urn of
his sleep-walking sweetheart, was so harshly rebuffed that he deemed it
advisable to keep silence for a time.

Though Heinz Schorlin had perceived that he had followed an unconscious
somnambulist, he was not yet capable of calmly reflecting upon what had
occurred or of regarding the future with prudence. He knew one thing
only: the fear was idle that the lovely creature whose image, surrounded
by a halo of light, still hovered before him like a vision from a
higher, more beautiful world, was an unworthy person who, with a face
of angelic innocence, transgressed the laws of custom and modesty. Her
shriek of terror, her horror at seeing him, and the cry for help which
had brought her sister to her aid and roused the servants from their
sleep, gave him the right to esteem her as highly as ever; and this
conviction fanned into such a blaze the feeling of happiness which love
had awakened and his foolish distrust had already begun to stifle, that
he was firmly resolved, cost what it might, to make Eva his own.

After he had reached this determination he began to reflect more
quietly. What cared he for liberty and a rapid advance in the career
upon which he had entered, if only his future life was beautified by her
love!

If he were required to woo her in the usual form, he would do so. And
what a charming yet resolute creature was the other E, who, in her
anxiety about her sister, had crossed his path with such grave, firm
dignity! She was Wolff Eysvogel's betrothed bride, and it seemed to
him a very pleasant thing to call the young man, whom he had so quickly
learned to esteem, his brother-in-law.

If the father refused his daughter to him, he would leave Nuremberg and
ride to the Rhine, where Hartmann, the Emperor Rudolph's son, whom he
loved like a younger brother, was now living. Heinz had instructed the
lad of eighteen in the use of the lance and the sword, and Hartmann had
sent him word the day before that the Rhine was beautiful, but without
him he but half enjoyed even the pleasantest things. He needed him.
Hundreds of other knights and squires could break in the new horses for
the Emperor and the young Bohemian princess, though perhaps not quite
so skilfully. Hartmann would understand him and persuade his imperial
father to aid him in his suit. The warmhearted youth could not bear to
see him sorrowful, and without Eva there was no longer joy or happiness.

He was roused from these thoughts and dreams by