scarcely less clouded than the sky. He did not allude to Barbara by a
single word, yet she was the cause of his depression.

After his conversation with the sovereign he had retired to his private
room, to devote himself to the philological studies which he pursued
during the greater portion of the day with equal zeal and success. But
he had scarcely begun to be absorbed in the new copy of the best
manuscript of Apuleius, which had readied him from Florence, and make
notes in the first Roman printed work of this author, when Cassian
interrupted him.

He had missed the servant in the morning. Now the fellow, always so
punctual when he had not gazed too deeply into the wine-cup, stood
before him in a singular plight, for he was completely drenched, and a
disagreeable odour of liquor exhaled from him. The flaxen hair, which
bristled around his head and hung over his broad, ugly face, gave him so
unkempt and imbecile an appearance that it was repulsive to the almoner,
and he harshly asked where he had been loitering.

But Cassian, confident that his master's indignation would soon change to
approval and praise, rapidly began to relate what had occurred outside
the little castle at Prebrunn when the festival under the lindens was
over.

After helping to place the Wittenberg theologian in custody, he had
followed Barbara at some distance during her nocturnal walk. While she
waited in front of Dr. Hiltner's house and talked with the members of the
syndic's family after their return, he had remained concealed in the
shadow of a neighbouring dwelling, and did not move until the doctor had
gone away with the singer. He cautiously glided behind them as far as