throat, as
though a pistol-shot had gone through her heart.

"He writes it to me himself!" she cried out. "Himself! It's true what
the paper says.... Oh!..."

And she broke down, with her head on Sofie's shoulder. Sofie led her
back into the hall; Valerie allowed herself to be dragged along like a
child. Wanda followed, crying, wringing her hands, without knowing why.
From the boats, which were now very far away, the young princes waved
once more; little Princess Elizabeth even tried to call out something;
she could not understand why Wanda and Valerie were such muffs as not to
wave back.

The sun sank on the horizon; the glowing clouds were all masked in
little frothy, gold-rose mists with shining edges; but evening fell, the
sky grew dark: one by one the little pink clouds melted away; still one
last cloud, as though with two wings formed of the last rays of the
setting sun, flickered up softly, as if to fly, and then suddenly sank,
with broken wings, into the violet dusk. The first stars twinkled,
brightly visible.

4

Next morning, very early, at half-past five, the Archduchess Valerie
climbed down the terraces of Altseeborgen. She had merely told her maid
that she would be back in time for breakfast, which the family took
together. Resolutely, as though impulsively, she descended terrace after
terrace. She met nobody but a couple of servants and sentries. She
walked along the bottom terrace to the sea; there was a little square
harbour, cut out of the granite, where the rowing- and sailing-boats lay
moored in a boat-house. She chose a long, narrow gig and unhooked it
from its iron chain. She took her seat adroitly and grasped the sculls:
a few short strokes took her clear of the little harbour and out to sea.

A south-westerly wind was blowing over the sea. The water was strangely
grey, as though it were mirroring in its oval the uncertain sky above: a
dull-white sky in which hung dirty shreds of clouds blown asunder. The
horizon was not visible; light mists floated over it, blotting out the
division between sea and sky with smeared tints. The wind blew up
strongly.

Valerie removed her little sailor-hat; and her hair blew across her
face. She had intended to row to the fishing-village, but she at once
felt that it was beyond her strength to work up against the wind. So she
let herself go with the wind. For a moment she thought of the weather,
the wind, the sky; then she cast aside all thought. She pul