The eyes of both Erna and of Count Stephen turned to the spear, as the damsel spoke; and most vividly before the mind of the countess came up the picture of Albrecht as he had flung it on his wedding eve, full of buoyant life and of joyful love.
"I have noticed that spear before," Count Stephen said, turning toward his cousin. "How came it there? Did the baron in sooth throw it across the hall?"
"Yea," she answered; and then she was silent because there came over her a feeling that she had been untrue to her husband by the leaning toward her companion of which she had been half conscious in her secret heart.
"It was indeed a shrewd shot," observed Count Stephen, looking upward to the spear, which was high above their heads.
Erna did not reply. Suddenly there came into her mind, with the picture of that evening when the spear was thrown, the remembrance of the ring which had been given her by Herr von Zimmern and taken from her by Albrecht. She tried to recall exactly what had been said, but she had forgotten her husband"s words, only half heard when they were spoken.
She wondered why the ring had never been restored to her, and dimly she recalled to mind the fact that it had been engraved with symbols which had looked to her in the brief moment she had seen the jewel, strange and mysterious.
"Albrecht," she said to him when they had mounted and were riding out of the courtyard into the way which led down the hill, "dost thou not remember the ring that Herr von Zimmern would have given me on the eve of our wedding day?"
A faint shadow crossed his face. He did not look toward her, but pretended to busy himself with the bridle of his horse.
"Yes," he said, "I remember it. It was overbold of him."
"I see not that; but that is no matter now. What I was wondering was that thou didst never give me the jewel."
"Hast thou not rings enough?" he asked lightly, although Erna could see that her words troubled him. "I will give thee more jewels if so be that there were not enough in the caskets."
"But why not that ring?" Erna persisted, urged on by a secret conviction that here was some mystery. "I seem to remember that Herr von Zimmern said something about wonderful powers in that ring which other jewels have not. I would have the chance to test the matter for myself."
"The ring," Albrecht answered with a seriousness which impressed her, and which yet rendered her only the more anxious to possess the jewel, "had indeed strange powers, but they were unhallowed ones. It were not fitting that a Christian avail himself of the spells which have been wrought by sinful sorceresses."
"Thou art truly become virtuous," Erna retorted with a tone in which she had never before spoken to her husband. "Good sooth, when thou camest to Rittenberg I heard nothing of scruples so nice!"
Albrecht turned and regarded her with a glance so reproachful and so full of pain that she could not bear it. She struck her palfrey sharply with her whip, and dashed recklessly down the hill, crying out to Count Stephen, who had been in advance a little until she thus ran by him, to race with her. Tears of vexation were in her eyes as she dashed down the woodland path, and the sting of her own words wounded her to the quick.
She became recklessly gay, and all through the afternoon when she was not separated from her cousin by the chances of the chase she jested and laughed with demonstrative merriment.
Through the thickets where the leaves had begun to fall, under pine boughs which had strewn the ground thick with brown spicy needles year after year until the horses" feet bounded upon an elastic cushion, past rocks violet in the sun and rose-hued in the half shadows, over meadows set with jewel-tinted autumn flowers, sped the hunt, the mellow baying of the deep-mouthed hounds ringing out upon the air, and the horn from time to time waking all the echoes into inspiring music. Erna kept well to the front. She had never ridden so recklessly, and never before had the pa.s.sion of the sport so fired her blood. She was, moreover, trying to escape from the smart of the taunt which she had flung at her husband, and her palfrey flew so fast that sometimes she even led the way for the huntsmen to follow.
Count Stephen was never far away from her. Close behind or beside her as the ways through which they sped allowed him, he pressed forward with the countess; and Erna was well aware that he had set himself to keep with her, and that his quest that day was not simply the stag which was fleeing before the deep-baying hounds, but rather the love of the woman with whom he went crashing through the thickets where the leaves came down in showers about the horses and the wood-scents rose balsamic or musky under the beat of the swift hoofs of their steeds. She was so conscious of his presence that she could not look at him, but kept her face turned away, urging her palfrey forward rather as if she were fleeing than as if she were of the band of pursuers.
And now and then, too, she had a strange sense that she was not alone with her companion, but as if some unseen creature were following and were watching her. She tried to shake off the notion; but when the thickets rustled after they had both drawn rein to listen for the hounds and to recover again the trail which they had for a moment lost, she had started and shivered, remembering the sprites of the wood that have the power of walking invisible. Then she would glance at the count and backward to where Fastrade strove to urge her palfrey forward lest she lose track of her mistress altogether, and with a new smile upon her lips would once more rush madly forward.
The hunt was not long. It was swift and dashing, the stag seeming to exhaust himself in one grand burst at the outset; and before the light of the autumn afternoon had waned the yelping of the hounds and the baying of the beagles told that they were almost upon their prey. Erna and Count Stephen were riding desperately, following the trail; but now the countess, who knew the country better than her companion, suddenly struck off along the side of a hill which the hunt had crossed.
"Come this way," she called back over her shoulder to her cousin. "We shall intercept them thus at the end of the valley. The stag has doubled."
He followed without hesitation, and in brief s.p.a.ce they burst through a thicket to find themselves at the head of a little valley carpeted with turf still green and untouched by the frost, and set around with beech trees whose leaves were shining with the slanting beams of the sun, which shot through a break in the hills at their left hand. The whole vale was illumined with the red light, and into it, just as they came out of the wood, dashed a superb stag of ten, the dogs already at his throat; and close upon his track, almost within arm"s length, madly rode Albrecht.
"I thought the baron had been behind," Count Stephen exclaimed in astonishment.
"His woodcraft is too good," Erna returned. "It is idle to match with him; he has outridden us. He must have cut across our track at the last turning. Mother of G.o.d!"
Her cry was one of mingled astonishment and of dread. Her husband had taken advantage of a stumble which the unhappy stag made, the good dog Gelert being already at the beast"s throat, to drive his horse abreast of the deer, to leap from his saddle, and to seize the fleeing animal by its mighty horns. The pair on the hillside opposite drew rein involuntarily, and Erna tried to call out to Albrecht, in the vain hope that he might free himself from a position of so much danger. Before she could speak, however, he had thrown all his force into one powerful effort, and before their eyes had twisted the head of the stag half-way around. The creature dropped with its neck broken, falling among the yelping hounds and at the feet of Rupert, the master of the pack, as suddenly as if an arrow had reached his heart.
"By the wounds of G.o.d!" cried Count von Rittenberg, p.r.i.c.king his horse forward down the hillside; "what a giant is this!"
Erna hastened after, her heart beating, and all her body burning with the sudden rush of blood that for one breathless instant had seemed to gather itself into her heart, leaving her cold and lifeless. She had never seen her husband as in this act he had revealed himself to her, and she was divided between wonder and a fearful admiration. He had seemed a creature more than human as he bent the mighty neck of the great stag, and there was in her proud sense of his prowess not a little feeling of dread and too of strangeness, as if this hunter were not only the husband she knew, but some strange being whose true nature she had never before suspected. As her palfrey carried her across the narrow valley, she remembered the taunt she had flung at him as they left the castle, and it flashed through her mind that anger at herself might have mingled with the excitement of the chase to move him.
The hunt was all about the dead stag by the time Erna reached the spot.
Albrecht came forward to help her dismount. His eyes were shining, his cheek was flushed, and under the open collar of his hunting-jacket, pushed back from his throat, his chest rose and fell. He had never looked handsomer, and as he swung his wife down from her palfrey, she brushed his hand with a quick kiss. The restless fancies which had been weaving themselves about her and drawing her nearer as in a net toward Count Stephen seemed to be snapped and swept aside in an instant, and her heart was as truly her husband"s as on the day when she had wed.
XVIII
HOW HERR VON ZIMMERN CAME AGAIN.
For a night and for a day Erna"s love of her husband burned again with its most ardent flame; but Albrecht, so far from rejoicing as she did in the mighty feat he had done at the stag-hunt, seemed to be repentant that his old-time mood should have got the better of him, and when Erna told the tale of his prowess to her great-aunt the baron hastened to change the conversation, and that with the air of regretting and being ashamed of having given way to the impulse of the moment.
So strangely changed was Erna from the maiden who had welcomed Albrecht to Rittenberg that she could not even understand a feeling so nice, but only felt with a secret irritation that contempt which any mortal feels for a prejudice which he has outgrown; and nothing appears more foolish and contemptible than a scruple that has been outlived. Albrecht and Erna had changed each other, but the impetus in each case had been so strong that both were carried beyond the point where their tastes and desires came together. It was as if two stars had attracted each other, and then shot past the place where they met, parting again from the stress of the very force which had drawn them toward one another. Every day they seemed to have less in common. The glories of the spiritual drew Albrecht as strongly and as irresistibly as the delights of the senses attracted Erna, to whom all this was a new world. They had pa.s.sed each other, and now they were parting more and yet more widely.
However little he understood the cause of this, Count Stephen was keenly aware of the fact that Albrecht and Erna were not fully in harmony, and he neglected no effort which might increase the breach between husband and wife. He had set himself to win the love of his cousin, and it was an important part of his game to nourish the growing lack of sympathy between Von Waldstein and the countess. Nor was the count without a deal of cleverness in the way he set to work to accomplish his purpose. He said nothing directly; he made no move openly; but with a thousand insidious words which in themselves meant little but which together were a mighty power for evil, he nourished the sparks of discontent in Erna"s mind, and continually kept her attention fixed upon the fact that her husband was more engrossed in his studies with the priest than with her wishes and her beauty. He surrounded her with a dangerous and seductive atmosphere of devotion and of pa.s.sionate admiration, furnishing her conscience with a ready excuse, should it take alarm, by claiming the right to admire her in virtue of his cousinship.
How much of this Albrecht saw or knew, Von Rittenberg could not divine.
Sometimes he had an uncomfortable feeling that the baron was better aware than appeared of what was going on, but as Albrecht gave no sign he consoled himself with the belief that his host was too deeply absorbed in his pious studies to heed whether one made love to Erna or not.
It was not many days after the stag-hunt that Herr von Zimmern suddenly appeared at the castle. Whence he came no one knew, but as they sat at breakfast in the hall he entered, and with no more greeting than if he had parted from them all on the evening before, he took his place at the board and ate with the rest.
Count Stephen regarded him closely. There was something in the manner of this man which attracted his attention, and it had seemed to him that a shadow crossed the brow of the master of the castle when the new-comer appeared. Von Rittenberg instinctively felt that here might be an ally.
He understood that Von Zimmern had been a retainer of the baron, and it seemed to him natural enough to suppose that the man might be in possession of secrets concerning the former life of Albrecht which, discreetly poured into the ear of Erna, would aid him in his dishonorable wooing.
He greeted Von Zimmern with warmth, recalling their meeting at Mayence, and expressing pleasure at seeing him again. The cunning eyes of Herr Frederich twinkled upon him as he spoke, and Stephen felt that here was a man to understand him, and more than before was he sure that in Albrecht"s former tutor he should find one to a.s.sist him in his schemes.
He watched for what speech should be between the baron and the other, and as they left the hall, he saw the master of the castle lay his hand upon the man"s shoulder. Hastily the count approached them, and while he seemed intent upon searching in his pouch for something which he wanted, he contrived to overhear what was said between them.
"Herr Frederich," Albrecht said, his voice so even that the listener could not determine whether he spoke in approval or in disapprobation, "we had not thought to see thee again at Rittenberg. When I set thee at liberty, it was to rejoin thy family."
"My family, gracious Sir," the other replied in a voice as pa.s.sionless as Albrecht"s own, "my family I found not. Only their graves were left to tell that they had ever been."
The hand of the baron dropped from the shoulder of the cripple, and an expression of pain contracted his features. He stood an instant in silence, and then with an evident struggle he held out his hand.
"Regret cannot change the past," he said; "but for the future--"
He seemed suddenly to become conscious that the count was so near him, and broke off in his speech, going hastily out of the hall. Nor did it escape the notice of Count Stephen that Von Zimmern looked after him with an expression of hatred so intense that his whole face was transformed by it into the likeness of a demon.
The coming of Herr Frederich to Rittenberg seemed to increase the gayety that already reigned there. He devoted himself to devising fresh amus.e.m.e.nts; and although Count Stephen suspected that his jollity was but feigning, he was the merriest of them all, and provoked them constantly to laughter and to jesting.
"Body of Saint Fridolin!" cried Lady Adelaide, when one night he had made them all shout with laughter over the merry tales which he told as they sat around the fire in the hall, "thou art a mad wag. One can see that no care or sorrow ever trouble thine heart."
And Count Stephen saw how Albrecht regarded the story-teller from where he sat somewhat in the shadow, sighing as if he were aware that under this gayety there were both pain and bitterness.
From day to day as the time went on, Count Stephen discovered that without his having asked aid from Herr von Zimmern, the latter was working for him. There was nothing open, and nothing which by itself might not have been the result of accident. It was only that Herr Frederich would engage Albrecht in conversation or lead him away that Count Stephen might be left alone with Erna; or again he would remark casually that he had seen the countess sitting by herself, and that her husband was with Father Christopher; hints which enabled Von Rittenberg to be with his cousin almost constantly, and much of the time without witnesses.
As warmly as he dared, the count pressed his suit. He was too determined to win to risk a rash declaration in words of the pa.s.sion which really consumed him. He was a man so accustomed to succeed in such a quest as this that the difficulty of the present endeavor increased his ardor an hundred-fold. The looks, half of reproof and half of invitation, which Erna gave him, the beauty in which she glowed yet more richly every day, incited him to a madness which was fast reaching a point beyond his control. He trembled as he approached his cousin, and he felt that she was aware of his pa.s.sion; and yet, though he saw her cast down her eyes when he came and follow him with longing looks when he went, he dared not speak. He was too well aware that when he spoke he put all to the test, and that he must lose or gain upon a single cast. He knew his cousin well enough, and the Von Rittenberg blood, to feel sure that if she did not listen with yielding favor to his suit, she would no longer tolerate his presence at the castle; and he feared to put into word that which he yet told her by look and mien a hundred times each day.