and of whom we must be jealous;
and if we do not understand each other one of us may lose an
individual dear to her."

"Speak, oh speak!" replied Madame Banfy, and drew her sister down to
her on a sofa in a corner of the room.

"Our husbands have hated each other from the first. They were always
of opposite opinions, in different parties, and had become accustomed
to consider each other as foes. Woe to us if this hatred should come
to open battle and we should see our dear ones fall at each other's
hands."

"I can assure you positively that Banfy cherishes no unfriendly
intentions toward your husband."

"I am not afraid of Apafi's overthrow, but of your husband's. The
throne to which he was called by force has worked a great change in
Apafi. I notice with astonishment that he is beginning to be jealous
of his power. Already at Neuhauesel he expressed himself in the
presence of the Grand Vizier as disturbed because Gabriel Haller had
aspirations toward the Prince's crown; in consequence of which the
Vizier had poor Haller beheaded at once without my husband's
knowledge. Even now Apafi recalls the message which your husband once
had sent to him, that in a short time he would tear his green velvet
cloak from off his shoulders."

"Oh my God, what must I fear!"

"Nothing so long as I have not lost my husband's favor. While others
sleep I am awake at my husband's side and keep watch for the
manifestations of his feelings; and God has given me the strength to
be able to struggle against monsters who would drown in blood the
memory of his rule. In spite of all this, now and then there appears
in my husband a condition of mind when my influence loses all its
magic, when he steps out of his own nature and his gentleness turns to
a brutality demanding action. Then his eyes, which at other times
overflow with tears at the death of a servant, become bloodshot and
seem eager for murder; he who at other times is so cautious, then
becomes hasty. And this condition, I blush to acknowledge to you, is
drunkenness. I do not bring it up against him as a complaint, the man
we love has no faults for us, we forgive him everything"--

"With one exception--his infidelity."

"That too--that too," the Princess made haste to add. "When his life
is at stake we must forgive that too."

"Oh, Anna," said Margaret, in distress, "you leave me to suspect
mysteries that you do not reveal."

"What you must learn, you shall. A little time since