The young girl mimicked her roguishly. “Will you stay with me, and leave him?” she asked, and then, running to her cousin, she covered her face and hands with caresses. “Go,” she cried, “go, my sweetheart, to happiness—here they would not let you have it. I am safe enough.”
But, while they clung to each other, with tears and kisses, I went and spoke a few words to the old steward, the one man whom Daria seemed to trust in that great retinue, and it was he who told me what course to follow, and assured me that he could hold back pursuit for twenty-four hours—just so long as the feigned illness that the princess had announced to the household could be sustained, just so long and no longer.
“After that, sir,” he said grimly, “if they take you, they will make short work, but with twenty-four hours——”
“They will not take me,” I said quietly, and I looked to my horse, hoof and girth and bridle, then I went back to where the two girls wept in each other’s arms.
I would have waited, unwilling to tear them apart, but Lissa thrust her cousin away.
“There!” she cried, between tears and laughter, “go and send me a husband who will not beat me. As for me—I must go back to the Princess Daria, who is ill,” and she held out her hand to me.
I kissed it, with sincere gratitude for her good offices, and I thanked her, but she came closer to me and looked straight into my eyes with her fearless blue ones.
“Be kind to her,” she said, very low, that Daria might not hear, “be loving and be true—for she is a woman as well as a princess, and she loves you!”
With that, the charming creature fled into the shadow of the firs, followed by old Piotr, who had parted from his mistress solemnly, and with tears. And the dwarf, mounting first, rode on, and the Princess Daria and I followed slowly—riding side by side—out into the sunrise of the world and of our lives.
THE END.