—“My worthy friends,” said she at length, “your words have given me the only comfort, which I now could look for on this side the grave! The Ida, whom a whole good and honest people demands for their sovereign, can never be that traitress, that unprincipled wanton, that ungrateful snake, which I have been termed so publicly and so unjustly. Your application has given me back my honour, has reconciled me with myself: this is all I could wish for; now leave me, my friends, and bear with you my warmest thanks. Be faithful to your liege-lady; Heaven and my uncle’s will have destined her for your protectress, and you will find her a noble one. I know well her merits, and admire them; I envy her not her good fortune; but be assured, that even did my happiness depend on my establishing those rights, which you state me to possess, the Ida whom your deputation has thus signally honoured, at least deserves that honour too well, to seek any benefit however great by clandestine, and therefore by unworthy means.”— The deputies listened to her with astonishment; they requested her to reflect coolly upon their proposals, and left her with a promise to return. And they _did_ return, furnished with new and much more forcible arguments;—and yet those arguments were employed in vain. They had discovered Ida’s former affection for Henry: they applied to Count Egbert, and laid their plans before him. As they appeared to reconcile all differences between his nephew and himself, he readily promised his assistance: and the deputies now delivered a letter to Ida, in which Count Egbert assured her of Henry’s unabated attachment: he magnified the fortitude, with which his nephew had resisted all attempts to shake his fidelity; and he conjured her to accept the title of Countess of Montfort, since without the possession of her hand there was no happiness in life for Henry. The poor Ida wept, as she read this letter: every line seemed an arrow in her very heart. She was conscious, that in her present humble state she could never become her lover’s bride, and that the old Count’s consent was entirely grounded on the prospect of her succeeding to Count Frederick’s inheritance.—Yet she still shuddered at the thoughts of obtaining the accomplishment of her fondest wishes by means, which she felt to be unworthy of her; she still positively rejected the proposals of the embassy, and declared herself convinced, that Henry of Montfort was as little disposed as herself to assist any plan, whose object was to injure Elizabeth. The deputies still prest her to comply; they would take no refusal; and at length to free herself from their importunity she left the valley privately, and took refuge within a Convent, the name of which she concealed from every one except her sister and the Abbot of Cloister-Curwald.