"I see very little of Smoit. It is true he has eight other wives all resident in the same flame, and cannot well show any partiality. Two of his Queens, though, went straight to Heaven: and his eighth wife, Gudrun, we are compelled to fear, must have been an unrepentant sinner, for she has never reached Purgatory. But I always distrusted Gudrun, myself: otherwise I would never have suggested to Smoit that he have her strangled in order to make me his queen. You see, I thought it a fine thing to be a queen, in those days, Jurgen, when I was an artless slip of a girl. And Smoit was all honey and perfume and velvet, in those days, Jurgen, and little did I suspect the cruel fate that was to befall me." "Indeed, it is a sad thing, Sylvia, to be murdered by the hand which, so to speak, is sworn to keep an eye on your welfare, and which rightfully should serve you on its knees." "It was not that I minded. Smoit killed me in a fit of jealousy, and jealousy is in its blundering way a compliment. No, a worse thing than that befell me, Jurgen, and embittered all my life in the flesh." And Sylvia began to weep. "And what was that thing, Sylvia?" Queen Sylvia whispered the terrible truth. "My husband did not understand me." "Now, by Heaven," says Jurgen, "when a woman tells me that, even though the woman be dead, I know what it is she expects of me." So Jurgen put his arm about the ghost of Queen Sylvia Tereu, and comforted her. Then, finding her quite willing to be comforted, Jurgen sat for a while upon the dark steps, with one arm still about Queen Sylvia. The effect of the potion had evidently worn off, because Jurgen found himself to be composed no longer of cool imponderable vapor, but of the warmest and hardest sort of flesh everywhere. But probably the effect of the wine which Jurgen had drunk earlier in the evening had not worn off: for now Jurgen began to talk wildishly in the dark, about the necessity of his, in some way, avenging the injury inflicted upon his nominal grandfather, Ludwig, and Jurgen drew his sword, charmed Caliburn. "For, as you perceive," said Jurgen, "I carry such weapons as are sufficient for all ordinary encounters. And am I not to use them, to requite King Smoit for the injustice he did poor Ludwig? Why, certainly I must. It is my duty." "Ah, but Smoit by this is back in Purgatory," Queen Sylvia protested, "And to draw your sword against a woman is cowardly." "The avenging sword of Jurgen, my charming Sylvia, is the terror of envious men, but it is the comfort of all pretty women." "It is undoubtedly a very large sword," said she: "oh, a magnificent sword, as I can perceive even in the dark. But Smoit, I repeat, is not here to measure weapons with you." "Now your arguments irritate me, whereas an honest woman would see to it that all the legacies of her dead husband were duly satisfied--" "Oh, oh! and what do you mean--?" "Well, but certainly a grandson is--at one remove, I grant you,--a sort of legacy."