my women, and so escaped with life?"

A sudden pallor overspread the girl's face, and she clasped her hands
nervously together. Tears welled into her eyes, and she stood thus for
a few moments unable to speak. At last she murmured, with some
difficulty:

"Wilhelm can care nothing for any here, not having beheld them, and it
would be wrong to coerce a man in such extremity. I would rather die
for him, that he might owe his life to me."

"But he would live to marry some one else."

"If I were happy in heaven, why should I begrudge Wilhelm's happiness
on earth?"

"Ah, why, indeed, Elsa? And yet you disclaim with a sigh. Be assured
that I shall do everything in my power to save your lover, and that not
at the expense of your own life or happiness. Now come with me, for I
would have you arrayed in garments more suited to your youth and your
beauty, that you may not be ashamed when you meet this most fascinating
prisoner, for such he must be, when you willingly risk so much for his
sake."

The Countess, after conducting the girl to the women's apartments,
sought her husband, but found to her dismay that he showed little sign
of concurrence with her sympathetic views regarding the fate of the
prisoner. It was soon evident to her that Count Herbert had determined
upon the young man's destruction, and that there was some concealed
reason for this obdurate conclusion which the Count did not care to