He pulled away his mother with him, and Erasmus said to the preacher, "Do you hear how the young snake can hiss already? But follow the lady, if you will be so good, comfort her by virtue of your holy office, and exhort her to betake herself to her own house, that she may not excite the people by her lamentations in the streets, and force me to send her home by a couple of gens-d'armes."
"Well advised!" replied the preacher, and hastened after Althea, whom he found at the street-door, her head leaning against one of the stone columns of the portal, while Henry stroked her hand consolingly, and wet it with his tears.
"Submit yourself to the will of Heaven," he began; "and this must be the easier to you when you weigh the justice of the sentence pronounced upon the culprit, who was once dear to you. Such assassins and bloodhounds must be forfeit to the executioner as a warning to others, and for their own well-earned punishment. Had not the council done justice in this way, I had never endured to abide in the town; and, if I could not have walked out, I should have crept out, with wife and children, from this pit of murder, in which no honest man could have been secure of his life any longer."
Althea lifted up to him her heavy eyes, that were red and swollen with weeping, and merely saying, "May God comfort you as you have comforted me!" she sunk back into her old position. Still, however, the preacher continued in the same strain for a time; but when he perceived that the sufferer no longer even listened to his splendid grounds of consolation, he suddenly broke off, and removed himself, with a look in which was couched an anathema.
In the mean time Christopher Friend came out of the street-door and gazed tenderly on Althea.
"Poor lady!" he at last said with a voice of as much pity as he could force into it--"No doubt you would go up to my father to implore him for the life of your betrothed; or you have already been with him, and received an unfavourable answer. Yes! I could have told you that before. You would more easily move the lions of granite that rest upon these columns than my father in this neck-breaking business. Would that I were the reigning burgomaster in his place, to be able to serve you, for I am not very angry with your Tausdorf. My late brother was an evil man, who probably brought this affair upon himself; and it is a pity that so brave a knight should, on his account, fall under the hands of the executioner. I have, indeed, some influence with my father, especially since I am his only son; and, if I were to run the risk of his anger and put in a good word, I might at least, perhaps, gain you a short delay, and time gained, all is gained."
"Comfort often comes from where it is least expected," stammered Althea, looking at him with anxious doubt. "You, Mr. Christopher,--you have a heart for my sorrows?"
"What man of my years would not have a heart for so fair a lady?" replied Christopher, smiling; "but it is only death that can be had for nothing; life is expensive. Time presses, and therefore I will open my mind to you briefly. Herr Tausdorf is lost to you for ever; if his life even should be saved,--which I hold for a half impossibility,--still he would not get off without a long imprisonment and perpetual exile from this country. Therefore give me your fair hand, for which I have already sued without success, and I will try what influence I have over my father's heart."
Althea started back in horror, and laid her right hand thoughtfully upon her forehead, her left upon her poor heart, in which anguish was working convulsively. But the inward struggle was soon over, and with the calmness of resignation she turned towards her ungenerous wooer.
"It would, indeed, be hard for me," she said, "to follow a man who makes a trade of his humanity, and to give this boy a father whom he could not respect; still I would make even this sacrifice for him I love, if I could believe that he would accept it. But I am convinced that he would sooner die a thousand times than let me slowly pine away under the tortures of a wretched marriage. Therefore let him and me perish, in God's name; I can never be yours."