Albrecht

by Arlo Bates

The coming of Herr Frederich to Rittenberg seemed to increase the gayety that already reigned there. He devoted himself to devising fresh amusements; 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 passion 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 passion; 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.

He was not without some fear, too, of Albrecht. Count Stephen was a brave man, but the baron was one of whom the bravest could not think lightly, and when it came to a question of wronging him through his wife, the count was well persuaded that if this thing were ever discovered, it would be no easy matter to hold against the wronged husband. Just now Albrecht was greatly engaged in looking after the state of his thralls and churls, and seeing that they were properly housed for the coming winter; a business in which he had been encouraged by Father Christopher, but which the guest declared should be the affair of the steward and not of the lord of the castle. Also Albrecht set himself to bringing peace among the dependants of Rittenberg, and so far as might be justice between man and man, and friendliness. He was evidently none the less attached to his wife, but every day was Count Stephen more confident that Erna found herself less in sympathy with her husband and more nearly drawn to him.

One morning Erna found her cousin sitting alone by the great window of the hall, and came toward him with a smiling and mischievous face.

"Now," she said, "thou shalt see something wicked. I have only half looked at it myself, and I doubt it would be wise that I look further; but thou art not one, I trow, who will wince lightly."

"The wickedness which thou shalt tempt me into," he answered, "I will gladly bear the penalty of, at least, fair Cousin. What wickedness can be hidden in that roll of satin?"

"Thou shalt see," she answered, unrolling the embroidered cover, and bringing to light a parchment scroll. "It has been put away this many a day, and I only now bethought me of it."