"She is dead," said the prince; and Osra, hearing it, covered her face
with her hands, and blindly groped her way back to the chair, where
she sat, panting and exhausted.

"To her I have said farewell, and now, madam, to you. Yet do not think
that I am a man without eyes for your beauty, or a heart to know your
worth. I seemed to you a fool and a churl. I grieved most bitterly,
and I wronged you bitterly; my excuse for all is now known. For though
you are more beautiful than she, yet true love is no wanderer; it
gives a beauty that it does not find, and weaves a chain no other
charms can break. Madam, farewell."

[Illustration: "OSRA ... SUDDENLY THREW HERSELF ON THE FLOOR AT HIS
FEET, CRYING, 'FORGIVE ME! FORGIVE ME!'"]

She looked at him and saw the sad joy in his eyes, an exultation over
what had been that what was could not destroy; and she knew that the
vision was still with him, though his love was dead. Suddenly he
seemed to her a man she also might love, and for whom she also, if
need be, might gladly die. Yet not because she loved him, for she was
asking still in wonder: "What is this love?"

"Madam, farewell," said he again; and, kneeling before her, he kissed
her hand.

"I carry the body of my love," he went on, "back with me to my home,
there to mourn for her; and I shall come no more to Strelsau."

Osra bent her eyes on his face as he knelt, and presently she said to
him in a whisper that was low for awe, not shame:

"You heard what she bade me do?"

"Yes, madam, I know her wish."

"And you would do it?" she asked.

"Madam, my struggle was fought before she died. But now you know that
my love was not yours."

"That also I knew before, sir;" and a slight, bitter smile came on her
face. But she grew grave again, and sat there, seeming to be
pondering, and Prince Ludwig waited on his knees. Then she suddenly
leant forward and said:

"If I loved I would wait for you to love. Now what is the love that I
cannot feel?"

And then she sat again silent, but at last raised her eyes again to
his, saying in a voice that even in the stillness of the room he
hardly heard:

"Now I do dearly love you, for I have seen your love, and know that
you can love; and I think that love must breed love, so that she who
loves must in God's time be loved. Yet"--she paused here, and for a
moment hid her face with her hand--"yet I cannot," she went on. "Is it
our Lord Christ who bids us take the lower place? I cannot t