"Do not fear, White Lady of the Staufenburg, I will not betray you. I have sought you four long years, because I love you, and would save you from a life-long wretchedness. I was at your imagined funeral, and discovered the farce, but no mortal save myself knows of my discovery.
"Who are you? Why do you come here? to threaten, to torment me? Do you want money?"
"Why do I come? You are in danger. The Duchess has spies; stories of a White Lady in the Staufenberg are come even to the Court. The Duke's long absences excite suspicion. He is watched. Think of the storm that will burst upon you both if you are discovered. Leave here before it is too late."
"Why do you interest yourself for a lonely creature like me, dead and buried?"
"You do not know me—how could you? My own mother did not recognise me," and Alice threw off hump and wig, and stood before Eva, a tall, well-formed girl, nearly her own age.
"Alice!" cried Eva, rushing to her, and seizing her in her arms. "I thought you were a nun in the convent of Gandersheim. You are come to stay with me. Oh! say you are come to stay."
"No, I will not stay here. I have sought you all this time as an old lace-seller, to warn and save you. If you will give up Henry and leave this den of sin, I will follow you wherever you go. Oh! what words can I use to induce you to leave here? Eva! Eva! it is your foster-sister, your truest friend, who entreats you. Henry is your worst enemy. He has trodden your honour and name in the dust, but you consented, and destroyed what you might have been for ever. But repentance is left, and there is all eternity to come.
"How can you stand before God? how can you dare pray? You desecrated the holiest; virtue and innocence you have made the tools of vice; you have stolen the monstrance from the altar; you swore a false oath before the altar of the Highest. Talk of a left-handed marriage. It is an insult to Heaven's laws. Eva! Eva! once my pure and dear playmate, the darling of your dead mother's heart, come away with me now—now. No one is here to betray our flight. We will go to some distant land, and I will stay with you so long as we both live. Follow your true friend. It is the voice of Heaven you hear. Forget the unworthy murderer of your youth and purity."
Eva trembled and turned pale. "What would become of my children?" she cried, wringing her hands in anguish.
"Children! have you children?"