Osra and the King set out from Zenda,
and they had then a ride of an hour and a half; and all this when Osra
should have been at the miller's at eleven o'clock.

"Poor man, he will be half mad with waiting and with anxiety for me!"
cried Osra. "I must give him another hundred crowns on account of it."
And she added, after a pause, "I pray he may not take it too much to
heart, Rudolf."

"We must try to prevent him doing himself any mischief in his despair,"
smiled the King.

"Indeed it is a serious matter," pouted the Princess, who thought the
King's smile out of place.

"It was not so when you began it," said her brother; and Osra was
silent.

Then about half-past two they came in sight of the mill. Now the King
dismounted, while they were still several hundred yards away, and tied
his horse to a tree in a clump by the wayside; and when they came near
to the mill he made a circuit and approached from the side, and,
creeping along to the house, hid himself behind a large water-butt,
which stood just under the window; from that point he could hear what
passed inside the house, and could see if he stood erect. But Osra
rode up to the front of the mill, as she had been accustomed, and,
getting down from her horse, walked up to the door. The miller's cart
stood in the yard of the mill, but the horse was not in the shafts, and
neither the miller nor anybody else was to be seen about; and the door
of the house was shut.

"He must be waiting at the church," said she. "But I will look in and
make sure. Indeed I feel half afraid to meet him." And her heart was
beating rapidly and her face was rather pale as she walked up to the
door; for she feared what the miller might do in the passion of his
disappointment at learning who she was and that she could not be his
wife. "I hope the six hundred crowns will comfort him," she said, as
she laid her hand on the latch of the door; and she sighed, her heart
being heavy for the miller, and, maybe a little heavy also for the
guilt that lay on her conscience for having deceived him.

Now when she lifted the latch and opened the door, the sight that met
her eyes was this: The table was strewn with the remains of a brave
dinner; two burnt-out pipes lay beside the plates. A smaller table was
in front of the fire; on it stood a very large jug, entirely empty, but
bearing signs of having been full not so long ago; and on either side
of it, each in an arm-chair, sat the priest of