Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/381

 She stopped her horses there, and called a woman to her, but her lips would not frame the question. The woman guessed it:—

"Yes, my beautiful lady," she said, with many tears. "We have been praying for Prince Paolo. He is very ill, up yonder. The marsh sickness has got him. May the dear Mother of God save him to us. But he is dying, they say"

"We would die in his stead, if the good God would let us," said one of the men, drawing near: the others sobbed aloud.

She put out her hand to the man—the slender proud hand that she had refused to princes. Wondering, he fell on his knee and would have kissed her hand. She drew back in horror.

"Do not kneel to me! I have killed him!" she muttered; and she urged her panting horses forward to the house.

She bade them tell the Duc de St. Louis to come to her upon the terrace. She leaned there tearless, white as death, still as marble; the beautiful, tranquil spring time all around, and the valley shining like gold in the light of the descending sun. It seemed to her that ages passed