The solemn words were said at last, and with an emotion which was unusual, Father Christopher united the maid whose guardian he had been from her earliest infancy to the knight. Even at the altar there came upon the priest a dim and nameless fear what might be the results of this marriage. In the elevation of that hallowed moment he seemed to catch some faint glimpse of startling possibilities which were to depend upon the union, of momentous consequences which transcended the bounds of ordinary experiences, and of some mystery that thrilled him without his being able to grasp or to understand it. He felt for the instant a wonderful uplifting, as of one called to take part in some mighty conflict, of which the outcome was doubtful, but in which the cause was glorious. It was as if he were seized upon by some mystic power such as thrills the heart of a seer in the moment of his ecstasy; as if his hand almost touched some profound and mighty secret upon which depended the fate of mankind. As if in a vision he felt about him the might of the forest and the terror of its witchery; the powers of night and of hell seemed to surge around him in awful conflict with those of light; he was as if for the moment rapt away from the holy place in which he stood, and encompassed by the blackness in which the wild and dread beings of the wilderness worked their sinful spells against mankind. Only an instant did the vision, if vision it were, hold him, and then the candles upon the altar shone again upon him; but the soul of Father Christopher was filled with wild surmise and strange questionings what this might mean. He pronounced the nuptial benediction with lips that hardly knew what they said, and with eyes which scarcely saw the pair kneeling before him in all the glory of youth and beauty and the bravery of their splendid attire. It was to be expected that Erna should be deeply affected by the rite which bound her for life and death to the knight by her side. Her religious nature was keenly susceptible to all the offices of the Church, and although she might at this moment be strongly swayed by passion and by personal sentiment, the occasion was one of too much solemnity to fail of touching her profoundly. What most impressed the good priest was the reverential bearing of the groom during the rite. There was in the mien of Albrecht a gravity and a respect which was to Father Christopher surprising, accustomed as he was to the levity and joyousness of the knight. The baron seemed even more serious and religious in his attitude than the bride, so that the priest could not but wonder at this reversal of their usual attitudes.