“No, baron, I believe all is still quiet in his highness’s apartments.”

“God be thanked!  God be thanked!  Now present my compliments to Baron von Marwitz, and then come quickly and help me.”

Ten minutes later Baron Kalkhun von Leuchtmar entered the Prince’s reception room, where the chamberlain, Baron von Marwitz, awaited him.  The two had a long conversation together, Leuchtmar listening with thoughtful mien to Marwitz’s narration of the state of affairs at home.

“Marwitz,” he said, at the close of their conversation, “we have been good and tried friends from our childhood; I know that the electoral house and our fatherland lie as near to your heart as to my own, and that I can trust you.  I therefore tell you, you have come at a fortunate hour, and God sends you!  The heart of the Prince is wrung by a mighty sorrow, and he probably knows no way out of his griefs.  You will show him one, and if he is actually the aspiring and noble-hearted Prince, whom God has sent for the blessing of his house and the hope of his country, then will he appreciate this way and walk in it.  Go to him now, Marwitz, and lay before him candidly and without reserve, as you have done before me, the deplorable condition of things in our native land.”

“You will come with me, Leuchtmar, and present me to the Electoral Prince?”

“No, baron.  You must suffer yourself to be announced by the chamberlain, for the Prince dismissed me yesterday in wrath.  Hush, my friend! say not a word, it is not so bad!  The heart of the Prince has reached a crisis in its history which will soon be past, and then, well then, he will call me of himself again.  But I shall wait for that.  I can not intrude upon him now.”

“My friend,” sighed Marwitz, “I begin to be afraid.  If you do not support me, I will surely fail in my errand, and, like Schlieben, be forced to return disappointed to Berlin.”

“I think not.  Only be of good courage and speak boldly, as your heart and your love of country dictate.”

“Is the Electoral Prince already up?” he asked of the man in waiting, and, as he received nothing but a shrug of the shoulders in reply, Leuchtmar beckoned to him to come nearer, and retired with him into a recess of one of the windows.

“Well, what is it, old Dietrich?  You have seen the Electoral Prince already, have you not?”

“Yes, baron.  He has not been to bed at all, but still has on the clothes he wore when he went away last night.  He is just as pale as a sheet, and his eyes which usually shine so gloriously are to-day quite dim.  He called me, and I thought he was about to order breakfast, but no!  Something quite different he wanted, and it struck me as peculiarly strange.  The Electoral Prince asked me who was on duty this week, I or the second valet, Eberhard?  I told him Eberhard, for his week began yesterday.  Then said the Electoral Prince:  ’Well, Dietrich, I want you to exchange with him this time,