Siebenburg now looked up at the huge escutcheon and recalled the day
when, after having been specially favoured by Isabella Eysvogel at a
dance in the Town Hall, he had paused in the same place. A long line of
laden waggons had just stopped in front of the door surmounted by the
double escutcheon, and if he had previously hesitated whether to profit
by the favour of Isabella, whose haughty majesty, which attracted him,
also inspired him with a faint sense of uneasiness, he was now convinced
how foolish it would be not to forge the iron which seemed aglow in his
favour. What riches the men-servants were carrying into the vaulted
entry, which was twice as large as the one in the Ortlieb mansion!
Besides, the escutcheon with the count's coronet had given the knight
assurance that he would have no cause to be ashamed, in an assembly of
his peers, of his alliance with the Nuremberg maiden. Isabella's hand
could undoubtedly free him from the oppressive burden of his debts, and
she was certainly a magnificent woman! How well, too, her tall figure
would suit him and the Siebenburgs, whose name was said to be derived
from the seven feet of stature which some of them measured!

Now he again remembered the hour when she had laid her slender hand
in his. For a brief period he had been really happy; his heart had not
felt so light since early childhood, though at first he had ventured to
confess only one half his load of debt to his father-in-law. He had
even assumed fresh obligations to relieve his brothers from their most
pressing cares. They had attended his brilliant wedding, and it had
flattered his vanity to show them what he could accomplish as the wealthy
Eysvogel's son-in-law.

But how quickly all this had changed! He had learned that, besides the
woman who had given him her heart and inspired him with a passion