ds the door. Fieldmarshal, the prince of Hesse,
entering at that moment, met them.

'Is my wife yet here?' asked he of lieutenant general Rank. 'I come to
lead her to the court.'

'She has just gone,' answered Rank. 'Her majesty was pleased to grant
an audience here before she went.'

The prince looked at both of the supplicants. 'Captain Gyllenstierna!'
said he, playfully, 'what affair could bring you to the ante-chamber,
which is certainly a ground upon which you have not yet learned to
man[oe]uvre?'

'So our ill-success has proved,' answered Arwed, with suppressed rage.
'We have been vainly pleading for the life of the unhappy Goertz.'

'For Goertz's life?' asked the prince with an appearance of interest.
'I can guess what prompts you to the effort, and pity you from the
bottom of my heart. It is a very bad case.'

'If your royal highness will graciously condescend to interest
yourself, we shall have new grounds for hope, and all may yet end
well,' said Conradi.

'Trouble not his royal highness with your intercessions, Conradi,' said
Arwed bitterly. 'Upon his high command was the baron arrested;
consequently he has already decided upon his guilt, and mercy here is
not to be thought of.'

'You deceive yourself, captain,' said the prince, mildly correcting the
excited youth. 'I hate not the unfortunate man. Powerless he must
become, and powerless he must remain, but his death would be contrary
to my wish and my advice. If his sentence depended upon me, I would
banish him from the country, and so settle all.'

'Ah, if your royal highness will exert your influence in favor of a
mild sentence,' cried Conradi in raptures, 'God will be your rich
rewarder.'

'My dear pastor,' answered the prince graciously, 'this case will
probably be decided by the diet. The power of my wife is circumscribed,
and I am only her first subject.'

'Yet,' interposed Arwed, 'the delightful privilege remains to your
royal highness of alleviating the last hours of the unhappy man whom
you cannot save. His daughter wishes to be permitted to speak to him. I
wish to conduct her there, but the president of the special commission
is inexorable.'

'That is hard!' said the prince. 'A criminal is still a man. Go
directly to Ribbing, my dear Rank, and say to him that it is my wish.'

'God bless your royal highness for the deed!' cried the preacher.

'But that no trouble may arise from this exercise of my kind feelings,'
proceeded the prin