"The day of the solemnization arrived. The Prince and Princess, with two other confidential witnesses, of whom my predecessor was one, were the only persons present at this occasion. One page, who was also in the secret, kept watch at the chapel-door.
"The couple were kneeling before the altar. The Prince's confessor, a venerable old man, after an appropriate prayer and lecture, began the ceremony, when, to the astonishment of every one, Francesco grew suddenly pale as marble, staring at some object which as yet none but himself beheld. 'What would'st thou have?' cried he, in a deep hollow voice, and letting go his bride's hand.
"Following the direction of his looks, they now observed, leaning against a pillar of the church, in his Italian dress, with a dark violet-coloured mantle drawn closely round him—the painter! He continued to fix his dark glaring eyes on Francesco, who seemed transfixed with some inexplicable apprehension.
"The Princess nearly fainted, and every one but the priest was too much astonished to speak—'Why should the figure of this man affright you?' said he, to Francesco. 'It is true that his presence here was unexpected; but if your own conscience is at rest, wherefore should you tremble before him?'
"Then Francesco, who had till now kept this kneeling posture at the altar, started up, and, with a small stiletto in his hand, rushed towards the painter. But before he reached him, he himself fell, with a frightful cry, to the ground, and in the same moment the painter vanished behind the pillar.
"The marriage ceremony, of course, was thought of no more. All started up as from a dream, and ran to the help of Francesco, who had fainted, and lay on the ground as if dead. To avoid risk of publicity, the two witnesses, with the page's help, carried him into the Prince's apartments. When he recovered from his faint, he demanded vehemently that he should be conveyed to his own lodgings, and left there alone. To the Prince's questions as to his strange conduct in the church, he would make no answer whatever.
"On the following morning, Francesco had fled from the residenz, taking with him all the valuables which the favour of the late Duke, and of our Sovereign, had bestowed upon him. The latter used every possible means to unravel these mysteries, and, above all, to explain the ghostly apparition of the painter. The chapel had only two entrances, of which one led from the rooms of the palace to the seats near the high altar; the other, from the great corridor into the aisle of the chapel. This last entrance had been watched by the page, in order that no prying observer should gain admittance. The other had been carefully closed, so that it remained inexplicable both how the painter appeared in, and vanished from, the chapel.
"Another circumstance very remarkable was noticed by the page. This person had been the confidential attendant of the late Duke, and he declared himself convinced, that the stiletto which Francesco had continued to grasp convulsively during his faint, was the same which he had seen lying by the body of his master on that fatal evening, and which had soon afterwards been unaccountably lost.
"Not long after Francesco's flight, news came of the Italian Duchess. On the very day when the former should have been married, she had been delivered of a son, and soon after her accouchement had died. The Prince deplored her untimely fate, though the circumstances of the bridal-night had weighed so heavily on her, that her future life must, of necessity, have been unhappy. Nor were there wanting individuals malicious enough to raise against her evil rumours and suspicions. Her son never appeared here, but was educated in distant countries, under the Italian title of Count Victorin.
"The Princess—I mean the sister-in-law of our Sovereign—being reduced to utter despair by these horrid events following like links of a chain so closely on one another, determined on devoting the rest of her life to the cloister. She is, as you already know, Abbess of the Cistertian Convent at Kreuzberg.