'Give me water, I am faint!' she moaned. He sprang up and hastened to his sleeping-room to bring water for her. Now was her moment: with incredible swiftness she drew the letter from its hiding-place and slipped it under a bundle of papers and plans on the bureau. When his Highness returned carrying a goblet of water, he found his mistress still weeping bitterly with her face hidden on the writing-desk. She drank the water while Eberhard Ludwig hung over her in anxious rapture, heaping reproaches upon himself for his cruelty, but she refused to be consoled. 'What can I do to prove to you that all my unworthy suspicions have vanished?' he cried in desperation. 'Tell me what was written in that letter; let me defend myself,' she answered quickly. 'You ask the one thing I may not do. I cannot,' he said sadly. 'And the letter is lost!' she cried; 'who knows what enemy of mine has got it? Alas! perhaps all the world will know the vile things this man has written, and you have let him go unpunished. All will know save the accused criminal! Oh! the injustice! the cruelty!' The Duke shuddered. 'Yes, it is true; that terrible thing I had not remembered. O God! if I could but find that accursed letter! At least, no one but myself need have known of the foul accusations; but now that the letter is lost----' Wildly he began to search once more in the bureau, and Wilhelmine almost laughed when she saw him lift the packet of papers under which she had slipped Forstner's letter. With a cry the Duke turned to her. 'Thank God! I have found it! It lay here beneath this bundle. Wilhelmine, beloved, now none can read these blasphemies against you,' he cried. 'So you tell me to my face that yonder paper is a blasphemy against me, a foul accusation, and you will not let me clear myself!' she cried wildly. 'I swore to Forstner that I would never, in spoken or written word, divulge his communications--never give or voluntarily let another take his letters. Unless you can divine what you wish to know, there is no help.' He laughed harshly. 'Divine what is in that letter?' she said in a musing tone. Suddenly a thought came to her. She remembered each word of that horrible letter. It was necessary his Highness should know she knew, yet imperative that her knowledge should appear to have been gained in his presence. Wilhelmine had studied many books of magic and innumerable accounts of occult manifestations. She was half-dupe, half-charlatan, and indeed she possessed much magnetic power.