The Duchess had waxed pale with shame and anger. A tress of her long dark hair had become loosened and was streaming down her back.
"I beg your pardon," said the man from the Reichenau, with grinning politeness. "My eyes have beheld nothing."
Then, Dame Hadwig, ridding herself entirely from Ekkehard's hold, cried out: "Yes, I say!--yes you have seen a madman, who has forgotten himself and God, ... I should be sorry for your eyes if they had beheld nothing, for I would have had them torn out!"
It was with an indescribably cold hauteur, that she pronounced these words.
Then Rudimann began to understand the strange scene.
"I had forgotten," said he in a cutting tone, "that the man who stands there, is one of those, to whom wise men have applied the words of St. Hieronymus, when he says, that their manners were more befitting dandies and bridegrooms, than the elect of the Lord."
Ekkehard stood there, leaning against a pillar, with arms stretched out in the air, like Odysseus when he wanted to embrace the shadow of his mother. Rudimann's words roused him from his dreams.
"Who dares to come between her and me?" cried he threateningly. But Rudimann, patting him on the shoulder with an insolent familiarity, said: "Calm yourself, my good friend; we have only come to deliver a note into your hands. St. Gallus can no longer allow the wisest of all his disciples, to remain out in this shilly-shallying world. You are called home!--And don't forget the stick with which you are wont to illtreat your confraters, who like to snatch a kiss at vintage-time, you chaste censor," he added in a low whisper.
Ekkehard stepped back. Wild longings, the pain of separation, burning passionate love, and cutting, taunting words,--all these overwhelmed him at once. He made a few steps towards the Duchess; but the chapel was already filling. The Abbot of Reichenau had come himself to witness Ekkehard's departure.
"It will be a difficult task, to get him away," he had said to the cellarer. It was easy enough now. Monks and lay-brothers came in after him.