o have any privy speech together. But that good man forgot not,
even over the wine-jar, what might pleasure other folks; and albeit it
was hard for him to quit a merry drinking-bout he was the first to move
away. We were alone by sundown. The Magister had been carried to bed and
woke not till noon on the morrow.

The plighted couple sat once more in the oriel where they had so often
sat in happier days, and seeing them talking and fondling in the
gathering dusk, meseemed for a while that that glad winter season had
come again in which they had rejoiced in the springtide of their love.

Thus the hours passed, and I was in the very act of enquiry whether it
were not time to light the lamps, when we heard voices on the stairs, and
Cousin Maud came in saying that Sir Franz had made his way into the
house, and that he declared that his weal or woe, nay and his life lay in
Herdegen's hand, so that she had not the heart to refuse to suffer him to
come in. Hereupon my brother started up in a rage, but the chamber door
was opened, and with the maid, who brought the lamp in, the Bohemian
crossed the threshold. We maids would fain have quitted them; but the
knight besought us to remain, saying, as his eyes humbly sued to mine,
that rather should I tarry and speak a good word for him. Then, when
Herdegen called upon him to speak, but did not hold forth his hand, Sir
Franz besought him to suffer him to be his comrade in his pilgrimage.
Howbeit so doleful a fellow was by no means pleasing in my brother's
eyes, and so he right plainly gave him to understand; then the Bohemian
called to mind their former friendship, and entreated him to put himself
in his place and not to forget that he, as a man sound of limb, would
have avenged the scorn put on him by Rochow in fair fight instead of with
a dagger-thrust. They were condemned to a like penance and, if Herdegen
would not suffer him and give him his company, this would be the
death-blow to his blighted honor.

Hereupon I appealed to my brother right earnestly, beseeching him not to
reject his former friend if it were only for love of me. And inasmuch as
on that day his whole soul was filled with love, his hardness was
softened, and how gladly and thankfully my heart beat when I beheld him
give his hand to the man who had endured so much woe for my sake.

Presently, while they were yet speaking of their departing, again there
were voices without; and albeit I could scarce believe my ear