nberg has poisoned you. Are
you not consumed by inward fires? Is not your head heavy and giddy?"

"I see plainly that you know what I suffer--you know the poison which was
given me."

"I know the poison, but I also know its cure. I know its antidote, and
have brought it to you. I would save you."

"You would save me?" asked the Electoral Prince. "Am I not dying fast
enough for you? Have I not yet swallowed enough of the deadly fluid that
you would give me more as a remedy? The invention is somewhat flimsy! I
shall not drink!"

"Unhappy Prince, you would not live, then?" asked she, in distress. "Hear
me, Frederick William. If you delay, you are lost beyond all hope of cure.
Nobody knows the remedy for your sufferings but myself, and nobody can
save you if I do not! Oh, think not that I would merit your thanks and
rewards! I have come hither at the peril of my own life, and each minute
increases my own danger as well as yours. The soldiers have fled before
my apparition. If a braver one should come to look closer at the White
Lady, I am lost, and you with me, for then I could not administer to you
the antidote."

"Tell me who you are, that I may see whether I may trust you."

"Who am I?" asked she. "I am a poor, mortal woman, who possesses nothing
upon earth but a heart, which loves nothing but a poor, much-to-be-pitied
man, whom not his own will but destiny has made a criminal. His child and
I were threatened with death, and to save us he committed a crime.
Electoral Prince, Count Schwarzenberg has poisoned you by means of Gabriel
Nietzel. I come to save you. Not for your own sake. What are you to
me?--why should I disturb myself about you? I love Gabriel Nietzel, and I
would not have his soul burdened by a crime that would break his heart. My
Gabriel has a tender heart; he was not made to be a criminal. Therefore
would I absolve him from that curse, for I love Gabriel, and would not
have him be a murderer. Do you believe me now? Will you try my palliative
now?"

The Electoral Prince lay there silent and motionless, and his large,
wide-open eyes gazed searchingly and inquiringly up at the white figure,
as if they would penetrate the veil and read her features.

Rebecca had a consciousness of this, and let the white veil fall from her
head. "Look in my face," she said, "and read from that whether I speak
the truth."

"Gabriel Nietzel, too, came to warn me," murmured the Prince, quivering
with pain, "and afterwa