"What, will crowns patch a broken heart?"
"His broken heart must heal itself, as men's broken hearts do, brother!"
"In truth, sister, I have known them cure themselves. Let us hope it may be so with the Miller of Hofbau."
"At the worst I have revenged the wrongs of women on him. It is unendurable that any man should scorn us, be he king or miller."
"It is indeed very proper that he should suffer great pangs," said the King, "in spite of his plaster of crowns. I shall love to see the stolid fellow sighing and moaning like a lovesick courtier."
So they agreed to ride together to the miller's at Hofbau on the day appointed for the wedding, and both of them waited with impatience for it. But, with the bad luck that pursues mortals (even though they be princes) in this poor world, it happened that early in the morning of the Thursday a great officer came riding post-haste from Strelsau to take the King's commands on high matters of state; and, although Rudolf was sorely put out of temper by this untoward interruption, yet he had no alternative but to transact the business before he rode to the miller's at Hofbau. So he sat fretting and fuming, while long papers were read to him, and the Princess walked up and down the length of the drawbridge, fretting also; for before the King could escape from his affairs, the hour of the wedding was already come, and doubtless the Miller of Hofbau was waiting with the priest in the church. Indeed it was one o'clock or more before Osra and the King set out from Zenda, and they had then a ride of an hour and a half; and all this when Osra should have been at the miller's at eleven o'clock.
"Poor man, he will be half mad with waiting and with anxiety for me!" cried Osra. "I must give him another hundred crowns on account of it." And she added, after a pause, "I pray he may not take it too much to heart, Rudolf."
"We must try to prevent him doing himself any mischief in his despair," smiled the King.
"Indeed it is a serious matter," pouted the Princess, who thought the King's smile out of place.
"It was not so when you began it," said her brother; and Osra was silent.