"Just then Karl came in, pretending to be very angry.
"'Wretch,' said he, 'who bade you come hither?'
"'I thank you, Karl, for your vigilance and fidelity. Never before was I awakened with such insolence.'
"'Let not your majesty say a word, and I will kill this woman at once.'
"Karl knew the empress. He was aware that she liked to be merciful before others, and that she always played the great queen and the great woman before even her valets.
"'You are too zealous,' said she, with a majestic smile. 'Go, and let this poor weeping woman speak. I am not in danger in the company of my subjects. What is the matter, madame? But, are you not the beautiful Porporina? You will spoil your voice, if you weep thus.'
"'Madame,' said Consuelo, 'ten years ago I was married in the Catholic Church. I have never once disgraced myself. I have legitimate children, whom I have educated virtuously. I dare to say——'
"'Virtuously I know you have, but not religiously. You are chaste, they tell me, but you never go to church. Tell me, however, what has befallen you?'
"'My husband, from whom I have never been separated, is now in Prague, and I know not by what infamous means he has been arrested in that city on the charge of usurping a name and title not his own, of attempting to appropriate an estate to which he had no claim—in fine, of being a swindler, a spy, and an impostor. Perhaps even now he has been sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, or to death.'
"'Prague? and an impostor?' said the empress. 'There is a story of that kind in the reports of the secret police. What is your husband's name? for you actresses do not bear them.'