is sweetheart, who gave him Eva's little
note, he had arranged to meet her again in an hour or, if his duties
detained him longer, in two; but after the "true and steadfast" fellow
left her, her heart throbbed more and more anxiously, for the wrong
she had done in acting as messenger between the young daughter of her
employers and a stranger knight was indeed hard to forgive.

Instead of waiting in the kitchen or entry for her lover's return, as
she had intended, she had gone to the image of the Virgin at the gate of
the Convent of St. Clare, before which she had often found consolation,
especially when homesick yearning for the mountains of her native
Switzerland pressed upon her too sorely. This time also it had been
gracious to her, for after she had prayed very devoutly and vowed to
give a candle to the Mother of God, as well as to St. Clare, she
fancied that the image smiled upon her and promised that she should go
unpunished.

On her return the knight had just followed Eva into the house, and
Biberli pursued his master as far as the stairs. Here Katterle met her
lover, but, when she learned what was occurring, she became greatly
enraged and incensed by the base interpretation which the servant placed
upon Eva's going out into the street and, terrified by the danger into
which the knight threatened to plunge them all, she forgot the patience
and submission she was accustomed to show the true and steadfast
Biberli. But--resolved to protect her young mistress from the
presumptuous knight-scarcely had she angrily cried shame upon her lover
for this base suspicion, protesting that Eva had never gone to seek a
knight but, as she had often done on bright moonlight nights, walked in
her sleep down the stairs and out of doors, when the young girl's shriek
of terror summoned her to her aid.

Biberli looked after her sullenly, meanwhile execrating bitterly enough
the wild love which had robbed his master of reason and threatened to
hurl him, Biberli, and even the innocent Katterle, whose brave defence
of her mistress had especially pleased him, into serious misfortune.

When old Endres appeared he had slipped behind a wall formed of bales
heaped one above another, and did not stir until the entry was quiet
again.

To his amazement he had then found his master standing beside the door
of the house, but his question--which, it is true, was not wholly devoid
of a shade of sarcasm--whether the knight was waiting for the ret