the horse. If
he still lived and breathed and saw the grey clouds drifting across the
sky, this was granted only that he might secure his eternal salvation,
to which hitherto he had given so little concern. How grateful he ought
to be that this respite had been allowed him--that he had not been
snatched away unwarned, like Prince Hartmann, in the midst of his sins!

Would not Eva feel the same when she learned what had befallen him?
Perhaps Biberli would come back soon--he had been gone so long--and
could tell him about her.

Even before the thunderbolt had stirred the inmost depths of his being,
when he was merely touched by his deep grief and the monk's admonition,
he had striven to guide the servant and his sweetheart into the right
path, and the grey-haired monk aided him. The monastic life, it is true,
would not have suited Biberli, but he had shown himself ready to atone
for the wrong done the poor girl who had kept her troth for three long
years and, unasked, went back with her to her angry master.

Ere Heinz set forth on his ride to the fortress he had gone
out declaring that he would prove the meaning of his truth and
steadfastness, thereby incurring a peril which certainly gave him a
right to wear the T and St on his long robe and cap forever. He must
expect to be held to a strict account by Ernst Ortlieb. If the incensed
father, who was a member of the Council, used the full severity of the
law, he might fare even worse than ill. But he had realised the pass
to which he had brought his sweetheart, and the Minorite led his honest
heart to the perception of the sin he would commit if he permitted
her to atone for an act which she had done by his desire--nay, at his
command.

With the gold Heinz had given him, and after his assurance that he would
retain him in his service even when a married man, he could, it is true,
more easily endure being punished with her who, as his wife, would soon
be destined to share evil with him as well as good. He had also secured
the aid of both his master and the Minorite, and had arranged an account
of what had occurred, which placed his own crime and the maid's in a
milder light. Finally--and he hoped the best result from this--Katterle
would bring the Ortliebs good news, and he was the very man to make it
useful to Jungfrau Els.

So he had committed his destiny to his beloved master, behind whom was
the Emperor himself, to the Minorite, who, judging from his great age
and