One morning Erna found her cousin sitting alone by the great window of the hall, and came toward him with a smiling and mischievous face. "Now," she said, "thou shalt see something wicked. I have only half looked at it myself, and I doubt it would be wise that I look further; but thou art not one, I trow, who will wince lightly." "The wickedness which thou shalt tempt me into," he answered, "I will gladly bear the penalty of, at least, fair Cousin. What wickedness can be hidden in that roll of satin?" "Thou shalt see," she answered, unrolling the embroidered cover, and bringing to light a parchment scroll. "It has been put away this many a day, and I only now bethought me of it." "If it is written wickedness," the count observed, languidly regarding it, "it is likely to do me small harm. I have never bothered my head to learn their clerkly nonsense." "This is in signs that one may understand if he cannot read," Erna replied, putting into his hand the parchment. It was the scroll of Ovid which for years she had kept hidden away because of the worldliness of its pictures. The count regarded the images wherewith some gross clerk had decorated the works of the heathen poet, and the smile upon his broad lips deepened into a laugh. He was surprised that Erna should have shown him a parchment so marked, and he looked up from one of the pictures to see if she were really aware what she had given him. She intercepted his glance, and smiling bent forward to see what the picture might be at which he looked. As her eyes fell upon it a crimson flush covered her face, and she caught the parchment from his hands. "Let me have it," she exclaimed. "I did not know it was like that. I should have examined it before I showed it to thee. I only thought it might amuse thee." As she spoke she turned quickly, hearing footsteps behind her. Albrecht and Herr von Zimmern had come together into the hall, and were witness of her confusion. "Herr Frederich has a plan for repairing the southern tower which he wishes to tell to thee," Albrecht said to his wife, apparently without noting her excitement. He stood there so calm, so noble in his bearing and his appearance, that even Count Stephen, for the moment deeply concerned lest the scroll of Ovid should fall into the husband's hands, could not but admire him. He did not look at the guest, and in his manner toward his wife there was nothing to denote that he suspected that aught was wrong. "But perhaps," the voice of Herr von Zimmern suggested, "this is not the time to talk of such matters. Perhaps we interrupt something. That scroll may be of importance." He spoke with a careful appearance of humility; yet the count, watching him with attention which was quickened by irritation, detected a gleam of malice in his eye, and from that moment suspected the friendship of the cripple. "The scroll is naught of importance," Erna replied haughtily; and for that time no more was said of the scroll of Ovid. XIX