"Can princes alone--forget in Strelsau?"
"How should a poor student dare to--forget in Strelsau?" And as he
spoke he made bold to step near her, and stood close, looking down
into her face. Without a word she turned and left him, going with a
step that seemed to dance through the meadow and yet led her to her
own chamber, where she could weep in quiet.
"I know it now, I know it now!" she whispered softly that night to
the tree that rose by her window. "Heigh-ho, what am I to do? I cannot
live; no, and now I cannot die. Ah me! what am I to do? I wish I were
a peasant-girl--but then perhaps he would not--Ah yes, but he would!"
And her low, long laugh rippled in triumph through the night, and
blended with the rustling of the leaves under a summer breeze, and
she stretched her white arms to heaven, imploring the kind God with
prayers that she dared not speak even to His pitiful ear.
"Love knows no princesses, my princess." It was that she heard as she
fled from him next day. She should have rebuked him. But for that she
must have stayed, and to stay she had not dared.
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