"But when we reached the upper gate, there was no one even there on guard. The brazen cannon once kept so bright were buried in winding sheets of snow; and even the terrace before the door, which it was a point of hospitality to keep clean-swept for travellers, was glittering with untrodden drift. We were all in such a ragged and savage state of body, that I had ordered my two men to go round to the entrance for the maidens, and meant to do the same myself, unless my darling met me. But now, in my fierce anxiety, I thrust the main doors open, and stood in the hall, which was cold and empty. No sound of my wife's step, no patter of little feet, no welcome, no answer, no gladness anywhere. "Doubt and terror kept me standing there; but I shouted, in hope of some great mistake--'Oria, my wife, my wife!' And then, upon the chance that she might be out--'Orry, my little son, my boy!' "My call rang along the passages on either side, and up the stairs, and shook the plumes of mountain-grass, which she had placed in the vases; but neither wife nor child appeared; and in my famished and haggard state I fell upon a chair, and my heart began to beat, as if it would leap out of me. Then I saw a tall and stately lady, in a dress of velvet, and with a serpent of white fur wound beneath her jewelled bosom, coming down the gray stone staircase, with her eyes fixed on me, but not a word of speech. "My voice failed me, as it does in a dream, when a sword is pointed at one's throat; but the lady came and stood before me, and a child was clinging to her dress. She looked at me with some surprise, and contempt for my ragged condition, but spoke as if she had never known a tear. "'Imar, art thou not in haste to embrace thy twin sister Marva? The wrong thou hast done should not destroy all memory of the early days, when hers was thine, and thine was hers. I am prepared to forgive thee, Imar, in this time of tribulation.' "'To forgive! I never harmed thee, Va;' I answered, using her childish name, as I always did in thoughts of her. 'But none of that now. Where is my wife? Hath any one dared to injure her?' "Weak as I was, I leaped up from the chair, and it would have gone ill with Marva--for what is a sister compared to a wife?--if she had showed signs of flinching. But she gazed at me with a quiet disdain, as if I could not command myself. "'I have not touched thy precious wife. I have not even set eyes on her. She hath done the injury to me, that is worse than theft of goods and cattle. Yet have I come hither, to do the duty she hath forsaken, and comfort her deserted husband from his mad adventures, while his treasure of a wife, his Royal Princess Oria, heiress to a hundred thrones, is enjoying herself at the hot springs in the world of fashion and luxury, with my noble husband Rakhan.'