r, she said: 'The world and my heart lie at your feet, Eberhard,
beloved. You are fighting with some wild phantasy, some spectre which
exists only in your own mind. See, we share all things, let me share your
sorrow. Is it only the loss of this letter which distresses you? Oh! tell
me; surely you will not shut me out from your life?'

Her voice charmed him as on that first day when he had called her
Philomele, and he turned to her with his love shining in his eyes.

'Am I, indeed, scaring myself with a phantom?' he said, and a note of
almost childlike appeal lay in his tone.

'Yes, only that,' she made answer, and, smiling, drew him to her. Then he
told her the story of the plot against them, but he did not mention
Forstner as the prime conspirator. She laughed.

'_You_ are safe, for none can make you abdicate against your will; and I
am safe because you protect me, beloved.'

'Safe? Yes; but ah! the letter! Who slinks past our guards and robs my
bureau? It is hateful. I love to fight a man, but this lurking danger
which I guess hidden behind each arras----'

'The letter? Are you sure you sought in each hiding-place of your
bureau?' she said. Already in her mind a plan was forming whereby she
could allay his fears and conquer his suspicions. Forstner's letter lay
hidden in her bosom; she would replace it in the bureau-drawer while they
searched, then, with the Duke's knowledge of Forstner's plot, she would
break this dangerous enemy.

'Forgive me, Eberhard, but so many people search frantically and thus
overlook the very object they seek! See, let us look through the papers
together.'

She approached the bureau, and made believe to be mighty awkward with the
fastening. His Highness unlocked the panel, and together they began a
review of the tumbled documents within, Wilhelmine talking gaily the
while.

'What is it like, this precious letter?--large? small?' she asked.

'A large paper in Forstner's writing,' returned the Duke, forgetting that
she did not know whence came the letter.

'In Forstner's writing!' she exclaimed. 'And this you hide from me? The
man is my deadly enemy, and, as you know now at last, but a false friend
to you! You say the world is dark and evil to you; what is it to me when
you, the love of my life, can harbour letters from my cruel enemy?'

She flung herself down on the chair beside the bureau, and burying her
face in the papers on the writing-desk, burst into a flood of tears.
Eber