Again in silence they rode on; it was evening now, and had grown dark, and presently the lantern in the tower of the keep of Zenda became visible. Then Osra drew rein.
"For my sake," said she, "rob no more."
"What you command, madame, is my law. And here is your ring."
"Keep the ring," she said. "But when I can serve you, you shall send it back to me, and ask what you will in return for it."
"There is nothing," said he, very low, and looking away from her, "that I would take in exchange for it."
"A foolish man or only a foolish speech?" she asked as lightly as she could, with one fleeting glance at his face.
"A foolish man, madame, it may be, but a true speech," and he bent bareheaded in his saddle and raised her hand to his lips. And, still bareheaded, he turned away and rode back at a canter into the forest. But the Princess Osra rode on to the Castle, wondering greatly at what she had done that day.
Yet she could not be very sorry that she had saved his horse for him, and she trusted that Otho and Lotta would be happy, and she thought that one man was, after all, as good flesh and blood as another, and then that she was a Princess and he a robber, and that his eyes had been over bold. Yet there was deference in them also.
"It is a great pity that he should be a robber," sighed the Princess, as she reached the Castle.