The soft, sweet, pitiful music rose and fell as we stood opposite one another, her hands in mine.
"My queen and my beauty!" said I.
"My lover and true knight!" she said.

"Perhaps we shall never see one another again.

Kiss me, my dear, and go!" I kissed her as she bade me; but at the last she clung to me, whispering nothing but my name, and that over and over again--and again--and again; and then I left her.
Rapidly I walked down to the bridge.

Sapt and Fritz were waiting for me.
Under their directions I changed my dress, and muffling my face, as I had done more than once before, I mounted with them at the door of the Castle, and we three rode through the night and on to the breaking day, and found ourselves at a little roadside station just over the border of Ruritania.

The train was not quite due, and I walked with them in a meadow by a little brook while we waited for it.