The Emperor Charles was sending the old man far away that the happiness
of her love might be undisturbed and unclouded, and the consciousness
weighed heavily upon her by no means unduly sensitive conscience.

Wolf, who was already unhappy on her account, had fared the same. When
her father told her that the knight was to accompany him, she had felt as
if an incident of her childhood, which had often disturbed her dreams,
was repeated.

She had been swinging with boyish recklessness in the Woller garden.
Suddenly one of the ropes broke, and the board which supported her feet
turned over out of her reach. For a time, clinging with her hands to the
uninjured rope, she swayed between heaven and earth. No one was near,
and, though she soon stood once more on the firm ground unhurt, the
moment when her feet, during the ascent, lost their support, was
associated with feelings of so much terror that she--who at that time
was considered the bravest of her playfellows--had never forgotten it.

Now she felt as though something similar had befallen her.

She had seen the props on which she might depend removed from under her
feet. If her father and Wolf left her, she would look in vain for
counsel and support.

That her lover was the most powerful sovereign on earth, and she could
appeal to him if she needed help, did not enter her mind. Nay, a vague
foreboding told her that he and what was associated with him formed the
power against which she must struggle.

The sham affection of the aristocratic lady who was to be her chaperon;