“And he did not think of her peril?” I asked drily.
The dwarf shrugged his shoulders. “She is only a daughter, excellency; the prince divorced her mother because she bore him no sons, and he has wedded since, and will wed again.”
“Is that four times?” I asked absently, my mind dwelling on the princess.
“Nay,” said Maluta, “four times can no Russian marry; even if he presents himself before the priest he receives punishment, he——”
“And you found the princess here?” I said, cutting him short. “What then? There has been no struggle here, no housebreaking—where is she?”
Maluta’s face showed white in the dim light of the lanthorn.
“I gave her the message and she sent me to the stable to look for a trace of you. I was gone scarcely twenty minutes, and when I returned she was gone—gone as completely as though the earth had swallowed her.”
I sat staring at the feeble flame of the lanthorn; burning low. She had gone, then—as I had felt from the first—of her own free will, but where and how? She had seemed to shrink from me; she probably distrusted me, and she had fled—but whither? The wild disorder of the city, the perils that beset her on every side, would have stayed the most intrepid, and how could she go, alone, in the darkness of that night? The atmosphere of the house suddenly grew choking. I rose and, opening a shutter, let in the light of morning and the chill spring air. Then I fell to pacing the floor, pondering upon it, and taking no notice of the dwarf. I was, indeed, half frantic at the thought of the girl alone and unprotected, fleeing from me into such awful danger. It might be that she had friends near at hand, but it was unlikely; the Russian girl—kept behind “the twenty-eight bolts” of the terem—made few friends, and though I knew the Princess Daria had enjoyed a greater freedom than others and that old-time rules were everywhere relaxing, it was not at a time like this. Even while I meditated I heard the roll of drums, the shouts of soldiers, and a man lay in his blood in the very stable, and yet she had gone alone!
I went into the room where I had seen her last, weeping so bitterly, and I opened a shutter there and looked about me for some sign of her. The room was just as she had left it, and lacking her presence it was bare and sombre: a candle had burned out and guttered in the candlestick upon the table; beside it stood her chair, pushed aside, and the whole aspect of the place spoke of her presence. I stood and looked at it with a heavy heart. She despised me, and I was still her husband. The miracle of it made my brain swim, but, nevertheless, my heart was very heavy. I sat down in her chair and leaned upon the table, thinking, thinking of her, and of what fate had befallen her, and as I sat there I saw something lying on the table—a little sprig of rue, broken, doubtless, from her wedding crown and caught in her hair to fall here. I took it up sadly and was looking at it, when Maluta came sidling into the room and, approaching me cautiously, laid a curious buckle on the table and looked up at me with a wrinkled forehead. I glanced at the buckle and then at him with some impatience.
“Well,” I said sharply, too weary and heartsore for trifles, “what ails it?”