back and shoulders, this remedy for sinful thoughts produced
an effect exactly opposite to the one expected; for, whenever the places
where the scourge had struck him so severely smarted under his armour,
they reminded him of her for whose sake he had raised his hand against
himself, and the blissful glance from her eyes.

CHAPTER IV.

During the days which succeeded the mass for the dead the Ortlieb
mansion was very silent. The Burgrave von Zollern, who still gladly
concealed in his castle the brave companion in arms to whom he had
entrusted the imperial standard on the Marchfield, when his own strong
arm needed rest, had permitted Herr Ernst, as the young man's future
father-in-law, to visit him. Both were now in constant communication, as
Els hoped, for the advantage of the Eysvogel business.

Biberli did not cease acting as messenger between her and her future
bridegroom; nay, he could now devote the lion's share of his days to
it; his master, for the first time since he had entered his service, had
left him.

The Emperor had been informed of the great shock experienced by the
young knight, but it was unnecessary; an eye far less keen would not
have failed to note the change in Heinz Schorlin.

The noble man who, even as a sovereign, retained the warmth of heart
which had characterised him in his youth as a count, sincerely loved his
blithe, loyal, brave young countryman, whose father he had valued, whose
mother he highly esteemed, and who had been the dearest friend of the
son whom death had so early snatched from him.

He knew him thoroughly, and had watched his development with increasing
warmth of sympathy, the more so as many a trait of character which he
recognised in Heinz reminded him of his own nature and aspirations at
his age.

At the court of Frederick II he too had not always walked in the
paths of virtue but, like Heinz, he had never let this merge into
licentiousness, and had maintained the chivalrous dignity of his station
even more strictly than the former.

Neither had he at any time deviated from the sincere piety which he
had brought from his home to the imperial court, and this was far more
difficult in the train of the bold and intellectual Hohenstaufen, who
was prone to blaspheme even the holiest things, than for Heinz.
Finally he, too, had lapsed into the mood which threatened to lead the
light-hearted Schorlin into a monastery.

The mighty impulse which, at that time, owing