ril, but the knight
merely flung him the peevish answer, "So much the better," and, to
Biberli's surprise, turned into St. Klarengasse, which brought him by no
means nearer to his distant lodgings in the Bindergasse.

It was unfortunate to be warmly devoted to a master who had no fear,
whom he was obliged to serve as a messenger of love, and who now
probably scarcely knew himself whither this love would lead him.

But true and steadfast Biberli would really have followed Sir Heinz, not
only in a dangerous nocturnal ramble, but through all the terrors of.
hell. So he only glanced down at his long, lean legs, which would be
exposed here to the bites of the dogs, with whom he stood on especially
bad terms, raised his long robe higher, as the paths over which they
must pass were of doubtful cleanliness, and deemed it a good omen
when his foot struck against a stout stick, which his patron saint
had perhaps thrown in his way as a weapon. Its possession was somewhat
soothing, it is true, yet he did not regain the pleasant consciousness
of peace in which his soul had rejoiced a few short hours before.

He knew what to expect from the irritable mood into which recent events
appeared to have thrown his master. Heinz usually soon forgot any such
trivial disappointment, but the difficulty threatening himself and
Katterle was far worse--nay, might even assume terrible proportions.

These alarming thoughts made him sigh so deeply that Heinz turned
towards him.

He would gladly have relieved his own troubled breast in the same way.
Never before had the soul of this light-hearted child of good fortune
served as the arena for so fierce a struggle of contending emotions.

He loved Eva, and the image of her white, supernaturally beautiful
figure, flooded by the moonlight, still stood before him as distinctly
as when, after her disappearance, he had resolved to plead his suit
for her to her sister; but the usually reckless fellow asked himself,
shuddering, what would have happened had he obeyed Eva's summons and
been found with her, as he had just been surprised with her sister. She
was not wholly free from guilt, for her note had really contained an
invitation to a meeting; yet she escaped. But his needless impetuosity
and her sudden appearance before the house had placed her modest,
charming sister, the betrothed bride of the gallant fellow who had
fought with him in the Marchfield, in danger of being misunderstood and
despised. I