“And he has dared to write to you!” said the king, with trembling lips and scornful eye.  “Who was bold enough to hand you this letter?”

“Oh, sire, you will not surely demand that I shall betray my friends!  Moreover, if I named the messenger who brought me this letter, it would answer no purpose; you would arrest and punish him, and to-morrow I should find another to serve me as well.  Unhappy love finds pity, protection, and friends everywhere.  Sire, I repeat my request—­pardon for Baron Trenck!”

“And I,” cried the king, in a loud, stern voice, “I ask if you accept my proposition—­if you will become the wife of the King of Denmark—­and, mark well, princess, this is the answer to your prayer.”

“Sire, may God take pity on me!  Punish me with your utmost scorn—­I cannot break my oath!  You can force me to leave my vows unfulfilled--not to become the wife of the man I love—­but you cannot force me to perjure myself.  I should indeed be foresworn if I stepped before the altar with another man, and promised a love and faith which my heart knows not, and can never know.”

The king uttered a shrill cry of rage; maledictions hung upon his lips, but he held them back, and forcing himself to appear composed, he folded his arms, and walked hastily backward and forward through the room.

The princess gazed at him in breathless silence, and with loudly-beating heart she prayed to God for mercy and help; she felt that this hour would decide the fate of her whole life.  Suddenly the king stood before her.  His countenance was now perfectly composed.

“Princess Amelia,” said he, “I give you four weeks’ respite.  Consider well what I have said to you.  Take counsel with your conscience, your understanding, and your honor.  In four weeks I will come again to you, and ask if you are resolved to fulfil my request, and become the wife of the King of Denmark.  Until that time, I will know how to restrain the Danish ambassador.  If you dare still to oppose my will, I will yet fulfil my promise, and grant you the favor you ask of me.  I will make proposals to Trenck to return to Prussia, and the inducements I offer shall be so splendid that he will not resist them.  Let me once have him here, and it shall be my affair to hold fast to him.”

He bowed to the princess and left the room.  Amelia watched him silently, breathlessly, till he disappeared, then heaved a deep sigh and called loudly for her maid.

“Ernestine!  Ernestine!” said she, with trembling lips, “find me a faithful messenger whom I can send immediately to Vienna.  I must warn Trenck!  Danger threatens him!  No matter what my brother’s ambassador may offer him, with what glittering promises he may allure him, Trenck dare not listen to them, dare not accept them!  He must never return to Prussia—­he is lost if he does so!”

Frederick returned slowly and silently to his apartment.  As he thought over the agitating scene he had just passed through, he murmured lightly, “Oh, woman’s heart! thou art like the restless, raging sea, and pearls and monsters lie in thy depths!”