perhaps my forefather. I shall speak
to the lady. Wait for me here."

He crossed the apartment hastily, and entered his cabinet. In the center
of the room stood a veiled female form. The Prince, however, recognized
her, although her face could not be seen, for he knew her by her pretty
coquettish costume to be the Princess Ludovicka's French chambermaid, and
he stepped quickly up to her.

"I thought that it was you, Alice," he said softly, "and I have therefore
come to tell you to--"

With sudden movement she tore back her veil, and before the pale,
beautiful countenance thereby revealed the Prince stepped back, as pale as
death.

"You yourself?" he murmured. "You, Ludovicka?"

"Yes, I, Ludovicka! I come here in my maid's dress," said she, in a voice
trembling with pain and emotion. "I come to you, my beloved, to ask you
whether you will desert me, leaving me in despair, affliction, and
heart-sickness? O Frederick, Frederick! how fearfully have I suffered this
night!"

"And I?" murmured he softly. "Have I not suffered too?"

"No," she cried, "you have not suffered as I did, for you love me not as I
love you--you love me not more than your life, your honor, your
fatherland! You will abandon and forsake me, because it is France that has
offered us aid! Oh, you are a cold, heartless man, as all men are, and yet
I love you so much and can not live without you! Frederick William, you
will not go with me to France--well then, I will go with you, wherever you
will. I cleave to you--I will stay with you! Let shame and ignominy be my
fate, let my mother curse me, let all the world despise me and call me
your mistress, I will stay with you, for I love you and can not live
without you!"

Passionately she extended her arms to him, love flaming in her glances.
But a darker shadow flitted across the Prince's face, and he shrank back.

"God forbid, Ludovicka," he said, "that misery and shame should ever come
to you through me, that your mother should curse you for my sake! We are
both yet children, Ludovicka. I felt right painfully last night that the
first duty of children is to obey and reverence their parents. Let us do
our duty, Ludovicka!"

"That is," replied she with swelling rage--"that is to say, you give me
up? They have overcome your opposition, they have brought you back to
obedience, to subjection?"

"No other than myself has done it, Ludovicka."

"You? You give me up? Voluntarily? And yet you swore that yo