A sunny blue sky bent over the ground; albeit dark clouds came up from
the west, and I found it hard to make fitting answer to their Majesties'
questions.

While the horses were pawing and neighing, and the lances rattled on the
shields, nay, even when the Dukes of Austria and Schleswig rushed on each
other and the Austrian unhorsed his foe, I scarce looked on the jousting-
place on which all other eyes were fixed as though held by chains and
bonds. Mine were set on the spot where Ursula and Ann were sitting, and
with them the young knight from Brandenburg, Sir Apitz of Rochow, and my
brother Herdegen. Junker Henning had his part to play in the tournament.
To Rochow the tourney was all in all; Herdegen gazed only at Ann. She,
to be sure, made no return, but still he would fix his eyes on her and
speak with her. Ursula had turned paler, and meseemed she had eyes only
for him and his doings. What went forward in the pauses of the tilting I
could not mark, inasmuch as my eyes and ears were their Majesties' alone.

Now, two more knights sprang forth. What cared I of what nation they
were, what arms they bore and what they and their horses might do; I had
somewhat else to think of. Ursula and I had long been at war, but to-day
I felt nought but compassion for her: and indeed, on this very day, when
she believed she had won the victory, she more needed pity than when she
had so besought Heaven to grant her Herdegen's love, inasmuch as my
brother sat whispering to Ann with his hand on his heart. And Ann
herself had put away all false seeming; and while she gazed into her
lover's eyes with soft passion, Ursula sat bending her fan as though she
purposed to break it.

To think of Ursula as ruling in our house, and of Ann pining with heart
sickness was cruel grief, and yet were these two things almost less hard