The bright-hued harvest-crocus had faded in the meadows, and over the blackly green pine forests had come a colder hue; the ferns in the beech wood were beginning to look wan and yellow, as if the thought that autumn was at hand had already dismayed them. The heather was tinged with russet, and all the skies upon which Erna looked, as one morning she gazed discontentedly from the casement of her chamber, were filmed with soft hazes whose faint purple was as intangible as the first shadow of coming twilight, which one feels rather than sees.

Erna sighed as she leaned half over the stone ledge upon which the sun lay warmly. The doves were preening themselves almost within reach of her touch, and she waved her hand impatiently to frighten them away, since in her untoward mood their soft reiterated coo vexed her ears. She had learned in these days, during which she had been seeking pleasure as she had never sought it before, the meaning of ennui. She was restless with the awakened stir of a hundred desires which demanded continual gratification. She longed for excitement, for the movement of crowds, for the delights of the eye and the lusts of the flesh which once would not have awakened in her heart a throb of interest. She wanted continually fresh diversions, new sports, strange revels, rich viands, all the alluring joys of the senses to which she had of old in her innocence and ignorance been so indifferent.

This morning she had been urging her husband to take her to court. Charlemagne was at Mayence, and there were echoes of the gay doings there forward which reached even as far as Rittenberg. The countess longed to see the brave shows, the rich pageants, the gorgeous raiment; to sit at the banquets, and to dazzle the eyes of the gallants with her beauty and her jewels, finer than the queen's own. She had urged upon Albrecht the propriety of paying his respects in person to his sovereign; but her entreaties, her arguments, and her protestations had been alike unavailing. Albrecht was kind in the manner of his refusal, but he was still persistent in it, and in the end Erna had found herself utterly powerless to change his determination not to leave Rittenberg.

"They tell strange tales of the court," he said in reply to her pleading. "There is more license there than it becomes a modest woman to see, and over-much worldliness as well. Surely it were not well to put one's self in a place like this needlessly, beloved."

Erna had answered nothing, but she had left him with a feeling almost like anger in her heart. She knew why he wished to stay at Rittenberg. It was that he might go on with his tiresome studies with Father Christopher, to which Albrecht gave more and more time every day. As for the wickedness of the court, she was a married woman, and with a husband to protect her, and one moreover of a bearing so knightly as that of Von Waldstein, it was not to be supposed that she could come to any harm. She sighed with fresh impatience as she reflected how deeply immersed in the study of spiritual things her husband had become since their marriage. She was not, she assured herself, less fond of him than of old, but it was to the last degree provoking that just as she had learned to appreciate the delight of life, Albrecht should devote so much thought to things which she had laid aside as dull.

As she mused in this fashion, looking out of the window as she had looked when Albrecht rode gallantly out of the pine forest at the foot of the castle hill on that day when Erna first saw him, once more she heard the note of a bugle-horn in the valley, and once more a knight rode out of the covert into sight, followed by his men-at-arms. With eager curiosity Erna peered out at the new-comer, and almost instantly her eye caught sight of the pennon of the Von Rittenbergs of Schaffhausen, and understood that the visitor was her cousin, Count Stephen, who was probably on his return from Strasburg, and who had accepted her invitation to repeat his visit to Rittenberg.

For an instant her cheek flushed with vexation, her old dislike of the count reawakening, but instantly her changed taste asserted itself, and she smiled. She watched the train as it rode up to the gate, and then she turned back into her chamber with joyous haste. It came into her mind that she could make an impression upon her guest, and she began straightway to consider how she should array herself to go to meet him. She chose from her jewel-case a string of rubies, and quickly bound it upon her head like a fillet; and as she did so her woman, Fastrade, came to announce to her the arrival of Count von Rittenberg.

The Lady Adelaide reached the great hall before her, and Count Stephen was speaking with the old dame with his back to the stairway by which Erna descended. The countess was already close to him before he perceived her. Then he wheeled suddenly, almost turning his back upon Lady Adelaide in his astonishment at the beauty of the woman before him. Erna did not lose one shade of the look of amazement and admiration which came into his face as he looked at her.

"God's blood!" he cried. "What has come to thee, Cousin? Indeed, this marriage of which they told me at Mayence has made a new creature of thee. I greet thy ladyship, and that I did not send congratulations on thy marriage is no fault of mine, since it was all over before I knew of it."

"It is no matter," replied Erna, giving him her hand and smiling upon him with a pleased sense of companionship which she had never experienced in his presence before; "since thou hast come in person to bring them, we consent to overlook the fact that thou art somewhat tardy. But hast thou been at Mayence as well as to Strasburg? I did not know that was in thy mind."

"It was not when I left here," he answered, regarding her with so undisguised a look of admiration that she blushed under it and turned aside her eyes; "but being in the way of travelling I pushed on to Mayence, and there I saw the court, and there I heard of thy marriage."

"Fain would we hear of the court," Lady Adelaide said, leading the way to a seat in the broad recess of a window. "Sit thee down here, and tell us what thou canst of the doings and the braveries there, while the page brings thee a cup of wine. I hope too, on my soul, that thou hast more wit in speech of woman's apparel than have most of the knights I have known, for we would know of the raiment of the queen and her damsels, and in good sooth it is seldom that a knight is cunning enough to tell anything of that sort rightly, albeit so simple is it that the most foolish kitchen wench that had but seen the royal train ride past could describe it all."

"And therein is it to be seen that a knight's head is not like that of a foolish kitchen wench," laughed Count Stephen, seating himself comfortably among the cushions beside the two ladies.

"But tell me," Erna said, "from whom didst thou hear of the marriage? It is not likely that it is a topic which is greatly discussed at court."

"The court concerns itself with many a matter that is of less moment," replied he, gallantly; "but it was from a certain Herr von Zimmern that I had the tidings. He was at an inn where I lodged, and when he heard my name he made bold to speak to me. He is an ill-favored knave enough, but a shrewd and a witty."

"I like him not," Erna answered.

A brief silence followed this remark. Erna was confused by the fact that the count, whom she had found so little to her taste before, should now seem to her so agreeable. It was impossible for her not to see from his admiring looks that he was pursuing a somewhat similar train of thought in regard to her, and at the reflection she blushed faintly once more, with a thrill of gratified vanity.

"But where," Count Stephen broke the silence to ask, "is the Baron von Waldstein? I am anxious to meet my new relative, and," he added, with a look into the face of Erna, "my successful rival."

"My husband," she replied, vainly trying to appear as if she had not heard the latter part of his remark, "is with Father Christopher. They study together sometimes."

"God's blood!" cried Von Rittenberg, with a burst of laughter, "hast thou then married a clerk, Cousin? Fain would I see this new master of Rittenberg that studies with a priest. If the Huns come, thou mayst have to call upon the younger branch of the family to defend thee," he added, turning to the Lady Adelaide. "At least we can bear swords if we be only the 'Schaffleute.' We are not to be looked for in the cells of priests."

"Body of Saint Fridolin!" cried Lady Adelaide, in angry return. "It is not to outsiders that we have been forced to look for defence in the past, and it were well that thou seest the new lord before thou speakest scorn of him so lightly. Belike it were not so well were he to hear thee!"

"My husband is here to speak for himself," Erna interposed, rising with great dignity as Albrecht, summoned by a page, came into the hall.

The count looked at the superb figure which advanced toward him, and for an instant he stood struck dumb with astonishment.

"God's blood!" he cried out so loudly that Albrecht heard him half-way across the wide hall. "That is not a man; it is a god!"

"It is the lord of our poor castle!" returned Lady Adelaide, sweeping him a sarcastic courtesy. "Accept our thanks that thou hast promised to defend it and him from the Huns when they come."