There was short speech between the guest and his hostess, neither of whom wished to prolong the interview; and hardly ten minutes from the time she had left it, Erna re-entered her chamber. She took up the scroll she had been reading, a copy of the writings of Saint Cuthbert, but paused before she opened it to look out at the train of the departing guest, which was already in motion. She watched it cross the drawbridge and wind down the side of the hill upon which the castle stood; and after it had vanished, with its glitter of armor, flash of helmet, gay flutter of pennant and waving of plumes, into the obscurity of the pine forest below, which swallowed up the troop and hid its further progress from sight, she leaned wistfully upon the window-ledge, buried in thought. She was wondering if she were different from other maidens, that her heart had not been touched, but that she had rather been repelled by the handsome knight who had just left her; and she half doubted whether he had not been right in likening her to a human iceberg. Suddenly her reverie was broken by the shrill, clear blast of a horn, which arose from the pine wood below, and came soaring upward like the piercingly sweet song of a bird that pours its whole heart out singing and straining its flight toward the blue heaven. The sound broke in upon her revery as if it were a summons from some of the mysterious powers whose home was in the forest. Often as she had heard a bugle hailing the warder of Rittenberg, it had never happened that there had come with the sound such a thrill as this call brought. Far stretched and weird the great Schwarzwald lay, the warm summer sun seeming to glance from its impenetrable surface, unable to pierce to the depths wherein lurked the wild woodland creatures as the nixies lurked in the lakes; and something that was half a shudder crossed her frame, as the note of that horn called up the thought of all the strange secrets which therein lay hidden. Then, with an effort, she shook off the momentary oppression, and threw her clear glance down into the valley to see whence came the call. II HOW ONE CAME. Erna leaned forward over the wide stone window-ledge, and turned her gaze downward to where the road, little more than a bridle-path, emerged from the obscurity of the pine wood to begin its winding ascent to the castle gate. A second blast of the bugle-horn, blown with full lungs and with a good will that seemed to promise a jocund disposition in the visitor who came thus heralded, and there rode out of the wood a knight, followed by his squire and a couple of men-at-arms.