His purpose was to make some arrangement with Heinz Schorlin about the lost estate and obtain definite knowledge concerning his quarrel with him, of which he remembered nothing except that intoxication and jealousy had carried him further than would have happened otherwise.  He had undoubtedly spoken insultingly of Els; his words, when uttered against a lady, had been sharper than beseemed a knight.  Yet was not any one who found a maiden alone at night with this man justified in doubting her virtue?  In the depths of his soul he believed in her innocence, yet he avoided confessing it.  Why should not the Swiss, whom Nature had given such power over the hearts of women, have also entangled his brother-in-law’s betrothed bride in a love affair?  Why should not the gay girl who had pledged her troth to a grave, dull fellow like Wolff, have been tempted into a little love dalliance with the bold, joyous Schorlin?

Not until he had received proof that he had erred would he submit to recall his charges.

He had left his wife with fresh courage and full of good intentions.  Now that he was forced to bid her farewell, he first realised what she had been to him.  No doubt both had much to forgive, but she was a splendid woman.  Though her father’s storehouses contained chests of spices and bales of cloth, he did not know one more queenly.  That he could have preferred, even for a single moment, the Countess von Montfort, whose sole advantage over her was her nimble tongue and gay, bold manners, now seemed incomprehensible.  He had joined Cordula’s admirers only to forget at her feet the annoyances with which he had been wearied at home.  He had but one thing for which to thank the countess—­her remark concerning the future of the twins.

Yet was he really so base that it would have been a disgrace for his darlings to resemble him?  “No!” a voice within cried loudly, and as the same voice reminded him of the victories won in tournaments and sword combats, of the open hand with which, since he had been the rich Eysvogel’s son-in-law, he had lent and given money to his brothers, and especially of the manly resolve to provide for his wife and children as a soldier in the service of some prince, another, lower, yet insistent, recalled other things.  It referred to the time when, with his brothers, he had attacked a train of freight waggons and not cut down their armed escort alone.  The curse of a broad-shouldered Nordlinger carrier, whose breast he had pierced with a lance though he cried out that he was a father and had a wife and child to support, the shriek of the pretty boy with curling brown hair who clung to the bridle of his steed as he rode against the father, and whose arm he had cut off, still seemed to ring in his ears.  He also remembered the time when, after a rich capture on the highway which had filled his purse, he had ridden to Nuremberg in magnificent new clothes at the carnival season in order, by his brothers’ counsel, to