"I think not. Only be of good courage and speak boldly, as your heart and your love of country dictate." "Is the Electoral Prince already up?" he asked of the man in waiting, and, as he received nothing but a shrug of the shoulders in reply, Leuchtmar beckoned to him to come nearer, and retired with him into a recess of one of the windows. "Well, what is it, old Dietrich? You have seen the Electoral Prince already, have you not?" "Yes, baron. He has not been to bed at all, but still has on the clothes he wore when he went away last night. He is just as pale as a sheet, and his eyes which usually shine so gloriously are to-day quite dim. He called me, and I thought he was about to order breakfast, but no! Something quite different he wanted, and it struck me as peculiarly strange. The Electoral Prince asked me who was on duty this week, I or the second valet, Eberhard? I told him Eberhard, for his week began yesterday. Then said the Electoral Prince: 'Well, Dietrich, I want you to exchange with him this time, for I would like to have you to wait upon me this week, and Eberhard shall have a holiday the whole week. I only want to see your old face about me!' Is not that strange, Sir Baron? Until yesterday Eberhard stood in such high favor, and my gracious master always preferred being dressed by him. Only yesterday evening Eberhard must accompany him to the feast, and now, all at once, my gracious master will not see him! Something must have happened, for last night Eberhard came home much later than the Electoral Prince, and asked, as if bewildered, whether his highness had been back long; and when I told him that the Electoral Prince had bidden me change with him, he turned deadly pale, trembled in every limb, and said, 'It is all over with me!' Baron, something surely happened last night." "Probably Eberhard has been guilty of some negligence," said Leuchtmar carelessly. "He has often been negligent of late, as it seems to me. He has some love affair on hand, has he not?" "Yes, Sir Baron, he has gotten in with that artful chambermaid of the Princess Ludovicka, out there at Doornward, and they are engaged to one another. But people do not say much good of Madame Alice: she is a cunning French girl and--" "Do not trouble yourself about what people say," interrupted the baron. "Do your own duty and rejoice that for this week the Electoral Prince gives you the preference over Eberhard. Go, now, and announce to his highness the chamberlain, Baron von Marwitz, from Berlin." A few minutes later the gentleman announced entered the Prince's drawing room. Frederick William advanced into the middle of the room to meet him, and greeted him with grave courtesy. "I was expecting you, baron," he said coldly. "Your highness was expecting me?" asked the baron, astonished. "Your highness knew already that I would come?"