"Is there any place from which you can see who knocks? The moon shines full on the front of the house," whispered Rodolph.
"Yes; through the shutters of that bow-shot window."
"Then move cautiously to reconnoitre. We will decide how to act when we know who is there."
Conrad tip-toed to the window, peered through, and drew back with a suppressed exclamation.
"It is the Countess Tekla herself," he cried.
CHAPTER VI. AN UNWISHED-FOR MARRIAGE DAY.
The Countess Tekla having dismissed her waiting-maid, sat long in her boudoir over-looking the Moselle, and thought deeply upon the question that the girl had brought uppermost, by asking if the Countess had abandoned all purpose of making an excursion on the river. Such indeed had once been her intention if the iron Archbishop, her unrelenting guardian, persisted in forcing his will upon her. His last word had been given her the day the Court left Treves, and it was to the effect that she should hold herself in readiness to wed Count Bertrich at the Cathedral when the Court returned. The time for preparation was short, and once inside the walls of that grim city, all chance of escape would be cut off. Could she but reach Castle Thuron, the lofty stronghold of her uncle Count Heinrich the Black, on the Lower Moselle, she felt that, for the sake of kinship, if not for her broad lands, he would refuse to give her up again to the Archbishop and to this abhorred union with a middle-aged ruffian, who, rumour said, had murdered his first wife.
The stern Black Count, her uncle, she had never seen, and what she had heard of him was disquieting enough. His mailed hand was heavy, and it came down with crushing force on all who opposed his will; but he could not make for her a more detested match than that which the Archbishop insisted upon; and then he was her mother's brother; if any trace of softness was concealed in his adamantine nature his niece might perhaps touch it, for he had no children of his own.