"Soulless no longer," Albrecht murmured, bending his head as if against a storm.
"What hast thou done!" the priest continued. "How hast thou dared to wed the countess with such a secret between you?"
"Father," the baron returned, laying his hand upon the other's arm, and speaking with more coolness than could have been expected, "it is only to-day when I awake with a soul, that I realize what I have done. How could I know before? I was like the beasts in the forest, and I have understood good and evil only as they. Now that the higher light has burst upon me, it dazzles and blinds me. I see only that I have wronged her whom now I would give my life to save from harm. She has given me a soul, and by it I realize how unfit I am to be her mate. Help me, Father, for with all the strength of my new soul I love her, love her, love her!"
The most profound feeling thrilled in Albrecht's voice as he pronounced these words. He sank down at the feet of his companion, and on his knees he clasped the other's hand.
"I am confused, blinded," he went on. "The prospect that opens before me is so vast that it overwhelms me. I have never feared anything in my life, Father; but of this thing which thou callest a soul that has come to me I am afraid, I am afraid, Father Christopher."
The priest was not unnaturally overcome by a situation so far aside from any previous experience of his life. His first thought was that he had to deal with a madman, but there was in the tones and manner of the baron that which compelled his belief. He could not understand, but he was too kindly not to be deeply moved by the emotion of his companion, and he wisely determined to learn as quickly and as clearly as possible the real facts of the strange situation, in order that he might determine what was his own duty in the case. He raised Albrecht from the floor, and motioned him to a seat.
"My son," he said gravely but not unkindly, "thou must be calm, and thou must tell me everything, that I may know how to advise thee and how to act myself. Relate all, from the very beginning."
Albrecht sank into the chair toward which the priest waved his hand, and for a moment he sat with his chin in his hand, his full chestnut beard pushed up so that it half covered his cheeks.
"I know not where to begin, Father," he said, "unless it be at my birth. My father was king of the kobolds in the Neiderwasser valley, and a brave and merry tribe they are. My mother died at my birth; and as this is a thing which seldom happens with our race, I was always looked upon as destined for some great or strange destiny. When I was four or five years old, my father caught Herr von Zimmern in the forest where he was hunting, and brought him home to the mountain caves where we dwelt, that he might teach me all knightly skill, for we kobolds are always jealous of the arts of knighthood."
"But did Herr von Zimmern desire to stay in such strange company?" asked Father Christopher, whose countenance expressed the greatest astonishment at this tale.