be back
directly."

"What do you intend to do?" asked Eva timidly, still unable, under the
influence of her strange experiences, to regain her self-control.

"To look around the house," replied her sister, beckoning to Katterle to
accompany her.

In the entry she questioned the maid with stern decision, and the
trembling girl owned, amid her tears, that Eva had sent a little note to
the knight in reply to his request that she would name her colour, and
whatever else her anxious mistress desired hastily to learn.

After a threatening "We will discuss your outrageous conduct later," Els
hurried down-stairs, and found in the entry the man whose pleasure in the
pursuit of the innocent child whom she protected she meant to spoil. But
though she expressed her indignation to the knight with the utmost
harshness, he besought a hearing with so much respect and in such seemly
words, that she requested him, in a gentler tone, to speak freely. But
scarcely had he begun to relate how Eva, at the ball, had filled his
heart with the purest love, when the trampling of horses' hoofs, which
had come nearer and nearer to the house, suddenly ceased, and Biberli,
who had gone into the court-yard, came hurrying back, exclaiming in a
tone of warning, "The von Montforts!"

At the same moment two men-servants threw back both leaves of the door,
torchlight mingled with the moonbeams in the courtyard, and the next
instant a goodly number of knights and gentlemen entered the hall.

Biberli was not mistaken. The von Montforts had returned home, instead of
spending the night at Kadolzburg, and neither Els nor the Swiss had the
time or disposition to seek concealment.

The intruders were preceded by men-servants, whose torches lighted the
long, lofty storehouse brilliantly. It seemed to Els as if her heart
stopped beating and she felt her cheeks blanch.

Here she beheld Count von Montfort's bronzed face, the countenance of a
sportsman and reveller; yonder the frank, handsome features of the young
Burgrave, Eitelfritz von Zollern, framed by the hood of the Knights of
St. John, drawn up during the night-ride; there the pale, noble visage of
the quiet knight Boemund Altrosen, far famed for his prowess with lance
and sword; beyond, the scarred, martial countenance of Count Casper
Schlick, set in a mass of tangled brown locks; and then the watery, blue
eyes of Sir Seitz Siebenburg, the husband of her future sister-in-law
Isabella.

They had pre