n and
tattered garment, and would despise myself if even a sensation of pain
were left behind. No, no, I am free! My heart is coffined, and I shall
close the lid and bid it an eternal farewell!"

"Your heart coffined, your highness!" said Leuchtmar gently. "You think so
now, but I tell you it will again rise from the dead, and beat with full
ardor and glow, for, God be thanked, the heart of man is a tenacious
thing, and dies not from one dagger-thrust. Its wounds can be healed, and
then it is so much the stronger because it knows what it can suffer and
overcome!"

"Enough now, my friend, enough!" cried Frederick William, shaking his head
so violently that his brown locks fluttered in wild disorder. "Thus I
shake off an unworthy love and all vain lamentations. Now, Leuchtmar, I am
the man, the Elector. A very young man, you will say, but one who has
stood the brunt of battle and fire, who in days has lived through years,
and consequently is old, for my twenty years count double. Baron von
Leuchtmar, I have much to discuss with you, and I summoned you here for
important consultations, but stay--a man is without whom I can keep
waiting no longer, for his time is valuable, and he who makes a workman
wait robs him of his capital. I beg you, Leuchtmar, to open the door and
call the jeweler Dusnack."

Leuchtmar hastened to obey this order. As he turned toward the door
Frederick William once more passed his hand rapidly over his face, and
for a moment pressed it to his eyes. As he drew it away he felt a drop
fall burning upon his hand, and it shone there like a bright diamond,
but--his eyes were now dry and glittered with the fire of resolution.

"Well, Master Dusnack," exclaimed Frederick William to the approaching
jeweler, "have you brought us, as directed, a few seal rings, from which
to make our selection?"

"Here they are, your Electoral Highness," replied the jeweler, holding out
a little box and handing it open to the Elector. Frederick William
examined with interest the bright and sparkling rings, which were in
separate compartments, and nodded kindly to the jeweler.

"You are a skillful workman, and your rings please me well," he said.
"These things are tastefully designed and prettily executed. You must have
very good workmen, and it pleases me that such things are made in our
country. For I suppose, of course, these beautiful rings emanate from your
own workshop."

"Most gracious sir, I would that it were so,