" replied Wolff, glancing anxiously up the
street. "If the patrol, or any nocturnal reveller should catch sight of
us, it would be ill for the fair fame of the Ortlieb sisters, for
everybody knows that only one--Els's betrothed lover--has a right to
await a greeting here at so late an hour. So follow me into the shadow of
the linden, I entreat you; for yonder--surely you see it too--a figure is
gliding towards us."

Heinz Schorlin's laugh rang out like a bell as he whispered to the
Nuremberg patrician: "That figure is familiar to me, and neither we nor
our ladies need fear any evil from it. Excuse me moment, and I'll wager
twenty gold florins against yonder linden leaf that, ere the moonlight
has left the curbstone, I can tell you my lady's colour."

As he spoke he hastened towards the figure, now, standing motionless
within the shadow of the door post beside the lofty entrance.

Wolff Eysvogel remained alone, gazing thoughtfully upon the ground.

CHAPTER VIII.

The silent wanderer above had expected to behold a scene very unlike an
interview between two men. The latter required neither her purest,
fullest light, nor the shadow of a blossoming linden.

Now Luna saw the young Nuremberg merchant gaze after the Swiss with an
expression of such deep anxiety and pain upon his manly features that she
felt the utmost pity for him. He did not look upward as usual to the
window of his beautiful Els, but either fixed his eyes upon the spot
where his new acquaintance was conversing with another person, or bent
them anxiously upon the ground.

As Wolff thought of Heinz Schorlin, it seemed as if Fate had thrown him
into the way of the Swiss that he might feel with twofold anguish the
thorns besetting his own life path. The young knight was proffered the
rose without the thorn. What cares had he? The present threw into his lap
its fairest blessings, and when he looked into the future he beheld only
the cheering buds of hope.

Yet this favourite of fortune had expressed a desire to change places
with him. The thought that many others, too, would be glad to step into
his shoes tortured Wolff's honest heart as though he himself were to
blame for the delusion of these short-sighted folk.

Apart from his strength and health, his well-formed body, his noble
birth, his faith in the love of his betrothed bride--at this hour he
forgot how much these things were--he found nothing in his lot which
seemed worth desiring.

He mi