account of your own
crime."

"Crime, your highness?"

"Yes, count, crime! You are a conspirator, a rebel! You incited my
officers to revolt, entangled them in a conspiracy, and when I would have
brought you to judgment you fled like a cowardly woman."

"Your highness!" screamed the count, "I beseech you, weigh your words,
provoke me not too much! Otherwise I might forget the respect due you."

"And if you should venture, I have ample means of leading you back to the
proper bounds, of forcing you to respect me, to fall down in the dust, and
plead for pardon! Do you know what you are? Do you know what you were?"

"What I was I know," cried the count. "I was the favored lover of your
sister, Princess Charlotte Louise!"

"Ah! Now at last you drop your mask, now you show your real face. The face
of a slanderer, a liar! For you utter a falsehood. You calumniate the
virtue of a noble lady, and boast of a favor you never received."

"I speak the truth, your highness, and am in a condition to prove it.
Princess Charlotte Louise gave me her favor, and went further than was
seemly for a modest maiden. She volunteered to grant me a rendezvous
impelled by ardent love."

"That is not true."

"It is true, sir, and I can prove it! I have the writing with me, in which
your sister invites me to a rendezvous in the castle at Berlin. She wrote
it with her own hand, and signed it with her name. Until now, no one has
known the secret, and no one shall know it if we can agree."

"We agree?"

"Yes, your highness, _we_! Your sister's letter is well worth what I ask.
I demand nothing but my rights. Leave me my estates, acknowledge me as
grand master, appoint me my father's successor, give me the hand of
Princess Charlotte Louise."

"My sister's hand to _you_?"

"To me, for I have a right to that hand. The Princess engaged herself to
me, and granted me favors."

"Wretched man, to boast of them!" interrupted the Elector.

"She appointed a meeting with me to take place by night," continued the
count quietly. "Your honor would be destroyed if any one knew of this. Let
me keep it intact! Give me your sister's hand! For I tell you if you do
not the world shall hear of this _faux pas_ on the part of the Princess. I
shall publicly expose the letter she wrote to me, and a laugh of scorn
will pursue both you and her through the whole of Germany! Give me your
sister's hand!"

"Were you the Emperor himself I would not give her to you. A