Touching Ilsa I say merely this. In Italy I had drifted from one dubious amour to another after the fashion of my rank and age. My connection with Marianna had been the last, the most enduring, because the Cardinal’s daughter had possessed the most to offer in keen intelligence, and a penetrating wit that passed far beyond ordinary charm and vivacity. Of my mother’s sex I had formed a painfully low moral estimate. In Ilsa I had seen an attractive girl, physically comely and naïvely interesting. When I had broken with Marianna it had been the most natural thing in the world for me to conclude that it was time for me to marry, that the season of sowing tares was over, and that I needed a dignified and congenial countess. Such surely would prove Ilsa. But the manner of her refusal had stirred me to the depths of my being. For the first time I realized how infinitely lifted above a commonplace man a high-minded and truly good woman might be: what strength, uplift, nay, stretching towards the God-like, might come from her unselfish companionship; how, in brief, my soul craved, not a suitable consort, but a heaven-gifted wife. It was a new experience for me. From my eyes had fallen, as it had been, scales. And in the moment of the realization of my need, I had lost the one being that I knew could satisfy it. Would ever the mercy of that heaven I had mistrusted and defied take away the pang? All--all seemed darkly hid. Touching Luther I had thought quite as much as concerning Ilsa, albeit in a different fashion. What I said to him on the night the disputation ended will bear its own story. * * * * * I had refrained from thrusting myself upon Dr. Luther all through those days in Leipzig. Once when quitting the hall of disputation he had cast me a friendly smile and nod, but on the night of the 14th of July, when I found that he was on the point of returning to Wittenberg without waiting for Eck and Carlstadt to complete their last hair-splitting, I saw no need for longer hesitancy. Luther I must see, and that without delay. He was lodged at the humble Augustinian convent on a narrow street by the Pleissenburg. A warm rain was plashing down, the darkening streets were deserted after the long summer evening. A lay brother let me in, and ran upstairs to announce my coming. I was quickly bidden to ascend, and there, in a small, whitewashed room, and again by faint candle-light, I saw the Man. The light was faint but through it all shone his illuminating smile. Up to me with long brave steps he strode, and his hand closed tightly over mine. “I knew you would come,” was all he said, and then made haste to pluck off my wet cloak and shake it with a zest and vigor that at another moment would have set me laughing. “Yes, Dr. Luther,” I said quietly, “you see I am your obedient parishioner. Your letter found me in Italy; I returned to the Harzland, and now--here I am.”