"I will ask the king for my release from his service, and I will become a Protestant, and hasten to Nuremberg, and marry the rich patrician."
CHAPTER XIV.
THE DISCOVERY.
They sat hand in hand in the quiet and fragrant conservatory; after a long separation they gazed once more in each other's eyes, doubting the reality of their happiness, and asking if it were not a dream, a delightful dream.
This was the first time since his return from Silesia that Prince Augustus William had seen his Laura alone; the first time he could tell her of his longing and his suffering; the first time she could whisper in his ear the sweet and holy confession of her love—a confession that none should hear but her lover and her God.
But there were four ears which heard every thing; four eyes which saw all that took place in the myrtle arbor. Louise von Schwerin and her lover, the handsome Fritz Wendel, sat arm in arm in the grotto, and listened attentively to the conversation of the prince and his bride.
"How happy they are!" whispered Louise, with a sigh.
"Are we not also happy?" asked Fritz Wendel, tenderly, clasping his arm more firmly around her. "Is not our love as ardent, as passionate, and as pure as theirs?"
"And yet the world would shed tears of pity for them, while we would be mocked and laughed at," said Louise, sighing.