Thus saying, he left her standing with Ferdinand. It is strange--it is very strange, that blindness which in some circumstances comes over the most clear-sighted upon the questions in which they feel the deepest interest. But yet it is so common--I might say, so invariable--that let no one think it unnatural the Count of Ehrenstein should actually throw his daughter into the way of one to whom he would never have consented to give her. It was perhaps because he thought it impossible that such presumptuous love could enter into the young man's thoughts, It was the blindest of all passions--pride that dimmed even his keen eyes; and there he left them to the brief caress, the low spoken words of love, the looks far more eloquent. They both said they must part at once, yet they both lingered; they both thought it was no use to risk aught by staying there when they were to meet again so soon in the old hall, yet the near future could not win them from the sweet present. They both knew it was dangerous to be seen in close companionship, and yet the hands met and the thrilling fingers clasped upon each other. Adelaide would fain hear what had befallen Ferdinand in the old hall; and he answered by telling how he loved her. She urged him to go, and to let her go, and he tried--oh, vain endeavour!--to explain to her the burning thirst of a young lover's heart to be near her he loves. He told her that one might as well expect the parched traveller over the Syrian sands to forbear the well as to ask him to quit her while she would stay; and Adelaide believed it without difficulty. They said much one way or another, and yet their conference was not long; for some noise upon the staircase scared them, and with a fresh spring of joy in their hearts from their brief interview, they parted for the time and hurried to their several tasks with the glad hope of meeting soon again. CHAPTER VIII. Ferdinand was busy at his work about a quarter of an hour after the Count of Ehrenstein had ridden forth with his train. The castle was left even more empty than the day before, for Seckendorf and his party had gone with their lord, and none of the feudal retainers of the house had yet arrived. Some grooms and horse-boys in the stables, and eight or ten men on the walls, or in the courts, were all that remained behind, besides the young gentleman himself; and they were not at all disposed to aid or interrupt him by their presence in a place which they all viewed with dread, even when they passed it at a distance. Many were their comments, indeed, upon his daring; and several of those comments were by no means favourable to their young lady's lover, for while some of the men wondered how Master Ferdinand was getting on, without venturing to go and see, others went the length of supposing that he must have either some amulet from the Holy Land, which was a charm against spirits, or a plain compact with the evil one, which gave him the command over them for a time.