But the marquis shook his head, and his air was so resolute and so full of sorrow that not only was Rudolf alarmed for his reason, but Princess Osra also, at the window, wondered what ailed him and why he wore such a long face; and she now noticed, that he was dressed all in black, and that his horse waited for him across the bridge.

“Not,” said she, “that I care what becomes of the impudent rogue!” Yet she did not leave the window, but watched very intently to see what Monsieur de Merosailles would do.

For a long while he talked with Rudolf on the bridge, Rudolf seeming more serious than he was wont to be; and at last the marquis bent to kiss the prince’s hand, and the prince raised him and kissed him on either cheek; and then the marquis went and mounted his horse and rode off, slowly and unattended, into the glades of the forest of Zenda.  But the prince, with a shrug of his shoulders and a frown on his brow, entered under the portcullis, and disappeared from his sister’s view.

Upon this the princess, assuming an air of great carelessness, walked down from the room where she was, and found her brother, sitting still in his boots, and drinking wine; and she said: 

“Monsieur de Merosailles has taken his leave, then?”

“Even so, madam,” rejoined Rudolf.

Then she broke into a fierce attack on the marquis, and on her brother also; for a man, said she, is known by his friends, and what a man must Rudolf be to have a friend like the Marquis de Merosailles!

“Most brothers,” she said, in fiery temper, “would make him answer for what he has done with his life.  But you laugh—­nay, I dare say you had a hand in it.”

As to this last charge the prince had the discretion to say nothing; he chose rather to answer the first part of what she said, and, shrugging his shoulders again, rejoined, “The fool saves me the trouble, for he has gone off to kill himself.”

“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 Merosailles, and had no patience with men who let love make dead bones of them.