How are these things done? I doubt if a man
lives who could do them; but women live who do them. Now his
sudden coming, and the train of stirring events that accompanied
it, his danger and hers, his words and her enjoyment of his
presence, had all worked together to shatter her self-control;
and the strange dream, heightening the emotion which was its own
cause, left her with no conscious desire save to be near Mr.
Rassendyll, and scarcely with a fear except for his safety. As
they journeyed her talk was all of his peril, never of the
disaster which threatened herself, and which we were all striving
with might and main to avert from her head. She traveled alone
with Bernenstein, getting rid of the lady who attended her by
some careless pretext, and she urged on him continually to bring
her as speedily as might be to Mr. Rassendyll. I cannot find much
blame for her. Rudolf stood for all the joy in her life, and
Rudolf had gone to fight with the Count of Hentzau. What wonder
that she saw him, as it were, dead? Yet still she would have it
that, in his seeming death, all men hailed him for their king.
Well, it was her love that crowned him.
As they reached the city, she grew more composed, being persuaded
by Bernenstein that nothing in her bearing must rouse suspicion.
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