For days, the queen remained alone. Walpurga and the child were the only ones permitted near her. She did not wish to speak to any one else, be it her husband, Gunther, or the priest.

One afternoon, when Walpurga was with her, she felt impelled to ask:

"Walpurga, do you know that I don't belong to your faith?"

"Yes, indeed, I do; and I'm glad of it."

"Glad of it?"

"Of course I am; you're the first and only Lutheran I've ever known, and if they're all like you, it must be a beautiful religion."

"It is beautiful, and so are all religions that make good beings of us."

"Why, do you know, queen, that's the very thing my father used to say, and in the very same words? Oh, if he'd only lived long enough to have had a talk with you."

The queen was silent for a long while.

At last she asked:

"Walpurga, if your religion was different from Hansei's, would you go to his church?"

"Why, Hansei's Catholic, as well as I am."

"But if it were otherwise?"

"But it isn't otherwise."

"But just imagine it were."

"But I can't do that," said she, as if about to cry.

The queen was again silent for some time. Presently Walpurga, of her own accord, said:

"Yes, I can, after all. I've thought it out. Why, you're Lutheran and your husband's Catholic. But why do you ask me that?"

"Imagine yourself in my position. If you were a Protestant, would you not visit your husband's church?"

"No, queen, never! As long as I'd been an honest wife while a Protestant, I'd remain one. May I tell you a little story, queen?"

"Yes; go on."

"What was I going to say?--Yes, now I know.--You see, my dear father--the king's physician has surely told you what a good man he was--But I'm beginning at the wrong end; I wanted to tell it to you differently.--Well, as I was going to say, I went to school to a very strict priest who condemned all people that didn't belong to our faith, to the lowest depths of hell. I was once telling my father about it, when he said: 'Purgei,'--he always called me Purgei when he wanted to speak right to my heart--'Purgei,' said he, 'there are many millions of people in the world, and the smallest portion of them are Christians, and what a vile God it would be who would condemn all the rest to hell just because they aren't Christians, when they can't help it, and were born as they are. Don't you believe,' said he, 'that a man's damned for his faith; as long as he's virtuous.' Well, I hold fast by that. Of course, I didn't say anything to the priest about it, for he needn't know everything. I'm sure he don't tell me all he knows."

The queen was silent, and Walpurga soon began again:

"And now I think of something, better than all. Oh, my dear queen, I must tell you this, too. It's about my father, who used to think a great deal. The old doctor, the father of the one who's living there now, often used to say that if father had studied he'd have become a great man. Well, one evening, on the very Sunday that I was confirmed, I was sitting with father and mother on the bench behind our little cottage by the lake. The evening bells were tolling; we had said our aves and were sitting about in front of the cottage, when we heard the Liederkranz. They were coming across the lake in a boat, and were singing so beautifully--I can't tell you how lovely their singing was. And then father got up from his seat, his face glowing in the sunshine, and said: 'Now I know how our Lord in heaven must feel.' 'Don't blaspheme,' said my mother. 'I'm not blaspheming; quite the reverse,' said father. His voice seemed wondrous strange. 'Yes, I know it, I feel it,' said he; 'all churches--our own, the Protestant, the Jewish, the Turkish, and whatever their names may be--every one of them has a part in the song, and though each sings as best he can, they go together very well, and make a chorus that must sound glorious up there in heaven. Let every one sing according to the voice God has given him, for He will know how it will harmonize, and it surely does harmonize beautifully.'"

Walpurga's beaming glance met that of the queen.

"Your father spoke wisely," said the queen; a tear glistened in her eye and in that of the nurse, too.

Walpurga went away, taking the child with her.

The next day the queen sent for the king, and said:

"Kurt, I have courage."

"I know it."

"No. I have a courage that you do not know."

"A courage that I do not know?"

"And never will know. I have courage enough to appear weak and vacillating; but, Kurt, you will not misjudge me on that account?"

"Pray speak more plainly, and with fewer preliminaries."

"I am determined," continued the queen, "I hardly dare utter that word, now--but you will not misjudge me? I shall remain in the faith in which I was born, and we shall nevertheless be as one."

The king thanked her quite cordially, and only regretted that the canon knew of the matter. He hoped, however, to be able to silence his tongue.

The queen was surprised to find that he manifested so little joy; but, on second thought, this seemed quite natural to her, for why should that which had been nothing more than a passing cloud, leave great results in its wake? Others could know nothing of the bitter struggle it had cost her.

She felt sensible that it would be a long while before any expression or resolve of hers would obtain weight or authority, for it would not soon be forgotten that she had once shown herself weak.

While she was in the Protestant court chapel, on the following Sunday, she scarcely ventured to raise her eyes. She was thinking of how it would have been if she now were in the other church, and of how the eyes of the congregation would have been directed to the pew that was thenceforward to remain vacant. In spirit, she had already deserted this church and its congregation. Her soul trembled when she thought of the resolve she had entertained, and, from the bottom of her heart, she thanked her husband, whose strong arm had held her back.

When the whole congregation arose and, in the prayers for the royal household, offered up thanks for her preservation and that of the royal prince, she could no longer restrain her tears.

Contrary to her usual habit, she went to church again that afternoon.

Meanwhile, the king and Countess Irma were pleasantly sauntering in that portion of the park from which the public was shut out.

The king informed Irma of the queen's resolve and of how she had been induced to give it up. Irma replied that she had, long since, surmised as much, but had not felt that she had a right to speak of it. She had dropped a hint to Doctor Gunther, who had refused to have anything to do with the matter.

The king expressed his dislike for Gunther, but Irma defended him with great enthusiasm.

"The doctor is very fortunate," said the king, "to have so eloquent an advocate in his absence."

"I am that to all friends whom I truly respect."

"I could wish that I, too, were accused," continued the king.

"And I believe," replied Irma, smiling, "Your Majesty could not wish for a more earnest advocate than I would be."

A pause ensued. The king gracefully and frankly retracted his complaints against Gunther, and this conversation seemed merely a bridge over which they passed to another topic.

The king spoke of the queen and of her peculiar temperament.

It was the first time that the king and Irma had spoken of the queen. That the king not only prompted, but actually called forth her remarks, was the cause, at a later day, of incalculable suffering.

They extolled the poetic sense, the fervent feeling, the flower-like tenderness of the queen, and while they thus depicted her in glowing colors, they, in their own minds, found fault with her weakness and overflowing enthusiasm.

When a husband thus speaks of his wife, to a third person, it inevitably leads to estrangement and exposure.

Thus far, all was veiled in terms of praise. It was here just as it was with the queen in church. With all the power of her will, she strove to forget herself in her prayer, and to be again as she had once been; and yet, while the sense of the words she uttered entered her soul, she could not help being aware of a secret numbness and estrangement that seemed to say to her: "You will never again be as you once were."

While the king and Irma were thus conversing, they appeared to each other as equals. Their views of life were in accord, and while they spoke of how easily one might yield to temptation, their intimacy seemed to them a proof of strength rather than of weakness. They went on in perfect step with each other, and Irma no longer said: "Let us return."

The queen, since she had again appeared in society, was, if possible, more gracious and amiable than she had ever been. She placed every one far above her. They had none of them been as weak and vacillating as she. She felt it her duty to do good to every one, because, although she was no better than they, she was placed far above them. Her soul was all humility.

A few days later, the newspapers mysteriously hinted that attempts had been made to take advantage of the angelic purity of the queen, in order to estrange her from herself and alienate the affections of the people from her.

This, it was readily understood, alluded to the queen's contemplated change of faith.

The queen had always openly acknowledged herself on the side of the liberal opposition, and the king regarded Gunther as the mediator who had procured her the goodwill of the press, and who, in doing so, had not feared committing an indiscretion.

This plain and flagrant perversion of the truth only served the more to embitter him against the press and the machinations of the queen's party at court. Nevertheless, he dissembled his resentment, for he felt that he could well afford to bide his time.