burg from the
precentor's cellar than usual. Besides, much as he still had to say in
reply to Erasmus, the sensible young man deemed it advisable to avoid
the syndic's house for the present. The confessor's suspicion had been
aroused, and De Soto was a Dominican, who certainly did not stand far
from the Holy Inquisition.

Therefore while Erasmus, with burning head and great excitement, was
still urging his friend to come in, Wolf unexpectedly bade him a hasty
and resolute farewell.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Wolf left the Hiltner house behind him with the feeling that he had
upheld the cause of his Church against the learned opponent to the
best of his ability, and had not been defeated. Yet he was not entirely
satisfied. In former years he had read the Hutten dialogues, and, though
he disapproved of their assaults upon the Holy Father in Rome, he had
warmly sympathized with the fiery knight's love for his native land.

Far as, at the court of Charles, the German ranked below the
Netherlander, the Spaniard, and the Italian, Wolf was proud of being a
German, and it vexed him that he had not at least made the attempt to
repel the theologian's charge that the Catholic, to whom the authority
of Rome was the highest, would be inferior to the Protestant in
patriotism.

But he would have succeeded no better in convincing Erasmus than the
learned theologians who, at the Emperor's instance, had held an earnest
religious discussion in Ratisbon a short time before, had succeeded in
arriving at even a remote understanding.

As he reached the Haidplatz new questions of closer interest were
casting these of supreme importance into the shade.

He was to enter his home directly, and then the woman whom he loved
would rest above him, and alone, unwatched, and unguarded, perhaps dream
of another.

Who was the man for whose sake she withdrew from him the heart to whose
possession he had the best and at any rate the oldest right?

Certainly not Baron Malfalconnet.

Neither could he believe it to be Peter Schlumperger or young Crafft.

Yet perhaps the fortunate man belonged to the court. If that was the
case, how easy would the game now be made for him with the girl, who was
guarded by no faithful eye!

His heart throbbed faster as he entered Red Cock Street.

The moon was still in the cloudless, starry sky, shining with her calm,
silver radiance upon one side of the street. Barbara's bow-window
was touched by it, and--what did