tching and quivering
distorted her features. "It is indeed true, I have been wickedly
reviled!" she exclaimed, throwing the paper aside. "My enemies will rob
me of the only thing remaining--my honor--my good name. They desire to
expose me to the scorn of the world. Oh, this disgrace is more shocking
than all my other sufferings. It will kill me!" She covered her face
with her hands and wept piteously. The tears trickled between her
fingers, and fell on her black dress as if adorning it with diamonds.

The Countess von Truchsess was touched by the queen's grief. She softly
gathered up the other papers, and was about to leave the room, but the
noise of her footsteps aroused Louisa from the stupor of her despair.
She quickly dropped her hands from her face and dried her tears. "Stay
here," she said; "read the remainder. I want to hear it all." And as the
lady of honor remonstrated against this order--as she implored the queen
to spare herself, and to close her ears against such slanders, Louisa
said, gravely and imperiously: "I want to know it all! Unknown terrors
are even worse than those which we do know. Read!"

The countess, therefore, was obliged to read. The remaining numbers of
the journal repeated the same charge. They stated, though in different
words, that the queen alone was in favor of the alliance with Russia;
that the king would be quite willing to make peace with France, but that
his wife would never permit it, because she was passionately enamoured
of the emperor of Russia, and maintained a tender _liaison_ with him.
The queen listened as immovable and cold as a statue; her whole vitality
seemed suspended; she then pressed her right hand firmly against her
heart; with her left she clung convulsively to the back of the sofa, on
which she was sitting, as though she wished to prevent herself from
falling. Her eyes stared wildly, as if strange and fearful visions
passed before them. Thus she sat, long after the countess had paused,
an image of grief and horror. The lady of honor dared not interrupt her;
but clasping her hands, and weeping softly, she gazed at the queen, who,
in her grief-stricken beauty, seemed to her a martyr. Nothing was heard
but the monotonous ticking of the clock, and, at times, a low whistling
of the canary-bird, in its gilt cage at the window.

But suddenly Louisa seemed to awake from her stupor; a tremor pervaded
her whole frame; the flash of: life and consciousness returned to her
ey