to the tempest of love, she shared in the
flight of the poet. In a remote section of chivalric Bohemia, they found
an asylum. But Bertha was as yet but the deliverer from bondage, if not
death, of her soul's idol; he, with all the warmth and gratitude of a
dozen poets, worshipped at her feet and besought her to bless him
evermore by sharing his fate and fortune. There was a something
imposing, a something that brought the pearly tear to the heroic girl's
eye and made that lovely bosom undulate with most sad emotion. The poet
pressed her to his heart--fell at her feet, and begged that if his
life--property--children--be the sacrifice--but let him know the secret
at once--he was her friend--defender--lover--slave. Another sigh, and
the spell was broken.

"Why--ah! why were you a state prisoner--a _secret_ prisoner in
the ----?"

"Loved angel," answered the poet, "I scarce can tell; indeed I have not
the merest _hint_, in my own mind, to tell me for what I was arrested
and thrown into prison!"

"Ah! sir," sighed the lovely Bertha, "I can never then wed the man I
love--I cannot brave the dangers of an unknown fate--at some moment
least expected, to be torn from his arms--lost to him forever!"

"We can fly, dearest," suggested the poet, "we can fly to other and more
secure lands. In the sunshine of your sweet smile, my dear Bertha,
obscurity--poverty would be nothing."

"No," said the girl, "I cannot leave my father--the land of my
birth--home of my childhood. I that have given you liberty, may point
out a way to deliver you from further restraint. How I learned the
nature of your crime, ask not; I know your secret."

"Ah! what mean you?"

"In a foolish hour," continued the lovely Bertha, with downcast eyes and
heaving bosom, "you impaled your generous self to save a friend--the
friend fled--you were arrested--"

"Good God!" exclaimed the poet, "Herr Beethoven----"

"Gave you possession of----" she continued.

"No! no! no!" interposed the affrighted poet, daring not to breathe
"yes," even to the ear of his fair preserver.

"Sir," calmly continued the girl, "I have risked my own life and liberty
to preserve yours, I have----"

"I--I know it all, dear--dearest angel, but----"

"Those manuscripts," she continued, fixing her keen but melting gaze
upon the poor victim.

"Ha! manuscripts? How learned you this? No, no, it cannot be----"

"It is known--I know it--I learned it from your captors; but for my
_love_