to
speak to some one, she turned to her at last with the thing that filled
her mind.

"This marriage," she said bitterly. "Is it talked about? Am I the only
one in the palace who has not known about it?"

"No, Highness, I had heard nothing."

"But you knew about it?"

"Only what I heard to-night. Of course, there are always rumors."

"As to the other, the matter my mother referred to," Hedwig held her
head very high, "I--she was unjust. Am I never to have any friends?"

The Countess turned and, separating the curtains, surveyed the room
within. Annunciata was asleep, and beyond, Hilda was playing dreamily,
and very softly, as behooves one whose bedtime is long past. When the
Countess dropped the curtain, she turned abruptly to Hedwig.

"Friends, Highness? One may have friends, of course. It is not
friendship they fear."

"What then?"

"A lover," said the Countess softly. "It is impossible to see Captain
Larisch in your presence, and not realize--"

"Go on."

"And not realize, Highness, that he is in love with you."

"How silly!" said the Princess Hedwig, with glowing eyes.

"But Highness!" implored the Countess. "If only you would use a little
caution. Open defiance is its own defeat."

"I am not ashamed of what I do," said Hedwig hotly.

"Ashamed! Of course not. But things that are harmless in others, in your
position--you are young. You should have friends, gayety. I am,"
she smiled grimly in the darkness, "not so old myself but that I can
understand."

"Who told my mother that I was having tea with--with Prince Otto?"

"These things get about. Where there is no gossip, there are plenty to
invent it. And--pardon, Highness--frankness, openness, are not always
understood."

Hedwig stood still. The old city was preparing for sleep. In the Place
a few lovers loitered, standing close, and the faint tinkling of a bell
told of the Blessed Sacrament being carried through the streets to some
bedside of the dying. Soon the priest came into view, walking rapidly,
with his skirts flapping around his legs. Before him marched a boy,
ringing a bell and carrying a lighted lamp. The priest bent his steps
through the Place, and the lovers kneeled as he passed by. The Princess
Hedwig bowed her head.

It seemed to her, all at once, that the world was full of wretchedness
and death, and of separation, which might be worse than death. The lamp,
passing behind trees, shone out fitfully. The bell tinkled--a thin,
s