"He didn't stop even to tell Marie! It must be urgent."
They looked in one another's faces. "Can there be—be anything wrong in Slavna?"
"You mean—the troops?"
"I had thought of that."
"I can think of nothing but that. If it were anything from the Palace, it would come by a royal courier sooner than by any other hand."
"I can hear plainly now," said Peter Vassip. "Listen!"
They obeyed him, but their ears were not so well trained. A dull, indefinite sound was all they could distinguish.
"Horses—a number of them. Mounted men it must be—the hoofs are so regular. Cavalry!"
"It's the Prince coming back from Volseni!" cried Sophy.
"No, it's from the other direction; and, besides, there are too many for that."