"But always was he good-humored," Elsa returned.
"Oh, of a truth; but lawless was he as the wild wind in the pine forest. It made no difference against whose feelings he hurtled. Now he is so much more human. Meseems now that Erna is in sooth happily married, and with Baron Albrecht's wealth there seems to be nothing lacking."
It was certainly true that to all outward appearance the marriage of Erna and Albrecht was a fortunate one. Every day they seemed to be brought more and more closely together. The countess lost that reserve and unworldiness which her aunt had stigmatized as austerity; the baron gained those spiritual qualities the lack of which had been his only deficiency. Each found in the other new experiences, fresh fields, an unexplored region of pleasure. Life at Rittenberg was wellnigh ideal. The accustomed occupations of the wife were full of novelty and of attractiveness to the husband. The pair read together in Erna's few but well-loved books, and when the wildness of the storm-sprites kept them within doors they found in these and the talk to which what they read gave rise the means of passing many a happy hour. Here Erna took the lead, and Albrecht was like her pupil. In the more active, out-of-door sports and in-door revelry it was to Albrecht that the initiative fell. Each had much to teach and much to learn, and in teaching and learning alike were both happy.
All this Father Christopher watched with eagerness born of his love for the young couple and his desire for their spiritual welfare. Could he have been sure that this state of things would continue, he would have been fully contented and happy in regard to them, and he was wholly unable to explain to himself what possible grounds there could be for doubting that Albrecht and Erna would still live together in mutual helpfulness and pleasure. Yet in his mind was the vague form of some doubt which he could not name but which he could not banish. It might be that he was accustomed to being confronted by the fact that all spiritual good is the price of hard struggle, and he unconsciously waited to see in what form would come the contest in which Albrecht must sooner or later fight with the powers of darkness for the soul which he seemed to have won and to enjoy without a battle. He felt, too, that the powers of the forest, the evil spirits of the waste and the night, would not yield up Albrecht without a struggle, and his was the attitude of one who waits for coming conflict.
One summer morning the priest came into the great hall of the castle to find Albrecht and Erna standing together at the window looking out at the weather. It had been raining at intervals ever since daybreak, and great masses of broken cloud were trailing their ragged edges over the far-spreading forests of pine that covered the mountain slopes. Now and then the sky would lighten as if the storm were ended, but again it would lower, and the rain come dashing down, swept by the wind against the castle windows.
"I am sure that the rain is over," Erna said persuasively, as Father Christopher came within hearing. "We can get to horse now, and by the time we are well under way the sun will be shining. Besides, what does it matter if it does not clear off? We shall not mind that if we can but get into the open."
"In the first place," returned Albrecht, smiling upon her and then turning to look out again over hill and valley and up at the stormy sky, "Meseemeth it is soon to rain very heavily; and in the second place, I am not sorry that we should be kept at home to-day that we may go on with those words in the scroll of Saint Cuthbert we were called away from yesterday."
"But the reading can always be done," was Erna's answer, "and who knows when we can ride? Besides," she added, a dazzling smile parting her beautiful lips, "we can read Saint Cuthbert when for very age we cannot ride."
The priest did not stay to hear how the matter was settled, but went on his way down the long hall; yet as he went he thought wonderingly of the strange fact that it should be Erna who urged for pleasure, and Albrecht who desired that the time be given to pious employment.