"Body of Saint Fridolin!" cried the old dame, in a tone of shrill amazement and anger; "what has happened? Elsa declares that thou wert wroth without aught of provocation, and that thou dravest both her and Fastrade out of the chamber, albeit she could not tell wherein they had offended thee. In the name of Heaven's Queen, what hath come to thee?"
The tone in which the old dame spoke showed some traces of compassion as she proceeded, for, to say sooth, she could not unmoved see the grief of her niece, and she ended by bending over to lay her withered and trembling old hand upon the fair prostrate head. Erna raised herself into a sitting posture, and taking the wrinkled fingers in her own, she kissed them warmly.
"Dear heart," she said, "I am in sore trouble, and I know not if there may be comfort for such as I; but wilt thou not go thyself to Father Christopher, so that none may know, and bid him that he come to me in mine oratory? Let him not delay."
And thus Erna resolved to confess to Heaven the sin which had been in her heart, albeit it had been only a vague desire.
XXIV
HOW COUNT STEPHEN MET HERR FREDERICH.
It was in sooth with angry mind that Count Stephen dashed about in the wood, seeking for his cousin. He did not in his secret heart expect to find her, but it seemed to him that if she had really fled to the castle this would mean a giving up of the hope of her love. If she was ready to yield to his wooing, she might indeed have been so taken by surprise and so overcome by shyness at the moment as to seek instinctively to escape him; but he refused to own to himself that he should not find her lurking in some thicket, waiting to be discovered and forced by kisses and caresses to own that her heart was his. It was that if this were true they might be alone that he had insisted that the rest of the hunt should return to the castle while he remained to seek in the by-paths, and he concerned himself very little whether his story that the palfrey of the countess had taken fright and run away with her was believed or not.
It was with a growing despair and a kindling anger that Count Stephen rode from thicket to thicket, finding in the bosky nooks only the gathering shadows and the birds and squirrels which fled at his approach. Though he had not truly expected to find Erna, none the less was he enraged and disappointed that she was not here. His passion for his beautiful cousin had taken too strong a hold upon him not to stir him now with deep feeling as he thought of the possibility of losing her. He dashed his heavily gloved hand against his brow, and the bosses of his hawking gauntlet left their imprint upon the flesh.
"God's blood!" he cried, in impotent wrath, "I will not lose her!"