he refuse him--him to whom
she owed every thing, whom she loved as her benefactor, her teacher, her
friend, and lover? She followed him, and concealed herself for him in
the modest little dwelling at Potsdam. For him she lived in solitude,
anxiously avoiding to show herself publicly, that the king should never
know of her existence, and in his just anger sever the unlawful tie
which bound her to the Prince of Prussia. [Footnote: "Memoirs of the
Countess Lichtenau," p. 80.] Wilhelmine recalled the past seven years
of her life, her two children, whom she had borne to the prince, and
the joy that filled his heart as he became a father, although his lawful
wife had also borne him children. She looked around her small, quiet
dwelling, arranged in a modest manner, not as the favorite of the Prince
of Prussia, but as an unpretending citizen's wife; she thought how oft
with privations, with want even, she had had to combat; how oft the
ornaments which the prince had sent her in the rare days of abundance
had been taken to the pawnbrokers to provide the necessary wants of
herself and children. Her eyes flashed with pride and joy at the thought
which she dared to breathe to herself, that not for gold or riches,
power or position, had she sold her love, her honor, and her good name.

"It was from pure affinity, from gratitude and affection, that I
followed the husband of my heart, although he was a prince," she said.

Still the shame of her existence weighed upon her. The king had
commanded her to hide her head so securely that no one might know her
shame, or the levity of the prince.

"Go! and let me never see you again!"

Did not this mean that the king would remove her so far that there
would not be a possible chance to appear again before him? Was there not
hidden in these words a menace, a warning? Would not the king revenge
on her the sad experiences of his youth? Perhaps he would punish her
for what Doris Ritter had suffered! Doris Ritter! She, too, had loved a
crown prince--she, too, had dared to raise her eyes to the future King
of Prussia, for which she was cruelly punished, though chaste and pure,
and hurled down to the abyss of shame for the crime of loving an heir to
the throne. Beaten, insulted, and whipped through the streets, and then
sent to the house of correction at Spandau! Oh, poor, unhappy Doris
Ritter! Will the king atone to you--will he revenge the friend of his
youth on the mistress of his successor? Th