Ortlieb kept their
word and joined each other here--to their extreme amazement, I should
suppose, as to my knowledge they never met before--to receive me, and
thus had an interview which, however loudly they may contradict it, I
call a nocturnal meeting. But my wager, fair child, is won, and tomorrow
you will deliver to me the exquisite carved ivory casket, while I shall
keep my bracelet."

Here she paused, paying no heed to the merry threats, exclamations of
amazement, and laughter of her companions.

But while her father, striking his broad chest, cried again and again,
with rapturous delight, "A paragon of a woman!" and Seitz Siebenburg, in
bitter disappointment, whispered, "The fourteen saintly helpers in time
of need might learn from you how to draw from the clamps what is not
worth rescue and probably despaired of escape," she was trying to
give time to recover more composure her young hostess, to whom she
was sincerely attached, and who, she felt sure, could have met Heinz
Schorlin, who perhaps had come hither on her own account, only by
some cruel chance. So she added in a quieter tone: "And now, Jungfrau
Ortlieb, in sober earnest I will ask your protection and guidance
through the dark house, and meanwhile you shall tell me how Sir Heinz
greeted you and what passed between you, either good or bad, during the
time of waiting."

Els summoned up her courage and answered loud enough to be heard by
all present: "We were speaking of you, Countess Cordula, and the knight
said:

"I ventured to remark, Countess," said Heinz, interrupting the new ally,
"that though you might understand how to show a poor knight his folly,
no kinder heart than yours throbbed under any bodice in Switzerland,
Swabia, or France." Cordula struck him lightly on the shoulder with her
riding whip, saying with a laugh: "Who permits you to peep under women's
bodices through so wide a tract of country, you scamp? Had I been
in Jungfrau Ortlieb's place I should have punished your entry into a
respectable house:

"Oh, my dear Countess," Heinz interrupted, and his words bore so
distinctly the stamp of truth and actual experience that even Sir Seitz
Siebenburg was puzzled, "though I am always disposed to be grateful to
you, I cannot feel a sense of obligation for this lady's reception of
me, even to the most gracious benefactress. For, by my patron saint, she
forbade me the house as if I were a thief and a burglar."

"And she was right!" excla