In the door-way sat Eckhardt, muffled in a cloak. Near-by, half recumbent under a blanket, the cowl drawn over his face, sat the leech, his eyes fixed upon the log-fire on the hearth, as it sent showers of sparks into the murky darkness. In their search for fire-wood the monks had brought from the edge of a neighbouring mill-pond the debris of a skiff, whose planks had for years been alternately soaked in water and dried in the sun. When tossed upon the blaze of forest branches, these fragments emitted an odour sweet as oriental spices and their flames brightened with prismatic tints. But to the leech's brooding gaze their lurid embers seemed touched with the spell of some unholy incantation.
Without the sick-chamber two sentries, chilled and drowsy, leaned against a column supporting the low vaulting, their halberds clasped between their folded arms.
After a pause of some duration, Eckhardt arose and entering Otto's chamber bent over the couch on which he lay. After having convinced himself by the youth's regular breathing that he was resting and did not require his attendance, the Margrave strode from the sick-chamber. The fever was intermittent; now it came, now it left the youth's body. But the pale wan face and the sunken eyes gave rise to the gravest fears.
Night came swiftly and with it the intense hush deepened. Only the pattering of rain-drops broke the stillness. In the sick-chamber nothing was to be heard save the regular breathing of the sleeper.
Thus the hours wore on. After the monk and Eckhardt had departed for the night, the secret panel opened noiselessly and Stephania entered the apartment with a strange expression of triumph and despair in her look. She glanced round, but her eyes passed unheedingly over their surroundings; she saw only that there was no one in the chamber, that no one had seen her enter. There was something utterly desperate in that glance. Noiselessly she stepped to the narrow oval window gazing out into the mist-veiled landscape.
But it seemed without consciousness.
A single thought seemed to have frozen her brain.
She stepped to Otto's couch and for a moment bent over him.
Then she retreated, as if seized with a secret terror.
For a few moments she stood behind him, with closed eyes, her face almost stony with dread and the fear of something unknown.