"Listen, Herr; I will tell you why it is honorable. The Prince and the King? I fear the one as little as I do the other. It is not the Prince, it is not the King, it is not the principality. Herr, I have come near to being a very wicked woman, who was about to break the most sacred promise a sovereign can make. Before I came here a delegation of my people approached me. On bended knees they asked me not to voluntarily return the principality to the King, who was likely to give them a ruler rapacious or cruel or indifferent. And while they understood what a sacrifice it meant to me, they asked me to bend my will to the King's and wed the Prince, vowing that I alone should be recognized as their sovereign ruler. Since my coronation they said that they had known the first happiness in years. Herr, it was so pathetic! I love my people, who, after all, are not adopted since I was born here. So I gave my promise, and, heaven forgive me, I was about to break it! There are some things, Herr, which the publican does not understand. One of these is the duty a sovereign owes to the people. The woman in me wishes to follow your fortunes, though they carry her to the ends of the world; but the sovereign sees but one path--honor and duty. What is one human heart to a hundred thousand? A grain of sand. Herr, let mine be broken; I shall not murmur. Alas! to be a princess, a puppet in this tinsel show of kings and queens! It is my word and the King's will which have made my happiness an impossibility. Though I love you, I wish never to see you again. I shall be wife but in name, yet I may not have a lover. I am not a woman of the court. I am proud of my honor, though the man who is to be my husband doubts that." "No, Gretchen," said I, "he does not doubt it, but he wishes me to do so. I believe in your innocence as I believe in your love." "It is sad, is it not," said she, "that we must go through our days loving each other and all the world standing between? I have never loved a man before; I did not want to love you. I did not know that I loved you till I saw that your life was in danger. Yet I am glad that I have lived for a brief second, for till a woman loves she does not live. I am brave; do you be likewise. I shall go back to the world, and who shall know of the heart of fire beneath the ice! Not even the man I love. Kiss me; it is the last kiss I shall take from the lips of any man." And it seemed to me that our souls met in that last kiss, melted and became one. Her hands dropped to her side, and swiftly she sped from the room.