"My lord, I forgive your wrong, and I thank you for your courtesy, and I wish you farewell."
Prince Rudolf, astonished, gazed at her without speaking. But she, moving very quickly in spite of the darkness, ran to where Monsieur de Mérosailles was about to spring on his horse, and she flung one arm lightly about his neck, and she said:
"Farewell, dear brother—God preserve you! See that no harm comes to my good friend Monsieur de Mérosailles." And she kissed him lightly on the cheek. Then she suddenly gave a loud cry of dismay, exclaiming, "Alas, what have I done? Ah, what have I done?" And she hid her face in her two hands.
Prince Rudolf burst into a loud, short laugh, yet he said nothing to his sister, but again urged the marquis to mount his horse. And the marquis, who was in a sad tumult of triumph and of woe, leaped up, and they rode out, and, turning their faces towards the forest, set spurs to their horses, and vanished at breakneck speed into the glades. And no sooner were they gone than the troopers of the king's guard clattered at a canter up to the end of the bridge, where the Princess Osra stood. But when their captain saw the princess, he drew rein.
"What is your errand, sir?" she asked, most coldly and haughtily.
"Madam," said the captain, "we are ordered to bring the Marquis de Mérosailles alive or dead into the king's presence, and we have information that he is in the castle, unless indeed he were one of the horsemen who rode away just now."
"The horsemen you saw were my brother the prince and his groom," said Osra. "But if you think that Monsieur de Mérosailles is in the castle, pray search the castle from keep to cellar; and if you find him, carry him to my father, according to your orders."
Then the troopers dismounted in great haste, and ransacked the castle from keep to cellar; and they found the clothes of the marquis and the white powder with which he had whitened his face, but the marquis they did not find. And the captain came again to the princess, who still stood at the end of the bridge, and said:
"Madam, he is not in the castle."
"Is he not?" said she, and she turned away and, walking to the middle of the bridge, looked down into the water of the moat.