nduce her to oppose to his clever remarks her own modest opinion! He had
cheerfully endured contradiction the night before during the conversation
concerning music.

But what had followed her luckless regret about his lame foot?

The words had pierced her heart like knives; even now she did not
understand where she obtained the strength to withhold the sharp answer
for which her lips had already parted; but she knew her hasty spirit,
which only too easily led her to outbreaks of anger. Had the power of
love, or the magic spell which emanates from genuine royalty, forced her
to silence?

No matter.

A good angel had aided her to control herself, and in a rapid prayer she
besought the Holy Virgin to assist her in future if her august lover
again roused her to rebellion.

Now that she was losing her most sincere friends, the only ones who might
have ventured a kindly warning, she must learn to guard herself.

Perhaps it was fortunate that she had already discovered how necessary it
was not only to show the mighty sovereign to whom her heart belonged that
he was dear to her, but also to display the timid reverence with which
millions bowed before him. But if she imposed this constraint upon
herself, would her love still remain the same?

"No, no, and again no!" cried the refractory spirit within.

Was he not a weak, fallible mortal, subject, like every one else, to
suffering and disease, overcome by his passion, who had even been guilty
of an act which, had it been committed by the son of a Ratisbon family,
would have seemed to her reprehensible?

Again and again this question forced itself upon her, and with it
another--whether she, the woman who had never tolerated such a thing from
any one, ought not to undertake to defend herself against unjust
assaults, which humiliated her in her own eyes, no matter whence they
might come?

Would she not hold a higher position in his sight if she showed him, whom
no one ventured to contradict, that the woman he deemed worthy of his
love dared to defend her dignity, although he had deprived her of her
natural protectors?

Precisely because she was conscious of loving him with her whole soul,
because for his sake she had given the world the right to deny her honour
and dignity, she was eager to show him that she prized both, and was not
inclined to let them be assailed.

Hitherto she had not regarded it as a disgrace, but as the highest
distinction, to be deemed worthy of