The countess raised her arm, and pointed to the portraits that hung:
around. "You have been witnesses," said she, addressing them all,
"to the outrage which has been put upon me to-day by him who
inherits your name, but not your worth. If I am the guilty wretch
which he has pronounced me to be, strike me to the earth for my
crimes, and justify his parricidal words. But you know that I am
innocent, and that, with bitter tears, I lamented the death of my
murdered husband!"

"Murdered!" exclaimed Eugene. "It is, then, true that he was
murdered?"

"Yes," replied the countess, "he was murdered, but not by bowl or
dagger."

With these words, she rose, and, slowly descending from her throne,
she returned to the spot which she had left, and gazed mournfully
upon her husband's portrait. "He was a noble, brave, and gallant
prince," said she, softly. "He loved me unspeakably, and wherefore
should I have taken the life of him whose whole pleasure lay in
ministering to my happiness? What could I gain by the death of the
dearest friend I ever had? Ah, never would he have mistrusted his
Olympia! Had the envious rabble of Paris defamed me while he lived
to defend my honor, it is not your father, Prince Eugene, that would
have joined my traducers and outraged my woman-hood, as you have
done to-day!"

"Forgive me," murmured the prince.

"Yes, my beloved," continued she, addressing the picture, "they