The next day the young knight left the home of his forefathers. At
first the maiden seemed inconsolable in her grief. But soon her love
began to slumber like a tired child; on awakening from this
drowsiness indignation seized her, whispering complainingly in her
ear, and disturbing all the sweet memories in which the picture of her
light-hearted lover gleamed forth, he who had parted from her for the
sake of empty glory.
Now left to herself, she began to consider the proud youth who was
forced to live under the same roof with his rejected love. She admired
his good qualities which all seemed to have escaped her before, his
great daring at the chase, his skill with weapons, and his many kind
acts of pure friendship to her, with the view of sweetening the bitter
separation from which she was suffering.
He seemed afraid of rousing the love which was still sleeping in his
heart.
In the meantime Angela felt herself drawn more and more towards the
knight; she wished to try and make him understand that her love for
his younger brother had only been a youthful passion, which seemed to
have flown when he left her. She felt unhappy when she understood that
Henry, whom she now began really to love, seemed to feel nothing but
brotherly affection for her, and she longed in her inmost soul for a
word of love from him.
Henry was not unaware of this change in her affections, but he proudly
smothered every rising thought in his heart for his brother's
betrothed.
The old knight was greatly pleased when, one day, Angela came to him,
and with tears in her eyes disclosed to him the secret of her heart.
He prayed God fervently to bring these two loving hearts together
whom he believed were destined for one another by will of God. In his
dreams he already saw Angela in her castle like his dead wife and his
first-born son, rocking her little baby, a blue-eyed, fair-haired
child. Then he would suddenly recollect his impetuous younger son
fighting in the crusades, and his dreams would be hastily interrupted.
Just opposite to his ancestral hall he caused a proud fort to be
built, and called it "Liebenstein," intending it for his second son
when he returned from the Holy Land. The castle was hardly finished,
when the old man died.
The crusade at last was at an end. All the knights from the Rhine
country brought back the news with them on their return from the Holy
Land, that Conrad had married a beautiful Grecian woman in the East
and was now on his way home with her.
Henry was beside himself with wrath on hearing this news. Such
dishonourable conduct and shameful neglect seemed impossible to him,
and going to the maiden he informed her of his brother's approaching
return.
She turned very pale, her lips moved, but her tongue found no words.