"Your Highness," replied Ottilie, "receive the assurance that I have no other wish than that of making you and your people happy. I will be an obedient, and faithful wife, and never ask anything of you except indulgence. Be assured that I shall never claim any tokens of love from you. No feeling of affection has united us who are total strangers to each other; we both yielded to the commands of political necessity. It depends upon ourselves to lend value to such a tie, to form a more or less cordial bond of friendship, but not to conjure up emotions which the heart receives only as revelations. I tell you this, your Highness, that in your noble chivalrousness you may not think it necessary to delude yourself and me by the expression of such feelings. I shall have attained the highest goal of my hopes if you will some day bear witness that I have not entered your life as a disturbing element, but to bring a blessing." "I understand your Highness's delicacy of feeling. Your every word affords me a fresh proof of the treasure I possess in you, and I hope a bond will be developed between us higher and firmer than one founded on mere chance sympathy,--a bond of mutual comprehension and unchanging esteem. Shall it not be so, my Ottilie?" "May God grant it, your Highness!" "Etiquette commands that I should now leave your Highness. To-morrow at the cathedral I shall take pride in presenting you to the nation as its princess,--as a true princess. Yes, I am proud of my noble wife," he added, emphasizing the words, while a cold smile gleamed over his smooth features. He pressed his lips lightly to Ottilie's hand and withdrew. She stood motionless and exhausted; tears no longer dimmed her eyes: her destiny was fixed. She now knew the man to whom she belonged, and what she had to expect from him.