The wood was filled with whispers in the autumn afternoon, as if the trees were telling one another things which were to come to them soon, gossip leaning toward gossip with confidential mien. The sense of unseen creatures, presences quick with the keen life of their kind yet not sharing in human being, was diffused through the air like the scent of the fallen leaves. The Countess Erna, who rode here to-day, felt a vague dread, even in the sunlight and with her troop to come to her aid in case harm threatened her. She had a feeling as if she were watched and followed by the wood-folk, and had it not been that she was much engrossed with the consciousness of Count Stephen's presence she might have turned homeward.
As it was she struck her palfrey sharply with her whip, and went galloping through the wood, with her cousin close after. On her wrist was her favorite falcon, his bell tinkling as she rode. The west wind fanned her cheeks, hot with the flush which had sprung in them at the soft words Von Rittenberg had been whispering into her ears as they came through the pine wood below the castle steep. She heard the hoof-beats of his horse behind her like an echo, which repeated the things he had been saying, and although she knew beyond peradventure that she should lose in his esteem by not showing him that she was angry, yet withal so little had she been in sooth displeased, that she could but illy feign displeasure.
As they rode, the mind of the countess was busy with an endeavor to understand her own feelings, as a fly which hath been ensnared by the spider struggles to regain the freedom of his wings. She was herself entangled in a web of circumstance and of passion, and she glowed with a warmth which was at once shame and desire. She was not without some proper indignation against Count Stephen, and yet she desired with a curiosity which was not all unwilling, to learn what more he would dare to whisper in her ear before they came again to the castle from this hunt upon which she had ridden against the wish of her husband. Her blood seemed on fire. She repeated to herself the words in which she had for the first time set at naught the wishes of Albrecht, and with strange inconsistency she was angry that he had not forced her to remain at the castle. She said to herself that when she had declared her defiance of his will that she go not with the count to fly the falcon, her husband should have constrained her to obedience. She could not divine why it was that Albrecht seemed to look upon her as a being higher than himself, and to yield to her will as if it were that of one who had the right to command. He seemed less strong and noble than she had believed him when he failed to bend her pride to his wish.
Erna was a woman, and she did not ask herself what would have been her feelings had she at this moment been a prisoner at home, instead of careering thus across the forest with the soft west wind blowing in her face and a tingling sense of the hoof-beats of Count Stephen's steed just behind her. Though it be not when they are most kindly entreated that women be most just, yet are they not to be constrained into doing justice to those who love them.
Very lovely was the countess to-day, as she rode through the greenwood. She was clad in a robe of green cloth, the color of the new tips of the pine branches in the springtime. Her cap was embroidered with gold, and its tuft of heron's plume was held in its place by a clasp of jewels. Her hawk was a jerfalcon as white as the snow new-fallen, upon which the sun shines ere yet it hath been smirched or sullied; and his hood and jesses were of crimson, of the same hue as her gloves, which were richly enwrought with golden thread in quaint devices. The spotless plumage of the bird against the red of the glove was wondrously fair to see, and wondrously fair was the lady as she carried the falcon against her breast.
Little did it please the temper of Erna that Herr von Zimmern should have taken it upon himself to suppose that she rode to-day because he had been to the trouble of riding in the early morning to the meadow by the lake and bringing word again that the ducks, now on their way southward, were there. She was well assured in her own mind that she had been minded to please no one but herself when she had insisted in setting out despite the wish of Albrecht that she go not. Certainly she had no longing to show friendliness to Herr von Zimmern for his service, since to say sooth the prejudice which she had from his first coming held against the cripple had in no wise softened with time, albeit he had seemed to be devoted to Albrecht and to her; neither had it been her wish, she assured herself, to pleasure Count Stephen, however his earnestness in the matter might seem to give color to such a supposition. She was only of the mind to come, and to show her husband, who each day became more and more wearisomely given to devout matters, that she was not to be ruled by his unreasonable whims and to shut herself up as if she were a nun in a cloister instead of being lady of Rittenberg, the fairest holding in all the country round.
She was not without a secret anger that Albrecht gave no sign of seeing how his guest was striving to steal away the heart of his wife. She set her teeth with vexation that no token indicated that the baron was even aware of the peril in which his happiness stood. She said to herself that there could be little love where one saw only such indifference. Her clear cheek flushed hotly as the thought came that it might after all be indifference rather than blindness which made her husband so calm. She recalled that while he wooed her he had found the kisses of Elsa to his liking, and the doubt whether he were not one of the men whose affection goes as lightly as it comes, pierced her heart. The very suspicion made her hot with rage.
Yet surely Albrecht had declared that the caress of no other woman could evermore be sweet to him; it was only that he was sunk into this mire of religious musing in which Father Christopher encouraged him. She half hated the old priest at the thought. She wondered how far it would be possible for Count Stephen to carry his wooing before the wrath of Albrecht would break out. The question affected her almost as if she already felt the caress of the lover. She became suddenly so keenly conscious of the presence of the count behind her that she glanced back as if in fear. Then she reined in her palfrey so that her damsel Fastrade, who rode discreetly in the rear, might overtake her.
For a time she paced forward demurely, feeling the sidelong glances of the count upon her like a hand, and with difficulty restraining the impulse to look up and meet his burning eyes. She knew well that he watched her as a fowler might watch a bird that is fluttering ever nearer the snare; and every moment it became harder for her to maintain her calm. Suddenly the impulse seized her to dash wildly forward along the woodland way.
"Come, Fastrade!" she called imperatively.
She struck her palfrey sharply, and onward she flew, her damsel following as well as she might. She felt as if she were escaping from danger; the wood seemed full of beings in league with Count Stephen; she even seemed to hear wicked whispers in her ears, so clear that she could have sworn that they were pronounced by unseen lips; some presence tried to hold her back, and only the need of escape made her forget for the moment to be afraid; for a brief time a wild exhilaration thrilled her blood, as if in leaving Count Stephen behind in the beech wood she were overco............