"If the gracious Lord Baron will," the thrall said, "Father Christopher prays that he come to him with no delay."
Albrecht stood a moment in surprised silence. Then he recovered himself.
"Is Father Christopher in his chamber?" he asked.
"Yea, my Lord Baron," the servant answered.
"Give me thy torch," Albrecht said, taking it, "and I will go at once. Thou need'st not come."
Not since the morning after his wedding had Albrecht climbed to the little room high in the western tower; and as he made his way thither he seemed to be once more on his way to confess to the good old priest the strange story of his life. As he climbed the winding stair of the tower his glance fell through a narrow window, and afar he saw the moon rising over the great forest where the kobolds were gathering for their nightly sports. All the old life came before him, and for the moment he seemed to have lost the one without that he had gained the other. He was no longer either kobold or man. Then, with the fierceness of one who fights temptation, he shook off these thoughts, and went on until he stood before Father Christopher.
The priest was walking up and down with his eyes fixed upon the floor. For a moment he did not pause or look up. Then he paused beside the seat upon which Albrecht had thrown himself, his kind eyes hardly higher than those of the other, so tall was the knight in his woodland strength, and stood looking into the baron's face with a regard penetrating but full of tenderness.
"The time hath come," he said, "when thou must tell to thy wife everything that is hid in thy heart."
"Everything?" Albrecht echoed, dismay and wonder in his tone.
"Everything," the priest repeated solemnly. "My son, dost thou remember that once in this very chamber I said to thee that thou couldst not hope to save thy soul alone, but that the fate of hers by whom thou didst win it was bound up with that of thine own? Now is it the hour when thou must save both hers and thine."