"Do not weep, madame. They will escape now, and they will be happy."
"I was not weeping for them," said the Princess.
Stephen was silent for a little, and then he said:
"In very truth it was no trick, madame; it was even as I said, from the first day that you rode along the street here; it was always the same in my heart, and would always have been, however long I had lived."
"I do not doubt it, Stephen; and it is not for doubt of it that I weep," said she.
Then, after a little while, he said:
"Do you weep, madame, because I am dying?"
"Yes, I weep for that."
"Would you have me live, madame?" he asked.
"No, I would not—no—but I do not know," she said.