The Prince of Slavna's answer to the intimation of his father's wishes was dutiful, courteous, and discreetly diplomatic. The Prince was much occupied with his drills and other occupations; he availed himself of Max von Hollbrandt's practised pen—the guest was glad to do his royal host this favor.

They talked over the sense of the reply; Max then draughted it. The Prince did no more than amend certain expressions which the young diplomatist had used. Max wrote that the Prince cordially sympathized with the King's wishes; the Prince amended to the effect that he thoroughly understood them. Max wrote that the Prince was prepared cordially and energetically to co-operate in their realization; the Prince preferred to be prepared to consider them in a benevolent spirit. Max suggested that two or three months' postponement of the suggested journey would not in itself be fatal; the Prince insisted that such a delay was essential, in order that negotiations might be set on foot to ensure his being welcomed with due empressement. Max added that the later date would have an incidental advantage, since it would obviate the necessity of the Prince's interrupting the important labors on which he was engaged; the Prince said instead that, in his judgment, it was essential, in the interests of the kingdom, that the task of training the artillery should not be interfered with by any other object, however well worthy of consideration that object might be.

In the result, the draught as amended, though not less courteous or dutiful than Max's original, was noticeably more stiff. Translate them both into the terse and abrupt speech of every-day life, and one said: "I'd rather not, please," while the other came at least very near to a blank "I won't!" Max's was acquiescence, coupled with a prayer for postponement; the Prince's was postponement first, with an accompanying assurance of respectful consideration.

Max was not hurt, but he felt a professional disapproval; the Prince had said more, and shown more of his mind, than was needful; it was throwing more cards on the table than the rules of the game demanded.

"Mine would have done just as well," he complained to Marie Zerkovitch. "If mine had been rejected, his could have followed. As it is, he's wasted one or other of them. Very foolish, since just now time's his main object!" He did not mean saving time, but protracting it.

Marie did no more than toss her head peevishly. The author of the original draught persevered.

"Don't you think mine would have been much wiser—to begin with?"

"I don't see much difference. There's little enough truth in either of them!" she snapped.

Max looked at her with an amused and tolerant smile. He knew quite well what she meant. He shook his head at her with a humorous twinkle. "Oh, come, come, don't be exacting, madame! There's a very fair allowance of truth. Quite half the truth, I should think. He is really very anxious about the gunners!"

"And about what else?"

Max spread out his hands with a shrug, but passed the question by. "So much truth, in fact, that it would have served amply for at least two letters," he remarked, returning to his own special point of complaint.

Marie might well amuse the easy-going, yet observant and curious, young man; he loved to watch his fellow-creatures under the stress of feelings from which he himself was free, and found in the opportunities afforded him in this line the chief interest both of his life and of his profession.

But Marie had gradually risen to a high, nervous tension. She was no puritan—puritans were not common in Kravonia, nor had Paris grafted such a slip onto her nature. Had she thought as the men in the Palace thought when they smiled, had she thought that and no more, it is scarcely likely that she would have thus disturbed herself; after all, such cases are generally treated as in some sense outside the common rules; exceptional allowances are, in fact, whether properly or not, made for exceptional situations. Another feeling was in her mind—an obsession which had come almost wholly to possess her. The fateful foreboding which had attacked her from the first had now full dominion over her; its rule was riveted more closely on her spirit day by day, as day by day the Prince and Sophy drew closer together. Even that Sophy had once saved his life could now no longer shake Marie's doleful prepossession. Unusual and unlooked-for things take color from the mind of the spectator; the strange train of events which had brought Sophy to Praslok borrowed ominous shadows from a nervous, apprehensive temperament.

No such gloom brooded over Sophy. She gave herself up to the hour: the past forgotten, the future never thought of. It was the great time of her life. Her feelings, while not less spontaneous and fresh, were more mature and more fully satisfied than when Casimir de Savres poured his love at her feet. A cry of happiness almost lyrical runs through her scanty record of these days—there was little leisure for diary or letters.

Winter was melting into spring, snow dwelled only on the hill-tops, Lake Talti was unbound and sparkled in the sun; the days grew longer, yet were far too short. To ride with him to Volseni, to hear the cheers, to see the love they bore him, to watch him at work, to seem to share the labor and the love—then to shake off the kindly clinging friends and take to a mountain-path, or wander, the reins on the horses' necks, by the margin of the lake, and come home through the late dusk, talking often, silent often, always together in thought as in bodily presence—was not this enough? "If I had to die in a month, I should owe life a tremendous debt already"—that is her own summing up; it is pleasant to remember.

It would be enough to say—love; enough with a nature ardent as hers. Yet, with love much else conspired. There was the thought of what she had done, of the things to which she was a party; there was the sense of power, the satisfaction of ambition, a promise of more things; there was the applause of Volseni as well as the devotion of the Prince; there was, too—it persisted all through her life—the funny, half-childish, and (to a severe eye) urchin-like pleasure in the feeling that these were fine doings for Sophy Grouch, of Morpingham in Essex! "Fancy me!" is the indefensibly primitive form in which this delight shows in one of the few letters bearing date from the Castle of Praslok.

Yet it is possible to find this simple, gracious surprise at Fortune's fancies worthy of love. Her own courage, her own catching at Fortune's forelock, seem to have been always unconscious and instinctive. These she never hints at, nor even begins to analyze. Of her love for the Prince she speaks once or twice—and once in reference to what she had felt for Casimir. "I loved him most when he left me, and when he died," she writes. "I love him not less now because I love Monseigneur. But I can love Monseigneur more for having loved Casimir. God bade the dear dead die, but He bade me live, and death helped to teach me how to do it." Again she reflects: "How wonderfully everything is worth while—even sorrows!" Following which reflection, in the very next line (she is writing to Julia Robins), comes the naÏve outburst: "I look just splendid in my sheepskin tunic—and he's given me the sweetest toy of a revolver; that's in case they ever charge, and try and cut us up behind our guns!" She is laughing at herself, but the laugh is charged with an infectious enjoyment. So she lived, loved, and laughed through those unequalled days, trying to soothe Marie Zerkovitch, bantering Max von Hollbrandt, giving her masculine mind and her feminine soul wholly to her Prince. "She was like a singularly able and energetic sunbeam," Max says quaintly, himself obviously not untouched by her attractions.

The Prince's mind was simple. He was quite sincere about his guns; he had no wish to go on his travels until they had arrived, and he could deliver them into the safe custody of his trained and trusty Volsenians, and of Lukovitch their captain. Less than that was not safety, with Stenovics in office and Colonel Stafnitz on duty at the capital. But Marie Zerkovitch was right, too, even though over-exacting, as Max had told her. The letter to the King held but half the truth, and that half not the more significant. He could not go from Sophy's side to seek a wife. The desire of his heart and the delight of his eyes—she was here in Praslok.

Her charm was not only for his heart and eyes, her fascination not solely for his passion; on his intellect also she laid her powerful hold, opening the narrow confines of his mind to broader views, and softening the rigor of his ideals. He had seen himself only as the stern master, the just chastiser of a turbulent capital and an unruly soldiery. But was there not a higher aim? Might he not be loved in the plains as on the hills, at Slavna as at Volseni?

By himself he could not achieve that; his pride—nay, his obstinacy—forbade the first step. But what his sensitive dignity rejected for himself, he could see her sunny graciousness accomplish without loss of self-respect, naturally, all spontaneously. He was a soldier; hers were the powers of peace, of that instinctive statesmanship of the emotions by which hearts are won and kingdoms knit together by a tie stronger than the sword. Because in his mind's eye he saw her doing this, the idea at which the men in the Palace had smiled, and which even Marie Zerkovitch would have accepted as the lesser evil, never came into his head. In the future years she was to be openly at his side, doing these things for him and for the land of his love and labor. Would she not be a better partner than some stranger, to whom he must go cap in hand, to whom his country would be a place of exile and his countrymen seem half-barbarians, whose life with him would be one long tale of forced and unwilling condescension? A pride more subtle than his father's rose in revolt.

If he could make the King see that! There stood the difficulty. Right in the way of his darling hope was the one thing on which the King insisted. The pride of family—the great alliance—the single point whereon the easy King was an obstacle so formidable! Yet had he despaired, he would have been no such lover as he was.

His answer had gone to the King; there was no news of its reception yet. But on the next day, in the evening, great tidings came from Slavna, forwarded by Zerkovitch, who was in charge of the Prince's affairs there. The Prince burst eagerly into the dining-room in the tower of Praslok, where Sophy sat alone. He seemed full of triumphant excitement, almost boyish in his glee. It is at such moments that hesitations are forgotten and the last reserves broken down.

"My guns!" he cried. "My guns! They've started on their way. They're due in Slavna in a month!"

"In a month!" she murmured softly. "Ah, then—"

"Our company will be ready, too. We'll march down to Slavna and meet the guns!" He laughed. "Oh, I'll be very pleasant to Slavna now—just as you advise me. We'll meet them with smiles on our faces." He came up to her and laid his hand on hers. "You've done this for me," he said, smiling still, yet growing more grave.

"It'll be the end of this wonderful time, of this our time together!"

"Of our time at Praslok—not of our time together. What, won't Lieutenant Baroness Dobrava march with her battery?"

She smiled doubtfully, gently shaking her head. "Perhaps! But when we get to Slavna—? Oh, I'm sorry that this time's so nearly done!"

He looked at her gravely for a few moments, making, perhaps, a last quick calculation—undergoing, perhaps, a last short struggle. But the Red Star glowed against the pallor of her face; her eyes were gleaming beacons.

"Neither the guns, nor the men, nor Slavna—no, nor the Crown, when that time comes—without you!" he said.

She rose slowly, tremblingly, from her chair, and stretched out her hands in an instinctive protest: "Monseigneur!" Then she clasped her hands, setting her eyes on his, and whispering again, yet lower: "Monseigneur!"

"Marie Zerkovitch says Fate sent you to Kravonia. I think she's right. Fate did—my fate. I think it's fated that we are to be together to the end, Sophy."

A step creaked on the old stairs. Marie Zerkovitch was coming down from her room on the floor above. The door of the dining-room stood open, but neither of them heard the step; they were engrossed, and the sound passed unheeded.

Standing there with hands still clasped, and eyes still bound to his, she spoke again—and Marie Zerkovitch stood by the door and heard the quick yet clear words, herself fascinated, unable to move or speak.

"I've meant nothing of it. I've thought nothing of it. I seem to have done nothing towards it. It has just come to me." Her tone took on a touch of entreaty, whether it were to him, or to some unseen power which ruled her life, and to which she might have to render an account.

"Yet it is welcome?" he asked quietly. She was long in answering; he waited without impatience, in a confidence devoid of doubt. She seemed to seek for the whole truth and to give it to him in gravest, fullest words.

"It is life, Monseigneur," she said. "I can't see life without it now."

He held out his hands, and very slowly she laid hers in them.

"It is enough—and nothing less could have been enough from you to me and from me to you," he said gently. "Unless we live it together, I think it can be no life for us now."

The chain which had held Marie Zerkovitch motionless suddenly snapped. She rushed into the room, and, forgetful of everything in her agitation, seized the Prince by the arm.

"What do you mean?" she cried. "What do you mean? Are you mad?"

He was very fond of little Marie. He looked down at her now with an affectionate, indulgent smile.

"Come, you've heard what I said, I suppose—though it wasn't meant for your ears, you know! Well, then, I mean just what I said, Marie."

"But what do you mean by it?" she persisted in a feverish, almost childish, excitement. She turned on Sophy, too. "And what do you mean by it, Sophy?" she cried.

Sophy passed a hand across her brow. A slow smile relieved the enchanted tension of her face; she seemed to smile in a whimsical surprise at herself. Her answer to Marie came vague and almost dreamy. "I—I thought of nothing, dear Marie," she said; then with a sudden low murmur of delighted laughter she laid her hands in the Prince's again. She had thought of nothing but of that life together and their love.

"She'll share my life, Marie, and, when the time comes, my throne," the Prince said softly: he tried to persuade and soothe her with his gentle tones.

Marie Zerkovitch would not have it. Possessed by her old fear, her old foreboding, she flung away the arm she held with an angry gesture. "It's ruin!" she cried. "Ruin, ruin!" Her voice rang out through the old room and seemed to fill all the Castle of Praslok with its dirgeful note.

"No," said he firmly. "Ruin will not come through me, nor through her. It may be that ruin—what you call ruin—will come. It may be that I shall lose my life or my throne." He smiled a little. "Such changes and chances come as nothing new to a Stefanovitch. I have clever and bold men against me. Let them try! We'll try, too. But ruin will not be by her fault, nor through this. And if it were, don't I owe her my life already? Should I refuse to risk for her the life she has given?" He dropped his voice to homelier, more familiar tones, and ended, with a half-laugh: "Come, little friend, you mustn't try to frighten Sergius Stefanovitch. It's better the House should end than live on in a coward, you know."

The plea was not perfect—there was wisdom as well as courage in question. Yet he would have maintained himself to be right in point of wisdom, too, had Marie pressed him on it. But her force was spent; her violence ended, and with it her expostulations. But not her terror and dismay. She threw herself into a chair and covered her face with her hands, sobbing bitterly.

The Prince gently caressed her shaking shoulder, but he raised his eyes to Sophy, who had stood quiet through the scene.

"Are you ready for what comes, Sophy?" he asked.

"Monseigneur, I am ready," she said, with head erect and her face set. But the next instant she broke into a low yet rich and ringing laugh; it mingled strangely with Marie's sobs, which were gradually dying away, yet sounded still, an undertone of discord with Sophy's mirth. She stretched out her hands towards him again, whispering in an amused pity: "Poor child—she thought that we should be afraid!"

Out from the dusk of the quiet evening came suddenly the blare of a trumpet, blown from Volseni by a favoring breeze. It sounded every evening, at nightfall, to warn the herdsmen in the hills of the closing of the gates, and had so sounded from time beyond man's memory.

The Prince raised his hand to bid her listen.

"In good Volseni there is watch and ward for us!"

The echoes of the blast rang for an instant round the hills.

"And there is watch and ward, and the glad sound of a trumpet, in my heart, Monseigneur," she said.

The sobs were still, laughter was hushed, the echoes died away. In utter silence their hands and their eyes met. Only in their hearts love's clarion rang indomitable and marvellously glad.