For as soon as the fireworks on the islands begin they attract all the servants and watchmen yet awake. There is no one to keep guard on the winding paths of the park. The great clock strikes eleven; every quarter of an hour four bells ring a carillon. At the last stroke of the clock she seems to hear the sound of approaching footsteps on the gravel. Who else can it be? An aristocrat's step is so different from that of a mujik. She is right.
The new-comer, stopping at the door of the garden veranda, opens it with a key. His footsteps now announce his coming, as they hurriedly ascend the spiral staircase. Korynthia has studied the pose in which she will be surprised. Leaning over the window-sill, her face resting on her hand—a dreamy figure so absorbed in the song of the nightingales that she does not perceive some one approach her, bend over her, and breathe a soft kiss upon her lovely shoulder.
The Princess seems to rouse from her reverie with a start, as, with an air of smiling reproach, she turns to the stealer of the kiss, "Ah, how late you are!" But as she sees him, she starts in reality. The kiss has been no theft. The perpetrator had but taken what was his own. It was her husband, Prince Ghedimin. Korynthia stammered out, "How early you have come home!"
"You just said how late I was."
"I was dreaming. I did not know what I was saying. How did you get in?"
"By the garden veranda. You know that I have the key."
And now it occurs to Korynthia that that other, to whom she had given the duplicate, may even now be coming.
"Did you fasten the door?"
"No, for in five minutes I must be off again."
"But I beg you to fasten the door, and leave your key on the inside. You know how terrified I am of thieves."