"And forsake me, and leave me to loneliness and wretchedness? Oh Eva! pity me and remain."
"And bring disgrace and misery and ruin upon you and myself, and anguish to the Duchess? Maria's royal father is all-powerful with the Kaiser, who would betray you to the Pope, and you would be excommunicated. I do love you, Henry—but—it is too late. If we had met earlier, we might have belonged to each other. I would live shut out from the world for ever for you, and you alone, and, safe from disturbance and discovery, would be happy."
"How very noble and self-sacrificing we would be!" exclaimed the Duchess, coming forward from her concealment. "And such is my reward for my affection bestowed upon a motherless maiden! To such a shameful conversation must I listen between her and my husband. But I have the power to punish you both, and I will use it;" and the Duchess and her attendant speedily disappeared in the darkness.
The storm had broken upon them. The two figures stood in the arbour, motionless as marble, while Maria hastened to send messengers immediately to her father and other princes, acquainting them of Henry's perfidy.
But Eva at bay seems suddenly to have changed her character. She forgets her former scruples, and with a single move checkmates her rival, but at what a cost! She proposes perhaps the most extraordinary plan that ever entered a human brain, and all the more astounding as coming from a girl of sixteen.
"What is to become of me?" at last exclaimed Eva, starting from the stupor of terror the sudden appearance of the Duchess had caused. "There is not a place where I can go where disgrace and shame will not follow me."
"I will seek a divorce, declare the children of the Duchess illegitimate, and we will be married."
"Under the ban of Kaiser and Pope!" cried Eva, wringing her hands in despair.
After a pause, in which Eva remained buried in thought, she resumed, "I have a plan, Henry, but the world shall know nothing of our secret. You shall give me your left hand, but I must die—I mean seem to. I shall resign my office at Court and retire, ostensibly to return to my uncle's. On the journey I will be attacked with the plague in the convent of Gandersheim, and die in a few hours; and then there must be a public funeral; the world and the Court shall see me buried. I leave the carrying out of the details to you. Leave Wolfenbüttel on some plausible plea, and in your absence I will retire. Dead to the world, I will live only for you."
Henry, enraptured, caught her in his arms. "My darling Eva! will you indeed do that? Oh! then I am happy, and could defy the world. Here is the seal of our bond," and he placed a diamond ring on her finger.