kissing her hand
with fervour, he cried, "O that you would honour me so far, beautiful
Bona, as to demand of me some proof of my sincerity!"

"Take care that I don't keep you to your word," replied Bona with a
lovely smile. "I might ask something of serious difficulty, and you
would then come off with disgrace."

"No, fair lady; you don't escape me so this time," protested Rasselwitz
with great animation. "You must rather allow me to keep _you_ to your
word. Demand any proof of my love, as hard and earnest as you can
devise, and, if I deny it to you, banish me from your presence for
ever."

"Do you know the man who just now left the garden?" asked Bona with
apparent calmness.

"Why should I not?" replied Rasselwitz. "It was Francis Friend, the
wild son of the old burgomaster."

"Challenge him for life or death," said Bona, "and I am yours."

Rasselwitz stared at the blood-thirsty beauty, and at length said with
a confused smile, "You must be jesting, noble lady? What good could you
get by egging us on to murder each other?"

"There are many gates through which hatred may enter the human breast,"
replied Bona with piercing looks; "and, if that be true which has been
told me, you also cannot possibly be a friend to this Francis."

"By heavens! I detest him as my worst sins, but I cannot challenge
him."

Upon this Bona started up and demanded with a look of scorn and
contempt, "Do you want the courage for it?"

"Only _you_ dare ask me that," replied Rasselwitz, starting up in his
turn; "and to you only could I give a cool answer. I have never shunned
the game of swords; but my knightly word binds me; I pledged it to the
prince palatine on the settling of that awkward business the other day,
and, if the monster does not begin again himself, he will have quiet
for me as long as he lives."

"Does not then the wish of your beloved weigh more with you than this
promise?" asked Bona in soul-melting tones; and, laying her hand upon
his shoulder, she gazed on him with a look that glowed through his
pulses and gave wings to them.

"You have not understood me, noble lady," replied Rasselwitz earnestly.
"We are talking here of my knightly word, on which depends my honour,
and consequently my earthly being. If this adamantine chain were to
hold no longer, what tie in the world could be relied on?"

"A clever brain would know how to manage a quarrel, and yet throw the
appearance of the first aggression upon his advers