“I am extremely surprised to learn from La Confidente all that has happened. As I had heard nothing from you, I was in despair; but when your letter came it was so loving that I will not hint at what I feared most. I again picked up a little courage. What worries me most is that your mother has been preaching at you; for though she may be on your side she is sure to watch you closely, and when she learns that you have been talking to me she will become more suspicious, and I fear will tell everything to the Duke. Try to prevent that, or we are lost for ever. I am grieved to be the cause of all this trouble. But you are so sweet and charming, it is not my fault; you must blame yourself for having made in me such an unlucky choice. It is cruel to think that while everybody can make love to you, and you can speak to whom you will without any fault-finding, I am the only one excluded. When I think how your mother encourages Monsieur Welling,[88] on the one hand, and on the other forbids me to speak to you, I am so enraged that I could stab her, and I wish her a thousand times a day to the devil. If the earth were to open and swallow up her and the Dowager,[89] how glad I should be! I believe all the fiends plot together to annoy me, but they will not succeed if only you remain faithful. I can patiently endure all things so long as you do not change, but I fear they will terrify you so that in the end they will succeed in their diabolical plans. How I hate them! Were I lord of the thunderbolts there would be many grey heads battered about; but as I am not, I can only implore you to hate all those who are working against me, and urging you to forget me. You will not refuse this prayer if you have any love left for me. If you wish, I will go away to some village near, for I cannot veil my eyes so that the world does not see my adoration; but if you will suffer me even to look at you, you will give me joy,—without that I cannot stay. Be merciful and write to me. Forget not to assure me of your love, for now is the time; if your heart begins to cool, the plotters will succeed in their infamous designs. “Now as to reproaches. You might have spoken to me coming out of the Princess’s[90] door, for your father had already retired, and there would have been no danger on account of the Prince. But terror prevented you; I know you so well. I have everything to fear; every one plots against me, men and demons, and even old women, who are worse than demons.” ----- Footnote 87: As, in point of fact, they did, George Augustus as George II. of Great Britain; Sophie Dorothea as Queen of Prussia, and mother of Frederick the Great. Footnote 88: “Baron Welling is come hither to prepare matters.”—Colt’s _Despatch_, Hanover, January, 1692. Footnote 89: