he learns too much. He might--"

"Woe to him if he breathes a word to one human being!" cried the
empress, with menacing gesture. "Woe to him if he dare breathe one word
to his master!"

"Heaven forbid that I should betray the secrets of my sovereign!" cried
the affrighted Gaspardi. "But, imperial majesty, what am I to say to my
lord the emperor?"

"You will tell your lord that you brought no answer, and it will not be
the first lie with which you have befooled his imperial ears," replied
Maria Theresa coutemptuously, while she waved her hand as a signal of
dismissal. The unhappy Mercury retired, and as he disappeared, the
pent-up anguish of the empress burst forth.

"Ah, Margaretta," cried she, in accents of wildest grief, "what an
unfortunate woman I am! In all my life I have loved but one man! My
heart, my soul, my every thought are his, and he robs me, the mother of
his children, of his love, and bestows it upon another!"

"Perhaps the inconstancy is but momentary," replied the countess, who
burned to know the contents of the letter. "Perhaps there is no
inconstancy at all. This may be nothing but an effort on the part of
some frivolous coquette to draw our handsome emperor within the net of
her guilty attractions. The note would show--" The empress scarcely
heeded the words of her confidante. She had opened her hand, and was
gazing upon the crumpled paper that held her husband's secret.

"Oh!" murmured she, plaintively. "Oh, it seems to me that a thousand