The baron regarded her with a look of inquiry on his handsome face.
"Of course one cares for his servants," he assented, "since he can so ill get on without them."
Had her cousin, Count Stephen, the beat of whose horse's hoofs had so lately died upon the air, said these words, Erna would doubtless have regarded them as shockingly heartless; but now so strongly had the appearance of this stranger won upon her, that she only smiled and shook her head.
"Of a truth they have not our feelings," she said; "but after all, they are yet human beings. Wert thou in the forest through the night?" she added. "Thou canst not have come far this morning, especially riding with one who was ill."
"We were in the forest all night," the baron responded. "We made shift to shelter us in a cave that we chanced upon. It was the sickness of the man which prevented that we rode further yester-e'en, till we had found lodgings."
"But hadst thou no fear of the wood-sprites?" Erna asked.
"Nay," replied Baron Albrecht, "they troubled us not; though we were aware of them as they passed us by," he added, smiling.
"Thou art a bold knight," she murmured beneath her breath.
"Truly thou art favored of heaven," Father Christopher said, "if the wood-sprites can do thee no harm."
The countess looked at the stranger with admiration and astonishment. Bold as were the knights who had made the name of her family respected far and near, they had not been free from the fear of the wild folk of the wood, and it was with a thrill that she looked at the stranger knight as he avowed his fearlessness.