“He refused?” cried Marie, joyfully. “Oh, my dear Philip, I thank you. You love me truly and faithfully. Your glorious example shall inspire me to be as firm as you.” “Unhappy child, you know not what you are saying!” cried the director, sadly. “If you really love him, you could not follow his example. Read what the king has written.” She took, in breathless silence, the document, and broke the seal, unfolding the paper, but her hand shook it so violently, that she could not distinguish the words. She returned it to the director. “Read it, I cannot,” she said, and sank kneeling, looking up to the old man with unspeakable anguish, and listening to every word that fell from his lips. It ran thus: “His majesty announces to Mademoiselle Marie von Leuthen that he is exceedingly indignant at her improper and undutiful conduct, which does not at all become a maiden loving of honor, and particularly a noble one. His majesty ennobled her father for a brave deed, and he is angry that the daughter should bring shame upon the title, in giving way, not only to a passion which is beneath her, but is so little mindful of morality as to flee from the paternal house, at night, in an improper manner, with a man whose wife, according to the command of the king and the will of her father, she could never be. If his majesty did not respect the former service of her father, and the new title, he would send the daughter to the house of correction, and punish her according to the law. But he will leave her to the reproaches of conscience, and let the weight of the law fall upon her partner in guilt, Philip Moritz. He is rightly sentenced to ten years in the house of correction, and he will not be released one year or one day from the same, as he is guilty of a great crime, and his sentence is just.” “Just!” shrieked Marie, in anguish--“ten years just?”