whose account you were so suddenly called away!"

"I swear it, Leonore. But, my child, the impetuosity of your passion is
beginning to make me uneasy. How will you keep your head clear, if your
heart is burning with such impetuous fire that the rising smoke must
becloud your brain? I have allowed you to give yourself the amusement of
love, but you must not make a serious life question of it."

"Yet I shall either perish of this love or be new-born by it," she
murmured. "But let us not talk about it. Tell me first why you left the
ball so suddenly?"

"Urgent business, my child. The emperor sent for me to come to Schönbrunn."

"The emperor! What did he want of you?"

"There is something to be discovered, Leonore--a murderer who seeks the
emperor's life."

"A murderer!" she said, shuddering; "my God, suppose it should be he!"

"The emperor has received an anonymous letter from Hungary, in which he is
informed that, during the course of the next week, a young man will come to
Schönbrunn to murder him.[D] I suppose that this comes directly from the
Emperor Francis' court at Totis. Some fanatic has told the Emperor Francis
that he will go there to murder his hated foe, and the kind-hearted
emperor, in his magnanimity has sent this warning to Napoleon."

"And _he_ was in Totis," said Leonore, trembling, under her breath, "and he
told me that in a week something decisive would happen."