aint flush tingeing the slight shade
of tan on her child face.

"The duty of a knight and paternal weakness unfortunately still seal my
lips," he answered. "Your Highness knows best that a lady's wish--even
if she is your own child--is a command."

"You are praised as an obedient father," replied the Bohemian with
a slight shrug of the shoulders. "Yet you probably need not conceal
whether the happy man, who is not only encouraged, but this time also
chosen by the charming huntress of many kinds of game, is numbered among
our guests."

"Unfortunately he is denied the pleasure, your Highness," replied the
count; but Cordula, who had noticed Eva, and had heard the Duchess
Agnes's last words, approached her royal foe, and with a low,
reverential bow, said: "My poor heart must imagine him far away from
here amid peril and privation. Instead of breaking ladies' hearts, he is
destroying the castles of robber knights and disturbers of the peace of
the country."

The duchess, in silent rage, clenched her white teeth upon her quivering
lips, and was about to make an answer which would scarcely have
flattered Cordula, when the Emperor, who had left his distinguished
attendants, approached Eva, with the Burgravine still leaning on his
arm.

She did not notice it; she was vainly trying to interpret the meaning of
Cordula's words. True, she did not know that when no messenger brought
Heinz Schorlin's intercession for Biberli, in whose fate the countess
felt a sincere interest, she had commanded her own betrothed husband
to ride his horse to death in order to tell the master of the sorely
imperilled man what danger threatened his faithful servant, and remind
him, in her name, that gratitude was one of the virtues which beseemed a
true knight, even though the matter in question concerned only a servant
Boemund Altrosen had obeyed, and must have overtaken Heinz long ago
and probably aided him to rout the Siebenburgs and their followers.
But Cordula read the young Bohemian's child heart, and it afforded
her special pleasure to deal her a heavy blow in the warfare they were
waging, which perhaps might aid another purpose.

The surprise and bewilderment which the countess's answer had aroused in
Eva heightened the spell of her beauty.

Had she heard aright? Could Heinz really have sued for the countess's
hand and been accepted? Surely, surely not! Neither was capable of such
perfidy, such breach of faith. Spite of the testimony of