Sobbing aloud, she threw herself at his feet, confessed that she was
guilty, and remorsefully admitted that fear of his resentment, which
seemed to her more terrible than death, had induced her to deny what
she had done. She could hate herself for it. Nothing could palliate
the departure from the path of truth, but her disobedience might perhaps
appear to him in a milder light if he learned what had induced her to
commit it.

Charles, still in an angry, imperious tone, ordered her to rise. She
silently obeyed, and when he threw himself on the divan she timidly sat
down by his side, turning toward him her troubled face, which for the
first time he saw wet with tears.

Yet a hopeful smile brightened her moist eyes, for she felt that, since
he permitted her to remain at his side, all might yet be well.

Then she timidly took his hand and, as he permitted it, she held it
firmly while she explained what ties had bound her to Wolf from
childhood.

She represented herself as the sisterly counsellor of the friend who had
grown up in the same house with her. Music and the Catholic religion, in
the midst of a city which had fallen into the Protestant heresy, had been
the bond between them. After his return home he had probably been unable
to help falling in love with her, but, so truly as she hoped for Heaven's
mercy, she had kept her heart closed against Cupid until he, the Emperor,
had approached in order, like that other Caesar, to come, to see, and to
conquer. But she was only a woman, and pity in a woman's soft heart was
as hard to silence as the murmur of a swift mountain stream or the
rushing of the wind.