"It is a weakness, I know," said her companion, "to cling thus to particular scenes, which only fill one with melancholy regret; but here, fair lady, have passed so many happy hours, that I feel it difficult to tear myself away, although these inanimate objects present nothing to my mind but the memories of pleasures gone--for ever, perhaps."
"The past has a spirit, your Majesty," answered Agnes, "which animates the dull form of the present. The soul of happiness departed, I can well understand, gives life to this changed scene; and to your royal eyes rise up, with every object that we pass, some peculiar hours or days which can never die to the affectionate remembrance of the heart. But let me hope, too, that there lives a future, when once more, amidst these scenes, with all you love best on earth, the days of old shall be renewed, and these dark moments be recalled but as a tempest-cloud which the wind has long swept away."
Frederic shook his head sadly. "I know not," he said; "God grant it! but there is a dark foreboding at my heart that the curse of ambition is upon me, and that the joys which I did not estimate sufficiently when they were mine, are snatched away for ever."
"Ah, no!" said Agnes, sadly: "I would fain think that honour, and virtue, and high purposes can never sink, overwhelmed, before fraud, and violence, and wrong."
"Yet such is too often the course of things here below," replied Frederic. "It will not be for ever. But the world has a life as well as we, dear lady; and our lives are but parts of the world's life. The time will be, when, in the long existence of the universe, all things shall be set right and honesty triumph; but, alas! I fear no man's time is wide enough to give room for hope that evil suffered will have compensation here. I might add, no man is good enough to complain, even when his best purposes are the steps that lead to the punishment which his faults deserve. Alas! fair Heidelberg, thou place of so many memories and so many dreams, I must quit thee once more--for ever--yes, I feel it is for ever!" And, with his head bent and his eyes full of tears, he descended the steps and hurried on to the spot where Herbert and Dr. Alting waited for him.
"Herbert," said the unfortunate Prince, "I go; but you must stay, and, if it be possible, defend this place we both so fondly love from the rude spoiling hands of the enemy. It would be bitter indeed to know that the Bavarian was in these halls; that his brutal soldiery were wasting and devastating all that a long line of princes have with care and skill been bringing to perfection; that the scenes of love and peace--the dwellings of art, and poetry, and science, were polluted by men who have neither feeling nor reverence for such high things. I do beseech you, my noble friend, aid to defend this place to the best of your power, though some wrong has been done you by others, but not by me."
"With the last drop of my blood, Sire," answered Herbert; "but in truth it is time your Majesty should go. You have a long and dangerous journey before you ere you can rejoin Mansfeld; but I trust that it will pass safely, and that together you will strike such a stroke at the enemy, as will keep him far from these walls. Have you all the papers you sought?"
"All, all," answered the King; "but some one must go with me to lock the gate after I and the good Doctor here have passed."
"That will I, your Majesty," said Oberntraut, who had now joined the rest; but Frederic replied, "No, no, you had better mount at once and ride down to your men as we agreed. Herbert, you have to see that no one else quits the castle for two hours. Does this dear lady know the way?"
"Right well," replied Herbert: "I took care of that long ago."