er, the fruit of revenge is ripe, and you must pluck it!"

"Yes, that I will," cried the Stadtholder, with animation. "Oh, my son, a
great, immeasurable joy fills my soul at this hour; and, first of all, let
me beg your pardon for having entertained a horrible suspicion with regard
to you which has lately forced itself upon me. I mistrusted you, seeing
your activity, your strange confidential transactions with the commandants
and officers; I felt that you were on the eve of some great undertaking,
and suspected that in you I had a rival, and that you wished to supplant
me! Forgive me, my son, forgive me in consideration of the misery my
suspicions caused me!"

"I have nothing to forgive, father," said Count Adolphus coldly. "It is so
natural for those incapable of love to suppose that others are only moved
by selfish ends! You, father, love nothing on earth but your own ambition
and fame, and so fancied that it was the same with me, and that ambition
could make the son a traitor to his own father!"

"My Adolphus!" cried the Stadtholder, "I have already told you, and repeat
again, that I feel I have a heart. I felt it in the pain which I
experienced when I doubted you; I feel it now in the rapture which thrills
me in beholding you act so boldly and courageously in behalf of your
father. Give me your hand, Adolphus, and--if you do not disdain such a
thing--embrace me, and kiss your old father."

He held out his arms, and his son threw himself on his breast and
imprinted a long, fervent kiss upon his lips. Long did Count Schwarzenberg
clasp him to his heart, then took the young man's head between both his
hands and looked at him with loving, tender glances. Finally, with a
singular expression of embarrassment, he bent down and kissed his eyes.

"My son," he said softly and quickly, "I love you. Yours are the first
eyes that I have ever kissed, and this kiss of your father's unpolluted
lips should be to you a life-long blessing. And now to work, now for
action, and bold adventurous deeds! Oh, of late how weak and worn out I
have felt myself to be, and longed to withdraw into solitude and
retirement, to rest from all labor! I believed it was old age creeping
upon me, and by its abominable touch unnerving my arm and crippling my
activity. But now I feel that it was only secret grief about you which
thus enfeebled me and robbed my arm of vigor. Now I am quite well again
and strong; now I will dare everything that you have s