was there in
waiting; and the sight of another face, prying (or so she felt) on her
distress, struck Seraphina into childish anger.

"Go!" she cried; and then, when the old man was already half-way to the
door, "Stay!" she added. "As soon as Baron Gondremark arrives, let him
attend me here."

"It shall be so directed," said the chamberlain.

"There was a letter ..." she began, and paused.

"Her Highness," said the chamberlain, "will find a letter on the table.
I had received no orders, or her Highness had been spared this trouble."

"No, no, no," she cried. "I thank you. I desire to be alone."

And then, when he was gone, she leaped upon the letter. Her mind was
still obscured; like the moon upon a night of clouds and wind, her
reason shone and was darkened, and she read the words by flashes.

"Seraphina," the Prince wrote, "I will write no syllable of reproach.
I have seen your order, and I go. What else is left me? I have wasted
my love, and have no more. To say that I forgive you is not needful:
at least, we are now separate for ever; by your own act, you free me
from my willing bondage: I go free to prison. This is the last that
you will hear of me in love or anger. I have gone out of your life;
you may breathe easy; you have now rid yourself of the husband who
allowed you to desert him, of the Prince who gave you his rights, and
of the married lover who made it his pride to defend you in your
absence. How you have requited him, your own heart more loudly tells
you than my words. There is a day coming when your vain dreams will
roll away like clouds, and you will find yourself alone. Then you
will remember

"OTTO."

She read with a great horror on her mind; that day, of which he wrote,
was come. She was alone; she had been false, she had been cruel; remorse
rolled in upon her; and then with a more piercing note, vanity bounded
on the stage of consciousness. She a dupe! she helpless! she to have
betrayed herself in seeking to betray her husband! she to have lived
these years upon flattery, grossly swallowing the bolus, like a clown
with sharpers! she--Seraphina! Her swift mind drank the consequences;
she foresaw the coming fall, her public shame; she saw the odium,
disgrace, and folly of her story flaunt through Europe. She recalled the
scandal she had so royally braved; and, alas! she had now no courage to
confront it with. To be thought the mistress of that man: