The Emperor sits alone in drunken
stupor, and it is said cannot last much longer, he who has lasted too
long already; while the Empress is as much a recluse as a nun in a
convent."
"But the young Prince?" interrupted the Countess. "What of him? Is there
no hope if he comes to the throne?"
"Ah!" cried the monk, with a long-drawn sigh, dolefully shaking his
head.
"But, Father Ambrose, you knew him as a lad, almost as a young man. I
have heard you speak highly of his promise."
"He denied me; denied his own identity; threatened my life with his
sword, and finally flung me into the most loathsome dungeon in all
Frankfort!"
The girl uttered an ejaculation of dismay. If so harsh an estimate of
the heir-presumptive came from so mild and gentle a critic as Father
Ambrose, then surely was this young man lower in the grade of humanity
than even his bestial father.
"And yet," said the girl to herself, "what else was to be expected? Go
on," she murmured; "tell me from the beginning."
"One evening, crossing the old bridge from Frankfort to Sachsenhausen, I
saw approach me a swaggering figure that seemed familiar, and as he drew
nearer I recognized Prince Roland, son of the Emperor, despite the fact
that he held his cloak over the lower part of his face, as if, in the
gathering dusk, to avoid recognition.
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