Osra heard him, half in a trance, and as if she did not hear; she did not know whither he went, nor what he did, nor anything that passed, until, as it seemed, after a long while, she looked up, and saw Prince Ludwig standing before her. He was composed and calm, but it seemed as if half the life had gone out of his face. Osra rose slowly to her feet, supporting herself on an arm of the chair on which she had sat, and when she had seen his face she suddenly threw herself on the floor at his feet, crying: "Forgive me! Forgive me!" "The guilt is mine," said he; "for I did not trust you, and did by stealth what your nobility would have suffered openly. The guilt is mine." And he offered to raise her, but she rose unaided, asking with choking voice: "Is she dead?" "She is dead," said the prince; and Osra, hearing it, covered her face with her hands, and blindly groped her way back to the chair, where she sat, panting and exhausted. "To her I have said farewell, and now, madam, to you. Yet do not think that I am a man without eyes for your beauty, or a heart to know your worth. I seemed to you a fool and a churl. I grieved most bitterly, and I wronged you bitterly; my excuse for all is now known. For though you are more beautiful than she, yet true love is no wanderer; it gives a beauty that it does not find, and weaves a chain no other charms can break. Madam, farewell." [Illustration: "OSRA ... SUDDENLY THREW HERSELF ON THE FLOOR AT HIS FEET, CRYING, 'FORGIVE ME! FORGIVE ME!'"] She looked at him and saw the sad joy in his eyes, an exultation over what had been that what was could not destroy; and she knew that the vision was still with him, though his love was dead. Suddenly he seemed to her a man she also might love, and for whom she also, if need be, might gladly die. Yet not because she loved him, for she was asking still in wonder: "What is this love?" "Madam, farewell," said he again; and, kneeling before her, he kissed her hand. "I carry the body of my love," he went on, "back with me to my home, there to mourn for her; and I shall come no more to Strelsau." Osra bent her eyes on his face as he knelt, and presently she said to him in a whisper that was low for awe, not shame: "You heard what she bade me do?" "Yes, madam, I know her wish." "And you would do it?" she asked. "Madam, my struggle was fought before she died. But now you know that my love was not yours." "That also I knew before, sir;" and a slight, bitter smile came on her face. But she grew grave again, and sat there, seeming to be pondering, and Prince Ludwig waited on his knees. Then she suddenly leant forward and said: "If I loved I would wait for you to love. Now what is the love that I cannot feel?" And then she sat again silent, but at last raised her eyes again to his, saying in a voice that even in the stillness of the room he hardly heard: