l swear it to me."

"Own to him that you have friends on whose aid and assistance you can
count, but let him not suspect who these friends are. Then lead the
conversation to the Media Nocte--But, my heavens!" exclaimed the count,
interrupting himself, while he looked as if accidentally at the clock, "it
only wants now a few minutes of two o'clock, and the Electoral Prince will
certainly come punctually, and therefore will be here directly. I have
written out all that it is necessary that you will have the complaisance
to do between this and to-morrow. Read it over at your leisure, and
impress it rightly upon your mind. Here is the paper, and may my writing
find a hearing and favor! If such be the case, as I hope and desire, then
will your highness have the goodness to open your window a little at ten
o'clock and display from it an orange-colored ribbon. All the rest will
take care of itself, and what your highness has to do is on the paper. I
hasten to withdraw, that your highness may have time to read my writing."

"But if the Prince should come now?" asked Ludovicka anxiously--"if he
should see a man descending from my window?"

"You are right, Princess; that is to be dreaded; and I, too, have
considered that. I will not leave through the window."

"Not through the window? But in what other way would you--"

"Go away, would you say? By yonder door! I know perfectly well that it
leads into the Princess's private apartment, and thence into the
antechamber. Oh, I know the Castle Doornward well, for is it not the
residence of the Electress of the Palatinate and her fair daughter the
Princess? Therefore I have had drawn out for myself an exact plan of
it. Moreover, your waiting maid Alice awaits me in the antechamber.
Forgive her for not having been able to withstand the persuasions of her
compatriot, the magician Ducato. Alice will permit me to slip out of the
castle by a back door. And now, adored Princess and exalted Electress of
the future, permit your most faithful and devoted servant ere he depart
once more to press your beloved hand to his lips, and to tell you how
inexpressibly happy--and, alas! how inexpressibly wretched--it makes him
that he can and--must assist in marrying the Princess Ludovicka to the
Electoral Prince."

With a bewitching smile the Princess held out her hand to him. "Count
d'Entragues," she said, "I shall be eternally grateful to you for your
self-sacrifice and good faith. I shall esteem m