Erna had answered nothing, but she had left him with a feeling almost like anger in her heart. She knew why he wished to stay at Rittenberg. It was that he might go on with his tiresome studies with Father Christopher, to which Albrecht gave more and more time every day. As for the wickedness of the court, she was a married woman, and with a husband to protect her, and one moreover of a bearing so knightly as that of Von Waldstein, it was not to be supposed that she could come to any harm. She sighed with fresh impatience as she reflected how deeply immersed in the study of spiritual things her husband had become since their marriage. She was not, she assured herself, less fond of him than of old, but it was to the last degree provoking that just as she had learned to appreciate the delight of life, Albrecht should devote so much thought to things which she had laid aside as dull. As she mused in this fashion, looking out of the window as she had looked when Albrecht rode gallantly out of the pine forest at the foot of the castle hill on that day when Erna first saw him, once more she heard the note of a bugle-horn in the valley, and once more a knight rode out of the covert into sight, followed by his men-at-arms. With eager curiosity Erna peered out at the new-comer, and almost instantly her eye caught sight of the pennon of the Von Rittenbergs of Schaffhausen, and understood that the visitor was her cousin, Count Stephen, who was probably on his return from Strasburg, and who had accepted her invitation to repeat his visit to Rittenberg. For an instant her cheek flushed with vexation, her old dislike of the count reawakening, but instantly her changed taste asserted itself, and she smiled. She watched the train as it rode up to the gate, and then she turned back into her chamber with joyous haste. It came into her mind that she could make an impression upon her guest, and she began straightway to consider how she should array herself to go to meet him. She chose from her jewel-case a string of rubies, and quickly bound it upon her head like a fillet; and as she did so her woman, Fastrade, came to announce to her the arrival of Count von Rittenberg. The Lady Adelaide reached the great hall before her, and Count Stephen was speaking with the old dame with his back to the stairway by which Erna descended. The countess was already close to him before he perceived her. Then he wheeled suddenly, almost turning his back upon Lady Adelaide in his astonishment at the beauty of the woman before him. Erna did not lose one shade of the look of amazement and admiration which came into his face as he looked at her. "God's blood!" he cried. "What has come to thee, Cousin? Indeed, this marriage of which they told me at Mayence has made a new creature of thee. I greet thy ladyship, and that I did not send congratulations on thy marriage is no fault of mine, since it was all over before I knew of it."