"You are right, Tom. The fall would be dreadful, for my hopes have never
been nearer being realized than now! I am certain that what has prevented
me from sinking under my sufferings has been my constant hope to profit by
the important revelation which this woman made me at the moment when she
stabbed me."

"Even during your delirium you constantly referred to this idea."

"Because this idea alone sustained my flickering life. What a hope!
Sovereign princess! almost a queen," she added, with rapture.

"Once more, Sarah; no mad dreams; the awakening will be terrible!"

"Mad dreams? How! when Rudolph shall know that this young girl, now a
prisoner at Saint Lazare, is our child, do you think that---"

Seyton interrupted his sister.

"I believe," he replied, with bitterness, "that princes place reasons of
state and political proprieties before natural ties."

"Do you count so little on my address?"

"The prince is not the same fond and enamored youth whom you seduced in
days gone by."

"Do you know why I have wished to ornament my hair with this band of coral?
and why I have put on this white robe? It is because, the first time
Rudolph saw me at the court of Gerolstein, I was dressed in white, and I
wore the same band of coral in my hair."