A second wave broke; her feet were wet through. She slowly drew herself up, looked at the angry sea, at the lowering sky. Then she grasped the sculls again, with a sigh of pain:
"Come on!" she thought.
She rose higher and sank lower. But with a frantic effort she made the boat turn:
"It shall!" she bit out between her teeth. She kept the boat's head to the wind and began to row. It shall. She wrinkled her forehead, gnashed her jaws, grated her teeth together. She felt her muscles straining. And she rowed on, up against the wind. With her whole body she struggled up against the stiff breeze. It shall. It must. And she grew accustomed to the exertion; she rowed on mechanically. So much accustomed did she grow to it that she began to sob as she rowed....
O God, how she had loved him, with all her soul! Why? Could she tell? Oh, if he had only been a little stronger, she would have been so too! What mattered to them the disfavour of her uncle the emperor, so long as they loved each other? What the fury of their parents, so long as they loved each other? What did they care for all Europe, so long as they cared for each other? Nothing, nothing at all.... If he had only dared to grasp happiness for them, when it fluttered before them, as it flutters only once before mortal men! But he had not dared, he felt himself too weak to risk that grasp, he acknowledged it himself.... And now ... now it was over, over, over....
As she sobbed she rowed on. Her arms seemed to swell, to burst asunder. A few thick drops of rain fell. What was she really rowing on for? The sea meant death, release from life, oblivion, the extinction of scorching pain. Then why did she row on?
"O God, I don't know!" she answered herself aloud. "But I must! I must!..."
And with successive jerks of her strong imperial body she worked herself back, towards life....
But at Altseeborgen they were in great alarm. It was three hours since Valérie had left the castle. The maid was unable to say more than that her highness had assured her she would be back to breakfast. The sentries had seen her go down the terraces, but had paid no further heed to the direction which her highness had taken. They thought it was towards the woods, but they were not sure....
Every minute the alarm increased; no suspicion was uttered, but they all read it in one another's eyes. King Siegfried ordered that they should themselves set out and search quietly, so as to attract no attention among the household and the people of the village. There could be no question of her having lost her way: the pine-woods were not extensive and Valérie knew Altseeborgen well. And there was nothing besides the woods, the beach and the village.