placed between them and their liberty, in a few
days more the young prince would have betrayed himself. Thus, when the
doctor proposed that he must never see his enchantress again, or possess
her by a secret marriage, Rodolph threw himself on Polidori's neck,
called him his saviour, his friend, his father; he only wished that the
temple and the priest were at hand, that he might marry her that
instant. The doctor resolved (for reasons of his own) to undertake the
management of all. He found a priest,--witnesses; and the union (all the
formalities of which were carefully scrutinised and verified by Seyton)
was secretly celebrated during a temporary absence of the Grand Duke at
a conference of the German Diet. The prophecy of the Scotch soothsayer
was fulfilled,--Sarah wedded the heir to a throne.

Without quenching the fire of his love, possession rendered Rodolph more
circumspect, and cooled down that violence which might have compromised
the secret of his passion for Sarah; but, directed by Seyton and the
doctor, the young couple managed so well, and observed so much
circumspection towards each other, that they eluded all detection.

An event, impatiently desired by Sarah, soon turned this calm into a
tempest,--she was about to become a mother. It was then that this woman
evinced all those exactions which were so new to, and so much
astonished, Rodolph. She protested, with hypocritical tears streaming
from her eyes, that she could no longer support the constraint in which
she lived; a constraint rendered the more insupportable by her
pregnancy. In this extremity she boldly proposed to the young prince to
tell all to his father, who was, as well as the Dowager Grand Duchess,
fonder than ever of her. No doubt, she added, he will be very angry,
greatly enraged, at first, but he loves his son so tenderly, so blindly,
and had for her (Sarah) so strong an affection, that his paternal anger
would gradually subside, and she would at last take in the court of
Gerolstein the rank which was due to her, she might say in a double
sense, because she was about to give birth to a child, which would be
the heir presumptive to the Grand Duke. These pretensions alarmed
Rodolph: he knew the deep attachment which his father had for him, but
he also well knew the inflexibility of his principles with regard to all
the duties of a prince. To all these objections Sarah replied, unmoved:

"I am your wife in the presence of God and men. In a s