“Well, then,” said she, decisively, and even her voice was firm and soft, “I will go myself; and woe to him who dares withhold me! I have been ordered to take sea-baths. I will go this hour to Coslin for that purpose! but no, no, I cannot travel so rashly. Pollnitz, you must find me a courier.”
“I will try,” said Pollnitz. “One can buy all the glories of this world for gold; and, I think, your highness will not regard a few louis d’or, more or less.”
“Find me a messenger, and I will pay every hour of his journey with a gold piece.”
“I will send my own servant, in half an hour he shall be ready.”
“God be thanked! it will then, be possible to save him. Let me write this letter at once, and hasten your messenger. Let him fly as if he had wings—as if the wild winds of heaven bore him onward. The sooner he brings me the answer of the duke, the greater shall be his reward. Oh, I will reward him as if I were a rich queen, and not a poor, forsaken, sorrowful princess.”
“Write, princess, write,” cried Pollnitz, eagerly: “but not have the goodness to give me the hundred louis d’or before Mademoiselle Marwitz returns. I promised them to Weingarten for his news; you can add to them the ducats you were graciously pleased to bestow upon me.”
Amelia did not reply; she stepped to the table and wrote a few lines, which she handed to Pollnitz.
“Take this,” said she, almost contemptuously; “it is a draft upon my banker, Orguelin. I thank you for allowing your services to be paid for; it relieves me from all call to gratitude. Serve me faithfully in future, and you shall ever find my hand open and my purse full. And now give me time to write to the duke, and—”
“Princess, I hear Mademoiselle Marwitz returning!”
Amelia left the writing-table hastily, and advanced to the door through which Mademoiselle Marwitz must enter.