A Burlesque Autobiography | Page 5

happy did all
things seem, that he felt his fears and sorrows passing away and giving
place to a comforting contentment.
But in a remote apartment of the palace a scene of a different nature
was, transpiring. By a window stood the Duke's only child, the Lady
Constance. Her eyes were red and swollen, and full of tears. She was
alone. Presently she fell to weeping anew, and said aloud:
"The villain Detzin is gone--has fled the dukedom! I could not believe
it at first, but alas! it is too true. And I loved him so. I dared to love him
though I knew the Duke my father would never let me wed him. I loved
him--but now I hate him! With all, my soul I hate him! Oh, what is to
become of me! I am lost, lost, lost! I shall go mad!"

CHAPTER III
.
THE PLOT THICKENS.
Few months drifted by. All men published the praises of the young
Conrad's government and extolled the wisdom of his judgments, the
mercifulness of his sentences, and the modesty with which he bore
himself in his great office. The old Duke soon gave everything into his
hands, and sat apart and listened with proud satisfaction while his heir
delivered the decrees of the crown from the seat of the premier. It
seemed plain that one so loved and praised and honored of all men as
Conrad was, could not be otherwise than happy. But strange enough, he
was not. For he saw with dismay that the Princess Constance had begun
to love him! The love of, the rest of the world was happy fortune for
him, but this was freighted with danger! And he saw, moreover, that
the delighted Duke had discovered his daughter's passion likewise, and
was already dreaming of a marriage. Every day somewhat of the deep
sadness that had been in the princess' face faded away; every day hope
and animation beamed brighter from her eye; and by and by even
vagrant smiles visited the face that had been so troubled.
Conrad was appalled. He bitterly cursed himself for having yielded to

the instinct that had made him seek the companionship of one of his
own sex when he was new and a stranger in the palace--when he was
sorrowful and yearned for a sympathy such as only women can give or
feel. He now began to avoid, his cousin. But this only made matters
worse, for, naturally enough, the more he avoided her, the more she
cast herself in his way. He marveled at this at first; and next it startled
him. The girl haunted him; she hunted him; she happened upon him at
all times and in all places, in the night as well as in the day. She seemed
singularly anxious. There was surely a mystery somewhere.
This could not go on forever. All the world was talking about it. The
Duke was beginning to look perplexed. Poor Conrad was becoming a
very ghost through dread and dire distress. One day as he was emerging
from a private ante-room attached to the picture gallery, Constance
confronted him, and seizing both his hands, in hers, exclaimed:
"Oh, why, do you avoid me? What have I done--what have I said, to
lose your kind opinion of me--for, surely I had it once? Conrad, do not
despise me, but pity a tortured heart? I cannot--cannot hold the words
unspoken longer, lest they kill me--I LOVE you, CONRAD! There,
despise me if you must, but they would be uttered!"
Conrad was speechless. Constance hesitated a moment, and then,
misinterpreting his silence, a wild gladness flamed in her eyes, and she
flung her arms about his neck and said:
"You relent! you relent! You can love me--you will love me! Oh, say
you will, my own, my worshipped Conrad!'"
Conrad groaned aloud. A sickly pallor overspread his countenance, and
he trembled like an aspen. Presently, in desperation, he thrust the poor
girl from him, and cried:
"You know not what you ask! It is forever and ever impossible!" And
then he fled like a criminal and left the princess stupefied with
amazement. A minute afterward she was crying and sobbing there, and
Conrad was crying and sobbing in his chamber. Both were in despair.
Both save ruin staring them in the face.
By and by Constance rose slowly to her feet and moved away, saying:
"To think that he was despising my love at the very moment that I
thought it was melting his cruel heart! I hate him! He spurned me--did
this man--he spurned me from him like a dog!"

CHAPTER IV
THE AWFUL REVELATION.
Time passed on. A settled sadness rested once more upon the
countenance of the good Duke's daughter. She and Conrad were seen
together no