"To kill himself?" she said, half-incredulous, but also half-believing, because of the marquis's gloomy looks and black clothes.
"To kill himself," repeated Rudolf. "For, in the first place, you are angry, so he cannot live; and in the second, he has behaved like a rogue, so he cannot live; and in the third place, you are so lovely, sister, that he cannot live; and in the first, second, and third places, he is a fool, so he cannot live." And the prince finished his flagon of wine with every sign of ill-humor in his manner.
"He is well dead," she cried.
"Oh, as you please!" said he. "He is not the first brave man who has died on your account;" and he rose and strode out of the room very surlily, for he had a great friendship for Monsieur de Mérosailles, and had no patience with men who let love make dead bones of them.
The Princess Osra, being thus left alone, sat for a little while in deep thought. There rose before her mind the picture of Monsieur de Mérosailles riding mournfully through the gloom of the forest to his death; and although his conduct had been all, and more than all, that she had called it, yet it seemed hard that he should die for it. Moreover, if he now in truth felt what he had before feigned, the present truth was an atonement for the past treachery; and she said to herself that she could not sleep quietly that night if the marquis killed himself in the forest. Presently she wandered slowly up to her chamber, and looked in the mirror, and murmured low, "Poor fellow!" And then with sudden speed she attired herself for riding, and commanded her horse to be saddled, and darted down the stairs and across the bridge, and mounted, and, forbidding any one to accompany her, rode away into the forest, following the tracks of the hoofs of Monsieur de Mérosailles's horse. It was then late afternoon, and the slanting rays of the sun, striking through the tree-trunks, reddened her face as she rode along, spurring her horse and following hard on the track of the forlorn gentleman. But what she intended to do if she came up with him, she did not think.
When she had ridden an hour or more, she saw his horse tethered to a trunk; and there was a ring of trees and bushes near, encircling an open grassy spot. Herself dismounting and fastening her horse by the marquis's horse, she stole up, and saw Monsieur de Mérosailles sitting on the ground, his drawn sword lying beside him; and his back was towards her. She held her breath, and waited for a few moments. Then he took up the sword, and felt the point and also the edge of it, and sighed deeply; and the princess thought that this sorrowful mood became him better than any she had seen him in before. Then he rose to his feet, and took his sword by the blade beneath the hilt, and turned the point of it towards his heart. And Osra, fearing that the deed would be done immediately, called out eagerly, "My lord, my lord!" and Monsieur de Mérosailles turned round with a great start. When he saw her, he stood in astonishment, his hand still holding the blade of the sword. And, standing just on the other side of the trees, she said:
"Is your offence against me to be cured by adding an offence against Heaven and the Church?" And she looked on him with great severity; yet her cheek was flushed, and after a while she did not meet his glance.
"How came you here, madam?" he asked in wonder.
"I heard," she said, "that you meditated this great sin, and I rode after you to forbid it."
"Can you forbid what you cause?" he asked.