ul rose
in arms at this thought like an insulted lioness, and she felt some of
that burning hatred that the lioness feels for her master who wishes to
tame her with an iron rod. The prince was to her but her master, who had
bound and held her heart in irons, to keep it from escaping from him.

During these seven long years, she had experienced all the freedom and
happiness of girlhood; her heart had beat with a power, a fire condemned
by the princess herself, but which she was incapable of extinguishing.

Trembling and restless, she wandered through the rooms, smiling when she
would have given worlds to have shrieked out her pain, her agony; decked
in splendid garments, when she would gladly have been in her shroud.
Every sound every step, filled her with terror, for it might announce
the arrival of her husband, whom she must welcome with hypocritical love
and joy. Could she but show him her scorn, her hatred, her indifference!
But the laws of etiquette held her in their stern bonds and would not
release her. She was a princess, and could not escape from the painful
restraints of her position. She had not the courage to do so. At times
in her day-dreams, she longed to leave all the cold, deceitful glare, by
which she was surrounded--to go to some far distant valley, and there
to live alone and unknown, by the side of her lover, where no etiquette
would disturb their happiness--where she would be free as the birds of
the air, as careless as the flowers of the field. But these wild dreams
vanished when the cold, cruel reality appeared to her. By the side of
the once loving woman stood again the princess, who could not surrender
the splendor and magnificence by which she was surrounded. She had not
the courage nor the wish to descend from her height to the daily life of
common mortals. There was dissension in her soul between the high-born
princess and the loving, passionate woman. She was capable of making
any and every sacrifice for her love, but she had never openly confessed
this love, and even in her wildest dreams she had never thought of
changing her noble name and position for those of her lover. She could
have fled with him to some distant valley, but would she be happy? Would
she not regret her former life? Princess Wilhelmina felt the dissension
in her soul, and therefore she trembled at the thought of her husband's
return. This meeting would decide her whole future. Perhaps she could
still be saved. The prince,