She went reluctantly. The clasp of the knight's hand was felt all the
way to the house, and it would have been impossible and certainly
ungracious not to return it.

Heinz Schorlin had obtained no assent, yet the last glance from her eyes
had been more eloquent than many a verbal promise, and he gazed after her
enraptured.

It seemed like desecration to give the hand in which hers had rested to
lead any one else to the dance, and when the rotund Duke of Pomerania
invited him to a drinking bout at his quarters at the Green Shield he
accepted; for without Eva the hall seemed deserted, the light robbed of
its brilliancy, and the gay music transformed to a melancholy dirge.

But when at the Green Shield the ducal wine sparkled in the beakers, the
gold shone and glistened on the tables, and the rattle of the dice
invited the bystanders to the game, he thought that whatever he undertook
on such a day of good fortune must have a lucky end.

The Emperor had filled his purse again, but the friendly gift did not
cover his debts, and he wanted to be rid of them before he told his
mother that he had found a dear, devout daughter for her, and intended to
return home to settle in the ancestral castle, his heritage, and share
with his uncle the maintenance of his rights and the management of fields
and forests.

Besides, he must test for the first time the power of his new patroness,
St. Clare, instead of his old one, St. Leodegar. But the former served
him ill enough--she denied him her aid, at any rate in gambling. The
full purse was drained to its last 'zecchin' only too soon, and Heinz,