her mistress had especially pleased him, into serious misfortune.

When old Endres appeared he had slipped behind a wall formed of bales
heaped one above another, and did not stir until the entry was quiet
again.

To his amazement he had then found his master standing beside the door
of the house, but his question--which, it is true, was not wholly devoid
of a shade of sarcasm--whether the knight was waiting for the return of
his sleep-walking sweetheart, was so harshly rebuffed that he deemed it
advisable to keep silence for a time.

Though Heinz Schorlin had perceived that he had followed an unconscious
somnambulist, he was not yet capable of calmly reflecting upon what had
occurred or of regarding the future with prudence. He knew one thing
only: the fear was idle that the lovely creature whose image, surrounded
by a halo of light, still hovered before him like a vision from a higher,
more beautiful world, was an unworthy person who, with a face of angelic
innocence, transgressed the laws of custom and modesty. Her shriek of
terror, her horror at seeing him, and the cry for help which had brought
her sister to her aid and roused the servants from their sleep, gave him
the right to esteem her as highly as ever; and this conviction fanned
into such a blaze the feeling of happiness which love had awakened and
his foolish distrust had already begun to stifle, that he was firmly
resolved, cost what it might, to make Eva his own.

After he had reached this determination he began to reflect more quietly.
What cared he for liberty and a rapid advance in the career upon which he
had entered, if only his future life was beautified by her love!