e."

"Your Majesty!"

"Calm yourself. You see we are friends. I promise you never again to
allow my displeasure to last over night."

"What expression?"

"It was 'constitutional king'; and while, last night, I read this
letter again and again, that phrase was ever between the lines. Can one
be a sovereign and yet subject to the law? Mark me, Bronnen; if I were
in the presence of Eternal God, I could not open my heart more freely.
This expression of yours and our friend's appeal aroused me. Can I
remain a sovereign, a complete man and king, and at the same time be
fettered? At last I understood it. She says: 'Be one with the law, with
your wife and your people.' Is there free love in marriage? Can there
be a free king in a constitutional government! There lies the
difficulty. But I have conquered it. Fidelity is love awakened to
itself. The life I lead, my crown, my wife, indeed all that I possess,
became mine by virtue of my rank. Last night, I earned the right to
call them mine. To be able, in all moods, to hold fast to what has,
heretofore, only been the result of impulse; to infuse new life into
one's actions, and to feel that they are in accord with one's self--Ah,
you can have no idea of the spirits I wrestled with; but I conquered at
last. 'Free and true,' is my motto for evermore."

Bronnen was deeply agitated, and, in his enthusiasm, rushed toward the
king.

"I have never bent the knee to human being, but now I should like to--"

"No, my friend," cried the king. "Come to my heart. Let us, holding
fast to one another, act and work together. I will prove that a king
can act freely, and that his freedom and his friendship are something
more than a mere fairy ideal. Yesterday, I felt as if you were my
father-confessor. It does me good to say this. I have come to know that
the man whose hand and heart are impure is unfit to labor for the
highest and noblest ends. There is no greatness which is not based on
true morality, and, in uttering these words, I utter a verdict upon my
past life. I am not ashamed to acknowledge to you, what I have already
said to myself. And now let us, as men, consider what is best to be
done."

Bronnen's countenance seemed illumined with a ray of purest joy.

"A bright, unclouded spirit is with us."

"Let her memory be held in honor."

"I do not mean her," said Bronnen. "When I spoke to Count Eberhard, he
said: 'Honor pledges us to morality; fame, still more so; and power,
mos