knowledge. So I know that the prince is there. For fifty pounds I
gained a servant of his, and he told me."

"I do not know why you should spy on the prince," said Osra, "and I do
not care to know where the prince is." And she touched her horse with
the spur, and cantered fast forward, leaving the little house behind.
But Christian persisted, partly in a foolish grudge against any man
who should win what was above his reach, partly in an honest anger
that she whom his worshipped should be treated lightly by another; and
he forced her to hear what he had learnt from the gossip of the
prince's groom, telling it to her in hints and half-spoken sentences,
yet so plainly that she could not miss the drift of it. She rode the
faster towards Strelsau, at first answering nothing; but at last she
turned upon him fiercely, saying that he told a lie, and that she knew
it was a lie, since she knew where the prince was and what business
had taken him away; and she commanded Christian to be silent, and to
speak neither to her nor to any one else of his false suspicions; and
she bade him, very harshly, to fall back and ride behind her again,
which he did, sullen, yet satisfied; for he knew that his arrow had
gone home. On she rode, with her cheeks aflame and her heart beating,
until she came to Strelsau, and having arrived at the palace, ran to
her own bedroom and flung herself on the bed.

Here for an hour she lay; then, it being about six o'clock, she sat
up, pushing her disordered hair back from her hot, aching brow. For an
agony of humiliation came upon her, and a fury of resentment against
the prince, whose coldness seemed now to need no more explanation. Yet
she could hardly believe what she had been told of him; for, though
she had not loved him, she had accorded to him her full trust. Rising,
she paced in pain about the room. She could not rest, and she cried