but when, after the Gloria in excelsis Deo, the Cum Sancto Spiritu pealed forth, Eva, who, absorbed in devotion, had long since ceased to gaze around her, felt her sister’s hand touch her arm and, following the direction of her glance, saw at some distance the man for whom her heart yearned, and the grave, devout knight yonder seemed far nearer to her than the gay companion who, in the mazes of the dance, had gazed so boldly into the faces of the men, so tenderly into those of the fair women.  How fast her heart throbbed! how ardently she longed for the moment when he would raise his head and look across at her!  But when he moved, it was only to follow the sacred service and with it Christ’s sacrifice upon the cross.