emperor half a million as my property and yours, your past and mine will
both be effaced, and we will enter upon a new life, in a new world! Let the
spy, Schulmeister, the adventuress Leonore de Simonie; be buried, and new
people, new names, rise from the budding seeds of the half million. But now
farewell, my daughter, my beautiful Leonie. I must begin the work, must
summon all my assistants and subordinates, and assign their tasks, for the
next few days will bring much work. It is not enough for me to inform the
emperor of the existence of a conspiracy, and the plan of the accomplices,
but I must be able to give him convincing and irrefutable proofs of this
plot, that he may not deem it a mere invention which I have devised in
order to be able to claim a large reward. No, the emperor must see that I
am telling him the truth, so I must not let the affair explode too soon. I
must first know the names and residences of all the conspirators,
investigate the details of the whole enterprise, and hold in my hand the
threads of the entire web in order to be sure that all the spiders who have
labored at it will be caught in their own net."

"Do so, father," cried Leonore joyously. "I will leave them all to you--all
these poor spiders of the conspiracy. I feel no pity for them. Let them
die, let them suffer, what do I care! I, too, have suffered, oh, and what
mortal anguish! Yes, let them die and rot; I shall at last be happy, free,
and beloved. Oh, God be praised that the man whom I love is not entangled
in this conspiracy, that I could disclose the whole plot, mention the
names of all the conspirators, without fear of compromising him. Yes, I
thank Thee, my God, that Kolbielsky has no share in this scheme."




CHAPTER VII.