Clementina

"Hush!" said Wogan; "she need not know. Ride behind, O'Toole! Your blue

eyes are green with terror. Your face will tell the story, if once she

sees it."

O'Toole fell back again behind the carriage, and at four that afternoon

they stopped before the post-house at Brixen. They had crossed the

Brenner in a storm of snow and howling winds; they had travelled ten

leagues from Innspruck. Wogan called a halt of half an hour. The

Princess had eaten barely a mouthful since her supper of the night

before. Wogan forced her to alight, forced her to eat a couple of eggs,

and to drink a glass of wine. Before the half-hour had passed, she was

anxious to start again.

From Brixen the road was easier; and either from the smoothness of the

travelling or through some partial relief from his anxieties, Wogan, who

had kept awake so long, suddenly fell fast asleep, and when he woke up

again the night was come. He woke up without a start or even a movement,

as was his habit, and sat silently and bitterly reproaching himself for

that he had yielded to fatigue. It was pitch-dark within the carriage;

he stared through the window and saw dimly the moving mountain-side, and

here and there a clump of trees rush past. The steady breathing of

Gaydon, on his left, and of Mrs. Misset in the corner opposite to

Gaydon, showed that those two guardians slept as well. His reproaches

became more bitter and then suddenly ceased, for over against him in the

darkness a young, fresh voice was singing very sweetly and very low. It

was the Princess Clementina, and she sang to herself, thinking all three

of her companions were asleep. Wogan had not caught the sound at first

above the clatter of the wheels, and even now that he listened it came

intermittently to his ears. He heard enough, however, to know and to

rejoice that there was no melancholy in the music. The song had the

clear bright thrill of the blackbird's note in June. Wogan listened,

entranced. He would have given worlds to have written the song with

which Clementina solaced herself in the darkness, to have composed the

melody on which her voice rose and sank.

The carriage drew up at an inn; the horses were changed; the flight was

resumed. Wogan had not moved during this delay, neither had Misset nor

O'Toole come to the door. But an ostler had flashed a lantern into the

berlin, and for a second the light had fallen upon Wogan's face and

open eyes. Clementina, however, did not cease; she sang on until the

lights had been left behind and the darkness was about them. Then she

stopped and said,-"How long is it since you woke?"