of our sight!
Too much, too hard, too terrible! Yet the sun shines as brightly as
before! The children in the street below laugh as merrily as ever!"

Groaning aloud, he covered his face with his hands, and those from whom
he might have expected consolation were forced to leave him in the midst
of the deepest sorrow; for the Swiss mail, which had come to Maier
of Silenen as the most distinguished of his countrymen, was awaiting
distribution, and Count Gleichen was forced to fulfill his sorrowful
duty as messenger. His friend Heinz had lent him his second horse, the
black, to ride to the fortress.

While Heinz, pursued by grief and care, sometimes paced up and down the
room, sometimes threw himself into the armchair which Frau Barbara, to
do him special honour, had placed in the sitting-room, the Minorite monk
Benedictus, whom he had brought to Nuremberg, had come uninvited
from the neighbouring monastery to give him a morning greeting. The
enthusiasm with which St. Francis had filled his soul in his early years
had not died out in his aged breast. He who in his youth had borne the
escutcheon of his distinguished race in many a battle and tourney, as a
knight worthy of all honour, sympathised with his young equal in rank,
and found him in the mood to provide for his eternal salvation. On the
ride to Nuremberg he had perceived in Heinz a pious heart and a keen
intellect which yearned for higher things. But at that time the joyous
youth had not seemed to him ripe for the call of Heaven; when he found
him bowed with grief, his eyes, so radiant yesterday, swimming in tears,
the conviction was aroused that the Omnipotent One Himself had taken him
by the hand to lead the young Swiss, to whom he gratefully wished the
best blessings, into the path which the noble Saint of Assisi himself
had pointed out to him, and wherein he had found a bliss for which in
the world he had vainly yearned.

But his conversation with his young friend had been interrupted, first
by the tailor who was to make his mourning garb, then by Siebenburg, and
even later he had had no opportunity to school Heinz; for after Seitz
had gone Biberli and Katterle had needed questioning. The result of this
was sufficiently startling, and had induced Heinz to send the servant
and his sweetheart on the errand from which the former had not yet
returned.

When the young knight found himself alone he repeated what the monk had
just urged upon him. Then Eva's image r