Consuelo’s triumph at the opera had been indisputable.  Her voice was sweeter and richer than when she sang in Venice, and a perfect storm of flowers fell upon the stage at the end of the performance.  Amid these perfumed gifts Consuelo saw a green branch fall at her feet, and when the curtain was lowered for the last time she picked it up.  It was a bunch of cypress, a symbol of grief and despair.

To add to her distress, she was now conscious that her love for Albert was a reality, and no answer had come from him or from Count Christian to the letters she had sent.  Twice in the six days at the opera she had caught a glimpse, so it seemed to her, of Count Albert, but on both occasions the figure had melted away without a word, and unobserved by all at the theatre.

No further engagement followed at the opera, and Consuelo’s thoughts turned more and more to the Rudolstadts.  If only she could hear from Christian or his son, she would know whether she was free to devote herself absolutely to her art.  For she had made her promise to Count Christian that she would send him word should she feel sure of being in love with Albert; and now that word had been sent, and no reply had come.

Porpora, with a promise of an engagement at the royal theatre in Berlin, and anxious to take Consuelo with him, had confessed, in answer to her objection to leaving Vienna before hearing from Christian, that letters had come from the Rudolstadts, which he had destroyed.

“The old count was not at all anxious to have a daughter-in-law picked up behind the scenes,” said Porpora, “and so the good Albert sets you at liberty.”

Consuelo never suspected her master of this profound deceit, and, taking the story he had invented for truth, signed an agreement to go to Berlin for two months.

IV.—­The Return to Bohemia

The carriage containing Porpora and Consuelo had reached the city of Prague, and was on the bridge that spans the Moldau, when a horseman approached and looked in at the window, gazing with a tranquil curiosity.  Porpora pushed him back, exclaiming: 

“How dare you stare at ladies so closely.”

The horseman replied in Bohemian, and Consuelo, seeing his face, called out: 

“Is it the Baron Frederick of Rudolstadt?”

“Yes, it is I, signora!” replied the baron, in a dejected tone.  “The brother of Christian, the uncle of Albert.  And in truth, is it you also?”

The baron accompanied them to a hotel, and there explained to Consuelo that he had received a letter from the canoness, his sister, bidding him, at Albert’s request, be on the bridge of Prague at seven o’clock that evening.

“The first carriage that passes you will stop; if the first person you see in it can leave for the castle that same evening, Albert, perhaps, will be saved.  At least, he says it will give him a hold on eternal life.  I do not know what he means, but he has the gift of prophecy and the perception of hidden things.  The doctors have given up all hope for his life.”