Von Zimmern looked at the baron in some surprise, but returned no other answer than a profound bow which seemed mocking in its excessive deference. He waited a moment while the other laid aside the parchment and prepared to accompany him, the priest all the while looking as if he had it in his desire to prevent this sally from the castle did he but know how to accomplish his wish. Herr von Zimmern found it not easy to accustom himself to this new Albrecht who had been developed out of the kobold lad whom he had trained and shaped at his will, and of whose simple wits it had been so easy to get the better by a little human guile. He had for long years foreseen the time when Albrecht should gain a human soul, and for this he had schemed; but now that the thing was accomplished he was confused by the result. Albrecht with a soul was not the being that Herr Frederich had expected him to be, and the fact continually filled the cripple with a baffled sense of confusion. Together Albrecht and his companion got to horse, and without further speech they rode down the hill and into the shadow of the forest. The instant the shadow of the pines fell upon him Albrecht knew that there were evil influences abroad that day. He caught a glimpse among the tree boles of the shadowy form of a kobold, and he heard in the air the whispers of beings to which his sight was growing dim as he became more human. He looked at his companion questioningly, as if he suspected the truth; but Herr Frederich held his face under control, and did not betray the feverish glee which burned within him. Herr Frederich was secretly full of malicious triumph. He had gathered from the burning looks of Count Stephen when that morning the cripple had brought tidings of the quarry to be had in the meadow and from the ambiguous speech of the lord of Schaffhausen, that to-day was the lover determined to bring his wooing to a climax; and he had promise that opportunity should not be lacking, since the kobolds of the forest, urged on by Von Zimmern and angry at the desertion of their brotherhood by Albrecht, had given pledge to bring Erna and her lover together alone in the wood. Herr Frederich had brought Albrecht forth from the castle to follow on the track of the hunters, feeling sure that the wood-folk would contrive opportunity, and that Count Stephen would not be loath or slow to avail himself of it to press his passion; and it was with the surety of being able to show to Albrecht his wife listening to the vows of another, perhaps even clasped in her lover's arms, that the malicious cripple led the way through the forest. So still in silence they rode, until they did in truth come upon the hawking-party, as hath been told. When Herr Frederich beheld how the damsel Fastrade rode in advance with her mistress while the Count followed, as it at that moment happened, he muttered under his breath a curse bitter and deep.