According to the established custom of all knight errants, he had commenced his expedition, not merely without forming a plan or consulting common sense, but without furnishing himself with a necessary supply of cash. He had left all his attendants far behind him; and as several days had elapsed since his separation from them, and as he had not thought proper to inform them of the object of his journey, they were totally unable to form even a guess as to the place, where it would be most likely for them to rejoin their master. Luckily for Henry, in the paroxysms of his fever he frequently pronounced the name of Montfort. From this the good simple people of the village (who in truth had rendered him all the assistance, which their sorry means could allow) concluded, that the invalid must certainly belong to the old Count of Montfort. A messenger was dispatched to verify the fact: and Count Egbert lost no time in sending able physicians to his nephew’s aid, by whose care the fever was at length vanquished. As soon as the step could be taken without endangering his life, the Convalescent was removed to his paternal mansion, where he saw nothing but frowning countenances, and heard nothing from morning till night, except reproaches for his extraordinary conduct on his bridal day with Elizabeth. It seems, that Count Egbert now thought himself entitled to assume a higher tone of authority with his nephew, since the news was just arrived, that Henry’s firm friend and powerful patron, the Emperor, was no more. He perished, in consequence of a malady which he contracted during an expedition against the Turks, and was no longer able to vindicate and enforce the claims of his favourite. —“You cannot but acknowledge,” said the old Count one day to his pale and still emaciated nephew, “that I have done every thing in my power to establish your happiness on a firm basis. Elizabeth of March, young, lovely, wise, powerful, and (above all!) enormously rich, would have been your own at this moment, if you had not thought proper to abandon her for the laudable purpose of scampering away after a will-o’-the-wisp!—But now the business is over! No regrets can now put matters to rights again! Elizabeth is Countess of Torrenburg, is lost to you for ever, and what counsel to give you now, I protest, I know not!—Truly, your affairs are in a wretched condition: your claims on my succession cannot avail you till after my decease; and even then, they stand a fair chance of being worth but little, since I am now seriously thinking of contracting a matrimonial engagement: though you thought proper to break off my former match by running away with my intended bride, the light and wanton Ida!”—