"Yes, your highness; and I shall remain and keep watch that no one may enter."
"Do it, good Martin, for indeed I do not wish to be disturbed."
Martin disappeared, and the duke, removing his bandages, rose from the couch, and sank into an arm chair.
"We are alone, and I may as well dispense with all this; it is needless."
"Then, your highness, God be thanked, is not sick?" exclaimed
Eugene.
"Yes, I am sick," replied the duke, sadly, "but not in the sense in which my physician supposes. A malady of the mind is not to be cured by compresses."
"Have you bad news?" asked Eugene, with tender sympathy.
"Ah, yes," sighed the duke. "Bad news for him who, loving his fatherland more than self, is withheld from willing sacrifice by the unworthy strivings of ambition with duty. But of that anon. I have sent for you to confer of the affairs of the Austrian army; for I know that I can count upon your sincerity, and trust to your discretion."
"Your highness knows how unspeakable is the love I bear you; you well know that it is the aim of my life to imitate, though I may never hope to rival, your greatness."
"I thank you for your honest affection, dear Eugene," replied the duke, looking fondly into the speaking face of his youthful worshipper. "I thank God that you are here, to complete what I am forced to leave unfinished."