"They belong to Saxony, to the Royal House," he bawled, and poured forth a torrent of abuse without giving me a chance to put in a word. "You shall be disciplined to the last extremity. We will imprison you in some lonely tower, without state or attendants. You shall not see your children from one year's end to the other."
"Prison for the Crown Princess? Would you dare, Prince George?"
"At the Tower of Nossen rooms are in readiness for your Imperial Highness," sneered my father-in-law as he walked out.
Nossen! A ruined country-house, flanked by a mediæval tower in the midst of swamps. The nearest habitation miles away. Neither railway nor post-office, neither telegraph nor telephone—just the place to bury one alive. And I only thirty-one.
Augustus the Physical Strong imprisoned Countess Cosel at Nossen six months before he sent her to her prison-grave in Stolpen. After Cosel's departure, another royal mistress was lodged in Nossen, and as she would neither commit suicide, nor succumb to the fever, they starved her to death. And it all happened in the eighteenth century.
The word Nossen sent cold shivers down my spine. I am sure I won't sleep a wink.
CHAPTER LIII
REVOLVER IN HAND, I DEMAND AN EXPLANATION
An insolent Grand Mistress, but of wonderful courage—Imprisonment, threats to kill have no effect on her—Disregards my titles—My lover's souvenir and endearing words—How she caused Henry to leave me—My paroxysms of rage—Henry's complete betrayal of me.