Helen blushed crimson, and moved quickly, as if to leave the room, but Frederic, disregarding his wound, caught her hand and made her sit down again. The light from between the curtains irradiated her face like the sunlight falling on a flower. He looked at her intently. "Well, yes," she said, "but no one knows but you." "Not Karl himself?" "He may have some idea." "Well, little sister," said Frederic, "I see no great harm in all this. Come and kiss me, and we will talk again another time." "But how comes it," exclaimed Helen, with vexation, "that you know all you want to know, although I have told you nothing at all?" "Because one can see through a crystal which is pure. Dear little Helen, Karl von Freyberg is my best friend, he has all I could wish in a brother-in-law, or that you could desire in a husband. If he loves you as much as you seem to love him, there should be no great difficulty about your becoming his wife." "Ah! dear Frederic," said Helen, shaking her pretty head, "but I once heard a Frenchwoman say that the marriages which present no difficulties are just those which never come off!" And she retired to her own room, wondering no doubt as to what difficulties Destiny could interpose to the completion of her own marriage. CHAPTER XIII COUNT KARL VON FREYBERG In the days of Charles V the Austrian Empire dominated for a period both Europe and America, both the East and the West Indies. From the summit of the Dalmatian mountains Austria beheld the rising of the sun, from the chain of the Andes she could watch his setting. When the last ray of sunset sank in the west, the first light of dawn was reappearing in the east. Her empire was greater than that of Alexander, of Augustus, of Charlemagne. But this empire has been torn by the devouring hands of Time. And the champion by whom the armour of this colossus, piece by piece, has been rent away, is France. France took--for herself--Flanders, the Duchy of Bar, Burgundy, Alsace, and Lorraine. For the grandson of Louis XIV she took Spain, the two Indies, and the islands. For the son of Philip V she took Naples and Sicily. She also took the Netherlands and made two separate kingdoms of them, Belgium and Holland, and, finally, she tore away Lombardy and Venetia, and gave them to Italy. And to-day the boundaries of this empire, upon which, three hundred years ago, the sun never set, are, in the west, Tyrol; in the east, Moldavia; to the north, Prussia; to the south, Turkey. Every one knows that, strictly speaking, there is no Austria, properly so called, only a dukedom of Austria, with nine to ten millions of inhabitants, of which Vienna is the capital. And it was a duke of Austria who imprisoned Richard Cœur-de-Lion on his return from Palestine, and only released him on payment of a ransom of two hundred and fifty thousand gold crowns.