For a long while I stood thus, musing and dreaming; I was roused by the sound of the door opening and closing; turning, I saw the queen. She was alone, and came towards me with timid steps. She looked out for a moment on the square and the people, but drew back suddenly in apparent fear lest they should see her. Then she sat down and turned her face towards mine. I read in her eyes something of the conflict of emotions which possessed her; she seemed at once to deprecate my disapproval and to ask my sympathy; she prayed me to be gentle to her fault and kind to her happiness; self-reproach shadowed her joy, but the golden gleam of it strayed through. I looked eagerly at her; this would not have been her bearing had she come from a last farewell; for the radiance was there, however much dimmed by sorrow and by fearfulness. “Fritz,” she began softly, “I am wicked--so wicked. Won’t God punish me for my gladness?” I fear I paid little heed to her trouble, though I can understand it well enough now. “Gladness?” I cried in a low voice. “Then you’ve persuaded him?” She smiled at me for an instant. “I mean, you’ve agreed?” I stammered. Her eyes again sought mine, and she said in a whisper: “Some day, not now. Oh, not now. Now would be too much. But some day, Fritz, if God will not deal too hardly with me, I--I shall be his, Fritz.” I was intent on my vision, not on hers. I wanted him king; she did not care what he was, so that he was hers, so that he should not leave her. “He’ll take the throne,” I cried triumphantly. “No, no, no. Not the throne. He’s going away.” “Going away!” I could not keep the dismay out of my voice. “Yes, now. But not--not for ever. It will be long--oh, so long--but I can bear it, if I know that at last!” She stopped, still looking up at me with eyes that implored pardon and sympathy. “I don’t understand,” said I, bluntly, and, I fear, gruffly, also. “You were right,” she said: “I did persuade him. He wanted to go away again as he went before. Ought I to have let him? Yes, yes! But I couldn’t. Fritz, hadn’t I done enough? You don’t know what I’ve endured. And I must endure more still. For he will go now, and the time will be very long. But, at last, we shall be together. There is pity in God; we shall be together at last.” “If he goes now, how can he come back?” “He will not come back; I shall go to him. I shall give up the throne and go to him, some day, when I can be spared from here, when I’ve done my--my work.” I was aghast at this shattering of my vision, yet I could not be hard to her. I said nothing, but took her hand and pressed it. “You wanted him to be king?” she whispered. “With all my heart, madam,” said I. “He wouldn’t, Fritz. No, and I shouldn’t dare to do that, either.” I fell back on the practical difficulties. “But how can he go?” I asked. “I don’t know. But he knows; he has a plan.”