"To her I have said farewell, and now, madame, 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 forges a chain no charms can break. Madame, farewell." 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?" "Madame, 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, madame. I know her wish." "And you would do it?" she asked. "Madame, 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, while Prince Ludwig waited. Then she suddenly leant forward and said: "If I loved I would wait for you to love. Now what is this 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: "Now I nearly love you, for I have seen your love and know that you can love; and I think that love must breed love, so that she who loves must in God's time be beloved. Yet I----" She paused here, and for a moment hid her face with her hand. "Yet I cannot," she went on. "Is it our Lord Christ who bids us take the lower place? I cannot take it. He does not so reign in my heart. For to my proud heart--ah, my heart so proud!--she would be ever between us. I could not bear it. Yet I believe now that with you I might one day find happiness." The Prince, though in that hour he could not think of love, was yet very much moved by her new tenderness and felt that what had passed rather drew them together than made any separation between them. And it seemed to him that the dead lady's blessing was on his suit; so he said: "Madame, I would most faithfully serve you and you would be nearest and dearest to me of all living women." She waited awhile, then she sighed heavily, looking in his face with an air of wistful longing; and she knit her brows as though she were puzzled. But at last, shaking her head, she said: "It is not enough."