Cordula paid little attention to the sacred service, but watched the Es, as she liked to call the sisters, all the more closely.  The elder, though so overwhelmed with grief that she could not help sobbing aloud, did not cease to think of her dear ones, and from time to time gazed with tender sympathy at her father or with quiet sorrow at her sister.  Eva, on the contrary, was completely absorbed by her own anguish and the memory of her to whom it was due.  The others appeared to have no existence for her.  Whilst the large tears rolled slowly down her cheeks, she sometimes gazed tenderly at the face of the beloved dead; sometimes, with fervent entreaty, at the image of the Virgin.  The pleading expression of the large blue eyes seemed to the countess to express such childlike need of help that the impetuous girl would fain have clasped her to her heart and exclaimed: 

“Wait, you lovely, obstinate little orphan; Cordula, whom you dislike, is here, and though you don’t wish to receive any kindness from her, you must submit.  What do I care for all the worshippers of a very poor idol who call themselves my ‘adorers’?  I need only detain wandering pilgrims, or invite minnesingers to the castle, to shorten the hours.  And he for whom yonder child-angel’s heart yearns—­would he not be a fool to prefer a Will-o’-the-wisp like me?  Besides, it is easy for the peasant to give his neighbour the cloud which hangs over his field.  True, before the dance——­But the past is past.  Boemund Altrosen is the only person who is always the same.  One can rely upon him, but I really need neither.  If I could only do without the open air, the forest, horses, and hunting, I should suit convent walls far better than this Eva, whom Heaven itself seems to have created to be the delight of every man’s heart.  We will see what she herself decides.”

Then she recognised Sir Boemund Altrosen in the congregation and pursued her train of thought.  “He is a noble man, and whoever thus makes himself miserable about me I ought to try to cure.  Perhaps I will yet do so.”

Similar reflections occupied her mind until she saw Heinz Schorlin kneeling, half concealed by a pillar, behind Boemund Altrosen.  He had learned from Biberli at what hour the consecration would take place, and his honest heart bade him attend the service for the dead woman who had so much to forgive him.

The Ortlieb sisters did not see him, but Cordula unconsciously shook her head as she gazed.  Was this grave man, so absorbed in devotion that he did not vouchsafe those who surrounded him even a single glance, the Heinz whose delightful gaiety had captivated her heart?  The linden, with foliage withered by the autumn blasts, was more like the same tree in the spring when the birds were singing in its boughs, than yonder absorbed supplicant resembled the bold Heinz of a few days ago.  The old mocker, Chamberlain Wiesenthau, was right when he told her and her father that morning that the gay Swiss had been transformed by the miracle which had befallen him, like the Saul of holy writ, in the twinkling of an eye, into a Paul.  The calendar-makers were already preparing to assign a day to St. Schorlin.