all comers to buy, but here most of the shops are barred, and no
customers are solicited. They seem to me like people under a cloud of
fear. What can it be?"

"We are more used to the forest path than to city streets, Wilhelm.
They will all become familiar to us in a day or two, yet I feel as if I
could not get a full breath in these narrow streets and I long for the
trees already, but perhaps content will come with waiting."

"'Tis deeper than that. There is something ominous in the air. Noted
you not the questioning at the gate and its purport? They asked me if I
favoured Treves, or Cologne, or Mayence, but none inquired if I stood
loyal to the Emperor, yet I was entering his capital city of
Frankfort."

"Perhaps you will learn all from the Emperor when you see him,"
ventured Elsa.

"Perhaps," said Wilhelm.

The chamberlain of the von Schonburg household, who had supervised the
arrangements for the reception of the young couple, waited upon his
master in the evening and informed him that the Emperor would not be
visible for some days to come.

"He has gone into retreat, in the cloisters attached to the cathedral,
and it is the imperial will that none disturb him on worldly affairs.
Each day at the hour when the court assembles at the palace, the
Emperor hears exhortation from the pious fathers in the Wahlkapelle of
the cathedral; the chapel in which emperors are elected; these