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.