Count von Montfort.

The old huntsman advanced respectfully towards the Bohemian princess, and
Eva heard the fourteen-year-old wife ask, "Well, Count, how fares your
wish to find the right husband for your wilful daughter?"

"Of course it must be fulfilled, Duchess, since your Highness deigned to
approve it," he answered, with his hand upon his heart.

"And may his name be known?" she queried with evident eagerness, her dark
eyes sparkling brightly and a faint flush tingeing the slight shade of
tan on her child face.

"The duty of a knight and paternal weakness unfortunately still seal my
lips," he answered. "Your Highness knows best that a lady's wish--even if
she is your own child--is a command."

"You are praised as an obedient father," replied the Bohemian with a
slight shrug of the shoulders. "Yet you probably need not conceal whether
the happy man, who is not only encouraged, but this time also chosen by
the charming huntress of many kinds of game, is numbered among our
guests."

"Unfortunately he is denied the pleasure, your Highness," replied the
count; but Cordula, who had noticed Eva, and had heard the Duchess
Agnes's last words, approached her royal foe, and with a low, reverential
bow, said: "My poor heart must imagine him far away from here amid peril
and privation. Instead of breaking ladies' hearts, he is destroying the
castles of robber knights and disturbers of the peace of the country."

The duchess, in silent rage, clenched her white teeth upon her quivering
lips, and was about to make an answer which would scarcely have flattered
Cordula, when the Emperor, who had left his distinguished attendants,
approached Eva, with the Burgravine still leaning on his arm.

She did not notice it; she was vainly trying to interpret the meaning of
Cordula's words. True, she did not know that when no messenger brought
Heinz Schorlin's intercession for Biberli, in whose fate the countess
felt a sincere interest, she had commanded her own betrothed husband to
ride his horse to death in order to tell the master of the sorely
imperilled man what danger threatened his faithful servant, and remind
him, in her name, that gratitude was one of the virtues which beseemed a
true knight, even though the matter in question concerned only a servant
Boemund Altrosen had obeyed, and must have overtaken Heinz long ago and
probably aided him to rout the Siebenburgs and their followers. But
Cordula read the young Bohemian's chi