No, don't interrupt me yet, Mistress Eva, for you must know that Sir Heinz's lady mother committed her dear son to my Biberli's care, that he might guard him from injury and illness.

But since his master met you, he has been tottering about as though he had received a spear-thrust, and as the knight confessed to his faithful servitor that no leech could help him until you permitted him to open his heart to you and show you with what humble devotion----" But here the maid was interrupted in a manner very different from her expectations, for Eva had raised herself on her pillows and, almost unable to control her voice in the excess of her wrath, exclaimed: "The master who presumes to seek through his servant----And by what right does the knight dare thus insolently----But no! Who knows what modest wish was transformed in your mouth to so unprecedented a demand?
He desired to see my face?
He wanted to speak to me in person, to confess I know not what?
From you--you, Katterle, the maid--the knight expects----" Here she struck her little hand angrily against the wood of the bedstead and, panting for breath, continued: "I'll show him!----Yet no! What I have to answer no one else----From me, from me alone, he shall learn without delay.

There is paper in yonder chest, on the very top; bring it to me, with pen and ink." Katterle silently hurried to obey this order, but Eva pressed her hand upon her heaving bosom, and gazed silently into vacancy.
The manservant and the maid whom Heinz Schorlin had made his messengers certainly could have no conception of the bond that united her to him; even her own sister had misunderstood it.

He should now learn that Eva Ortlieb knew what beseemed her! But she, too, longed for another meeting, and this conduct rendered it necessary.
The sooner they two had a conversation, the better.

She could confidently venture to invite him to the meeting which she had in view; her aunt, the abbess, had promised to stand by her side, if she needed her, in her intercourse with the knight.
But her colour?
Katterle had long since laid the paper and writing materials before her, but she still pondered.