But these painful recollections, these sad thoughts, did not last.
The king roused himself from those dangerous dreams, and on leaving
the picture cast upon it almost a look of hatred.

"This is folly," he said; "I will to work."

He approached the secretary, and seized the sealed letters and
packets that were lying there. "A letter and packet from the queen,"
he said, wonderingly opening the letter first. Casting a hasty
glance through it, a mocking smile crossed his face. "She sends me a
French translation of a prayer-book," he said, shrugging his
shoulders. "Poor queen! her heart is not yet dead, though, by
Heaven! it has suffered enough."

He threw the letter carelessly aside, without glancing at the book;
its sad, pleading prayer was but an echo of the thoughts trembling
in her heart.

"Bagatelles! nothing more," he murmured, after reading the other
letters and laying them aside. He then rang hastily, and bade the
servant send Baron Pollnitz to him as soon as he appeared in the
audience-chamber.

A few minutes later the door opened, and the old, wrinkled, sweetly
smiling face of the undaunted courtier appeared.

"Approach," said the king, advancing a few steps to meet him. "Do
you bring me his submission? Does my brother Henry acknowledge that
it is vain to defy my power?"