ould point out," said
the director.

"I am convinced that he is in the city; and driving put of the nine
gates at the same time was the best manner to escape being discovered,"
said Herzberg. "He is concealed in some one of the houses of the
brothers, and we shall be obliged to let him escape this time."

In order the more securely to carry out the initiation of Prince
Frederick William, in company with Bischofswerder and Woellner,
Cagliostro had arranged his pretended departure. For a long time the
prince had expressed an extreme desire to be received into the mysteries
of the miraculous and holy order, of which he had heard his friends
speak with so much reverence. But he had been put off from time to
time with regrets and shrugs of the shoulders, and expressions of the
impossibility of granting the request.

"The spirits do not always appear even to the consecrated," said
Bischofswerder. "They make themselves known after many fervent prayers
and implorings, and when we have withdrawn from every one who could
entice us to doubt or disbelief. I fear that it would be impossible to
conjure the spirits of the departed, so long as your highness honors a
certain lady with your particular favor, who ridicules the sublime order
and mingles with its enemies. How can they appear to those who have just
been in the company of a friend of the Illuminati and unbelievers?"

"The spirit-world only reveals itself to the virtuous and pure," said
Woellner, in a harsh, dry voice. "Its inhabitants cannot approach those
who are not chaste and innocent, for sin and vice surround them with a
thick fog, which keeps them at a distance from the clear atmosphere
of the sublime. If you would call up the spirits, you must remove this
woman who entices you from the path of virtue, and renders the sphere
impure around you."

Despite the warnings and the great wish the prince had to be received
into the spirit-world, and become a member of the highest grade of
the Rosicrucians, he could not resolve to forsake her who had been his
friend for ten years, and who had borne shame and degradation on his
account, refusing eligible and rich men rather than leave him and become
a legitimate wife. Wilhelmine was the beloved of his youth, the mother
of his two dear children, and she alone knew how to drive away the ennui
which pursued the prince, with her amiable, subtle wit. Nay, he could
not be so ungrateful, so heartless, as to reject her who had so ten