Prince Adelsberg, who was in the ducal box, was as much excited as if he had written the drama himself.

His aunt, too, was greatly interested in the success of the evening’s entertainment, and had been looking carefully over the play bill when he entered the box; she called him to her at once.

“Our young friend seems to have his whims like all other poets,” she remarked.  “What a singular caprice to change the name of his heroine in the last hour.”

“But that is not the case,” Egon answered.  “The change was made long before we left Rodeck.  Hartmut took it into his head that ‘Ada’ was too cold and clear-cut a name for the passionate character of his heroine, so he re-baptized her.”

“But the name ‘Ada’ is here on the programme,” interrupted the princess.

“Certainly, but it belongs to quite a different person in the drama now, one who only appears in a single scene.”

“Then Herr Rojanow has made his alterations since he read it for us at Fuerstenstein?”

“Only a few; the play is really quite unchanged with that single exception.  Hartmut has added that scene with Ada in it, and I can assure your highness it’s the most poetical thing he has ever written.”

“Of course, everything your friend writes is wonderful in your eyes,” his aunt answered, but her unusually gracious smiles showed that in this opinion she did not disagree with him.

The ambassador and his wife, who had only returned forty-eight hours before, sat in one of the large proscenium boxes.  Baron von Wallmoden was anything but a willing guest of the court to-night, but he knew it was incumbent on him in his position to accept this evening’s invitation.  The duke had invited the whole diplomatic corps, and as the North German ambassador and his wife had dined at the ducal table that evening no excuse could be offered for declining the later entertainment.

Willibald had come too, to see and hear the work of his old-time friend; as his uncle was to be there, surely he had a right also.  It did not please Wallmoden to have him there, but he could not well forbid his nephew’s presence when he himself was present.  Will, who had some difficulty in obtaining a seat in the parquette, unfolded the programme carelessly, when suddenly his eye caught the name of “Marietta Volkmar,” and knew whom he was to see this evening.  He folded the programme hastily and put it in his pocket; he regretted in this moment that he had come to the theatre at all.

Finally the performance began.  The curtain rose, and the first act, little more than a prelude, was soon over.  It was an introduction to the spectators, of that weird, fantastic, legendary world into which they were to enter, with Arivana, the sacred place of offering, the holy of holies, in the foreground.

The principal character in the drama, the young priest, who in the fanaticism of his belief puts everything earthly far from him, as unclean, appeared, and in a few masterly, powerful lines, pronounced his vow, by which, for him, for time and eternity, all earthly bonds were loosed, and he was committed heart and soul to the service of his God.  The oath was taken, the holy flame blazed and waved on the sacrificial altar, and the curtain fell.