Margrave I shall hang, as my predecessor Rudolph did his ancestor."

An expression of sternness hardened the Archbishop's face.

"Sir," he said, "I regret to hear you speak like this, and your safety
lies in the fact that I do not believe a word of it. Even so, such wild
words fill me with displeasure. I beg to remind you that the Election of
an Emperor has not yet taken place, and I, for one, am likely to
reconsider my decision. Still, as I said, I do not believe a word of
your absurd tale."

"I believe every syllable of it!" cried the Countess with enthusiasm,
"and glory that there is a mind brave enough, and a hand obedient to it,
to smoke out a robber and a murderer."

The tension this astonishing revelation caused was relieved by a laugh
from the Archbishop.

"My dear Hildegunde, you are forgetting your own ancestors. I venture
that no woman of the House of Sayn talked thus when the Emperor Rudolph
marched Count von Sayn to the scaffold. You would probably sing another
song if asked to restore the millions amassed by Henry III. of Sayn and
his successors; all accumulated by robbery as cruel as any that the Red
Margrave has perpetrated."

"My Lord," said the Countess proudly, "you had no need to ask that
question, for you knew the answer to it before you spoke. Every thaler I
control shall be handed over to Prince Roland, to be used for the
regeneration of his country."

Again the Archbishop laughed.

"Surely I knew that, my dear, and I should not have said what I did. I
suppose you will not allow me to vote against his Highness at the coming
Election."

"Indeed, you shall vote enthusiastically for him, because you know in
your own heart he is the man Germany needs."

"Was there ever such a change of front?" cried the Archbishop. "Why, my
dear, the charges you so hotly made against his Highness are as nothing
to what he has himself confessed; yet now he is the savior of Germany,
when previously--Ah, well, I must not play the tale-bearer."

"Prince Roland," cried the girl, "my kinsman, Father Ambrose, said he
met you in Frankfort, although now I believe him to have been mistaken."

"Oh no; I encountered the good Father on the bridge."

"There now!" exclaimed the Archbishop, "what do you say to that, my
lady?"

She seemed perplexed by the admission, but quickly replied to his
Lordship:

"'Twas you said that could not be, as he was a close prisoner in
Ehrenfels." She continued, addressing the Prince