Steckel said nothing. He turned and slightly shrugged his shoulders.
"How?" said Maria Theresa good-humoredly, "are you offended? Have you the heart to be angry with your empress?"
"Empress?" returned Stockel; "I took your highness for a pious nun. The whole world knows that Maria Theresa is no longer an empress; she no longer reigns in Austria."
Maria Theresa felt a pang as she heard these words, and her cheeks flushed—almost with anger. But overcoming the feeling she smiled sadly and said: "I see that you are really angry, poor Stockel. You do not like to see my palace made a cloister. You think, perhaps, that I have done wrong?"
"I do not pretend to judge of the acts of the rulers of earth," replied he gloomily. "Perhaps the deeds which in ordinary people would be called cowardly, may with them be great and noble. I know nothing about it; but I know what my beloved empress once said to me. She was then young and energetic, and she had not forgotten the oath she had taken when the archbishop crowned her at St. Stephen's—the oath which bound her to be a faithful ruler over her people until God released her."
"What said your empress then?"
"I will tell your highness. I had lost my young wife, the one I loved best on earth, and I came to beg my discharge; for my longing was to go back to my native mountains and live a hermit's life in Tyrol. My empress would not release me. `How!' said she, 'are you so weak that you must skulk away from the world because Almigthy God has seen fit to bereave you of your wife? He tries your faith, man, and you must be firm, whether you face the storm or bask in the sunshine. Did you not promise to serve me faithfully, and will you now cast away your useful life in vain sorrow? What would you think of me were I so lightly to break my oath to my people—I who must lift my head above every tempest of private sorrow, to fulfill my vow until death,' Thus spoke my empress; but that was many years ago, and she was then sovereign of all Austria."
Maria Theresa looked down, and the tear-drops that had been gathering in her eyes fell upon her black dress, where they glistened like diamonds.
"It is true," whispered she, "I was sovereign of all Austria."
"And what prevents you from being sovereign to-day?" asked Stockel eagerly. "Have your people released you?"