The young envoy of the Council, Herr Lienhard Groland, lingered behind the others and seemed to be taking a survey of the room.

What bright, keen eyes he had; how delicately cut was the oval face with the strong, very slightly hooked nose; how thick were the waving brown locks that fell upon the slender neck; how well the pointed beard suited his chin; with what austere majesty his head rose above the broad, plaited, snow-white ruff, which he must have just donned!

Now his eyes rested upon the vagrants, and Dietel perceived something which threw him completely off his balance; for the first time he changed the position of his napkin, jerking it from its place under his left arm to tuck it beneath the right one.  He had known Kuni a long time.  In her prosperous days, when she was the ornament of Loni’s band and had attracted men as a ripe pear draws wasps, she had often been at the tavern, and both he and the landlord of The Pike had greeted her cordially, for whoever sought her favour was obliged to order the best and dearest of everything, not only for her and himself, but for a whole tableful of hungry guests.  When she had met him just now he would never have recognised her had she not been in Gundel’s company.  True, the sight of her in this plight was not unexpected, yet it pierced him to the heart, for Kuni had been a remarkable girl, and yet was now in far greater penury than many of much less worth whom he had watched stumbling along the downward path before her.  When he saw Lienhard Groland’s glance rest upon her, he noticed also how strangely her emaciated face changed colour.  Though it had just been as white as the napkin under his arm, it now flushed as red as the balsam blossoms in the window, and then paled again.  She had formerly gazed around her boldly enough, but now she lowered her eyes to the floor as modestly as any demure maiden on her way to church.

And what did this mean?

The honourable member of the Nuremberg Council must be well acquainted with the girl, for his eyes had scarcely met hers ere a strange smile flitted over his grave, manly face.

Now—­was it in jest or earnest?—­he even shook his finger at her.  He stopped in front of her a moment, too, and Dietel heard him exclaim: 

“So here you are!  On the highway again, in spite of everything?”

The distance which separated them and the loud talking of the guests prevented the waiter’s hearing her reply, “The captive bird can not endure the cage long, Herr Lienhard,” far less the words, added in a lower tone: 

“Yet flight has been over since my fall at Augsburg.  My foot lies buried there with many other things which will never return.  I can only move on wheels behind the person who takes me.”  Then she paused and ventured to look him full in the face.  Her eyes met his beaming with a radiant light, but directly after they were dimmed by a mist of tears.  Yet she forced them back, though the deep suffering from which they sprung was touchingly apparent in the tone of her voice, as she continued: