power to satisfy the claim, and so she formed the resolve--which seemed
to her to possess an atoning power--no longer to deceive the worthy man
who loved her so loyally, and for whom she felt an affection. At the
very next opportunity Wolf should learn that she could never become his,
and when she had just confessed it so gently and lovingly, she had only
fulfilled the vow made in the chapel before the Virgin's image. There,
too, she had determined, if the Emperor ever gave her any power over his
decisions, to reward Wolf's loyal love by interceding for him wherever it
could be done.

Now he had left her; but she could wait for her father no longer.
She must go to Fran Lerch.

The idea of confiding to her the secret which filled her with happy
dread was far from her thoughts; but love had both increased her vanity
tenfold, and confined it within narrower limits. She could not be
beautiful enough for the lover who awaited her, yet she wished to be
beautiful for him alone. But her stock of gowns and finery was so very
scanty, and no one understood how to set off her charms so well as the
obliging, experienced old woman, who had an expedient for every
emergency.

Retiring to her little bow-windowed room, she examined her store of
clothes.

There, too, lay her royal lover's gift, the glittering star.

She involuntarily seized it to take the jewel to the Grieb and show
it to the old woman; but the next instant, with a strange feeling of
dissatisfaction, she flung it back again among the other contents of the