"He was but twenty-five and I barely nine years older when he became my chancellor, and those ten years of ruling should have taught me prudence as a queen had I but listened to Don Juan's counsels too. For I know he loved me, loved me far too well perhaps and above my deserts.
"Had I had the prudence of an honest milkmaid who guards her honour as by instinct, I might have reigned this day at Valoro, instead of being the victim of a villain who, creeping into my heart like the serpent into Eden, destroyed it with the fire of burning love, and left me only ashes."
* * * * *
"It was in the very first year of Don Juan's chancellorship that there came to Valoro the son of a Grand Duke of one of the German States; what brought him there I shall never know. He told me it was the sight of my face in a picture, and the 'glamour of my virgin court,' but I think rather it was the spirit of the adventurer, or the gamester, which seeks for gain and counts not the cost to others. The Prince of Rittersheim——"
"Rittersheim!" I exclaimed, interrupting her.
"Yes," she continued, "Adalbert, the eldest son of the Grand Duke of
Rittersheim, he who succeeded his father two years later.
"The Prince was, I think, the handsomest man I have ever seen, and I think the wickedest. His tall fine presence, set off by a magnificent uniform, was seen at every Court I held. At every Court ball he claimed my hand for the first dance; as far as my lonely state allowed he sought me at every opportunity, and I, like a fool, was flattered by his attentions.
"Yes, to my sorrow, I began to love him.
"I had travelled but little; travelling was harder in those days; one tour in Europe with my father, that was all.
"I had fondly imagined that my suitor was a free, unmarried man. The first shock of his perfidy came when I learned he was not; but it came too late—I loved him.