marriage was soon to be set aside as null and
void, he told me.

"'Then come back to me when you are free,' I answered, 'and I will
listen to you if the Church permits,' for I knew he was not of my
Faith, and the German States treated marriage lightly. My answer only
caused him to redouble his entreaties; he begged me not to drive him
from me, he could not live away from my presence, and I, poor fool,
looking down at his handsome face and graceful person, and loving him
with my whole heart, believed him.

"I know not how it came about, but I found myself sitting on a seat in
that secluded corner of my garden with the Prince beside me with his
arms around me, whilst my lady-in-waiting, the Baroness d'Altenstein,
had discreetly wandered off out of earshot, but still with a keen eye
that no one should disturb us.

"I never can account for it, I never can understand how it was I
listened to him. I suppose it was the hot bad blood of the Dolphbergs
which lurked in my veins and urged me, for I loved with all the passion
of my race then; loved as a woman over thirty loves who has never loved
before.

"Sitting on that rustic seat with him, whilst the cool evening wind
played about us, I listened to a scheme he unfolded to me. He said he
loved me to such distraction that he could not leave me, it would kill
him; he could not wait until his marriage was set aside. He swore that
he believed himself conscience free to marry, and swore a great oath
that nothing should ever part him from me.

"In soft, loving whispers, he proposed that we should be married
secretly; he had a priest all ready willing to perform the ceremony.

"Then he would be sure of me and could live content.

"In a few months his former alliance would be set aside; before all the
world we could be married again. A grand state ceremony if I would
have it so.

"I listened to him, and my heart beat high as he spoke, yet I doubted
in my saner moments whether I should ever be permitted to marry him by
my ministers and my people were he free that very day.

"Poor fool that I was, he bent me to his will within a week, and he had
no greater advocate for his cause than the Baroness d'Altenstein, my
lady, though, poor soul, she only meant me well. But she was romantic,
and had not long been married to a man she loved, a courtier from the
country of the Dolphbergs; she had spent her honeymoon in their
capital, and was an advocate for love at any price.

"K