Until recently, the father had given only vague replies to these petitions, and begged her at least to suspend her judgment until she had seen him, and renewed her half-forgotten acquaintanceship. The drost, he told her, was a distinguished man, a true favourite of fortune, and that, except in case of absolute necessity, a promise made to a deceased friend should be held sacred. Moreover, its fulfilment had reference to the fortunes and future fate of two illustrious families, through their prosperity and influence. But, during the last half year, the father had frequently expressed himself dissatisfied with Drost Peter, and with his zealous efforts to exalt the misused power of the king. On these points, however, proud Ingé warmly defended his conduct, and also extolled him as a brave friend to his sovereign and country; yet her joy was great when her father, on his return from the Dane-court, declared her entirely free from every engagement with respect to Drost Peter Hessel. He had given her his assurance that she should never be required to wed this zealous royalist, whom every open-minded Dane had the greatest reason to shun, though a certain degree of respect could not be denied him for his sagacity and bold uprightness. Never had proud Ingé felt herself so glad and lighthearted as on that day; and she now seized every opportunity to evince her gratitude to her father for a promise that first gave her a full consciousness of her womanly dignity, and of being the free, highborn daughter of a knight. When needful, she played draughts and chess with him, and induced him to drive away his anxiety and discontent with a recreation to which he was exceedingly attached. She was careful, however, to conceal from him the slight interest with which she removed the taken pieces, whilst her thoughts flew over the whole free and glorious world she now saw opened up to her, and she joyfully recalled to her imagination a long line of famous ancestors, amongst whom the noblest women of Denmark had, from her earliest childhood stood before her eyes as glorious images of light. Father and daughter were still sitting silently at the game of chess, and the Lady Ingé perceived that her abstracted parent heeded not his moves, and often lost his pieces. He seemed as if in a dream. "But tell me, then, dear father," she said at length, breaking the long silence, "do you think it possible, as it was asserted when you were away, that King Waldemar's grandson, the foolhardy Duke Waldemar, really aspires to the crown, after the king's death?"