"No walls may cage him,
No cares engage him,
No wars enrage him,
No castles can hold;
He roams with the breezes,
He loves where he pleases,
Ambition ne'er teases
His heart free and bold.
"The gypsy lover
From dreams that hover
Awakes to discover
His loved one nigh;
Oh, the joy of the hour
When hid in some bower
His passion's full power
No word can deny!
"Then lip to lip meeting,
Gives love's fullest greeting,
And hearts hotly beating
Respond each to each.
Then breast to breast straining
Fresh raptures is gaining,
And past all restraining
Love's ecstasies reach!"
Despite herself, Erna felt the hot blushes chasing one another over her face. She leaned backward to be in the shadow, while Albrecht bent over to touch under the chin the damsel Elsa, who stood close by behind the chair of the Lady Adelaide.
"By my sword!" he cried gayly; "but the gypsy maid's song is of warmer stuff than thine."
Herr Frederich chuckled, and Erna flushed more deeply still.
"Come," she said, rising, "we have had enough. The night air is becoming chill."
"And besides," Herr Frederich said softly, "it is time that the bride were conducted to her chamber."
She turned away from him, giving no sign if she heard; and the little party returned to the great hall, where indeed the maidens of the castle soon assembled to lead Erna to the bridal chamber, to the white and perfumed bride-bed which Father Christopher had blessed with prayer in his soul no less than upon his lips.
All white and blessed, like a blossom of the hawthorne over whose snow the flush of early morn casts a rosy tint, Erna lay to await the quick coming of the bridegroom, while the unknown world of married love stretched out before her, mystic, enticing, yet not without dread. One by one the steps of her maidens died down the corridor, and ringing upon its stone floor she heard the footsteps of Albrecht, swift with eagerness. And as if with an instinct half prophetic she almost comprehended that this marriage meant the saving or the wrecking of souls; so that when her husband came into the chamber and bent over to kiss her, warm and flushed, and glowing with love and with laughter, she threw her arms about his neck with sudden and inexplicable tears.