. ."
The heel of the vindictive harridan ground viciously upon the
lips of the dying man and choked his utterance. Thereafter the
halberts finished him off, and he was buried there and then, in
lime, under the floor of the Hall of Knights, under the very spot
where he had fallen, which was long to remain imbrued with his
blood.
Thus miserably perished the glittering Koenigsmark, a martyr to
his own irrepressible romanticism.
As for Sophia, better might it have been for her had she shared
his fate that night. She was placed under arrest next morning,
and Prince George was summoned back from Berlin at once.
The evidence may have satisfied him that his honour had not
suffered, for he was disposed to let the matter drop, content
that they should remain in the forbidding relations which had
existed between them before this happening. But Sophia was
uncompromising in her demand for strict justice.
"If I am guilty, I am unworthy of you," she told him. "If
innocent, you are unworthy of me."
There was no more to be said. A consistory court was assembled to
divorce them. But since with the best intentions there was no
faintest evidence of her adultery, this court had to be content
to pronounce the divorce upon the ground of her desertion.
Pages:
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313