Albert seated himself beside Bertha, who laid her head on his breast, and wept bitterly. His most soothing words were unable to calm her grief. "Bertha," he said, "you were always so stout-hearted; how can you thus give up all hope of a happier destiny?"
"Hope?" she replied, sorrowfully: "to our hope, to our happiness, there is an eternal end."
"But hearken, dearest," replied Albert, who, to cheer up her drooping spirit, endeavoured to inspire her with courage; "let not this slight interruption to our hopes throw its chilling influence over the purity of our love, as if it were to extinguish altogether its bright flame. All will be well yet. Rather let us put our trust in God, and wait his almighty will; for I never can believe that He who knows the secret of our hearts, and has joined them together by the indissoluble tie of faithful attachment, will not, in his own way, make all things to work for our good." These consoling words produced a smile upon her countenance; but it pourtrayed the character of despondency rather than of hope.
She replied, after a short silence, "Listen to me with attention, Albert. I must acquaint you with a profound secret, upon which hangs my father's life. He is as bitter an enemy to the League, as he is the firm friend of the Duke. He is not come here solely for the purpose of fetching his daughter home; no, he is using his utmost endeavour to find out the plans of the enemy, and with money and address to spread distrust and confusion among them. Do you suppose, then, that such a determined adversary to the League, would ever consent to give his daughter to a man who seeks to raise himself by our destruction? to one who has attached himself to a party, whose object is not justice, but plunder?"
"Your zeal, Bertha, for the Duke's cause, carries you too far," the young man interrupted her; "you ought to know that many an honourable man serves in our army."
"And even if this were the case," she replied, with animation, "still they are deceived and led away, as you yourself also are."
"How are you so certain of that?" answered Albert, who, though he suspected she was somewhat right, blushed to find the party he had espoused should be so vilified by his beloved: "might not your father be also equally blinded and deceived? How can he serve with such zeal the cause of that proud ambitious Duke, who murders his nobility, treads his citizens in the dust, squanders the industry of the land in riotous living, and allows his peasantry to starve with hunger?"
"Yes, his enemies represent him in this light," she replied; "this army speaks of him in the same terms; but ask those below, on the banks of the Neckar, if they do not love their hereditary Prince, though his hand may lay heavy on them at times? Ask those faithful men who have rallied around him, whether they are not willing and ready, to shed their blood for the grand-child of Eberhard, rather than allow that proud Duke of Bavaria, that rapacious nobility, those needy townsfolk to tread their land?"
Albert was thoughtfully silent for a time. "But," he asked, "how can his warmest supporters exculpate him from the murder of Hutten?"
"You are very ready to talk of your honour," Bertha answered, "and will not suffer the Duke to defend his own. Hutten did not fall by treachery, as his partisans have given out to the world, but in honourable fight, in which the Duke's life was equally exposed. I do not wish to excuse him for all his actions, but it is but just to remember, that a young man, like him, surrounded by evil advisers, has not the power always to act wisely. But he is really good, and if you knew how mild and humane he can be!"