The Prisoner of Zenda

Excerpt: ...long gone." "You will write to me, Rudolf?" I was weak, but I could not say a word to stir suspicion in her. "I'll send you all my heart every day," said I. "And you'll run no danger?" "None that I need not." "And when will you be back? Ah, how long will it be!" "When shall I be back?" I repeated. "Yes, yes! Don't be long, dear, don't be long. I shan't sleep while you're away." "I don't know when I shall be back," said I. "Soon, Rudolf, soon?" "God knows, my darling. But, if never-" "Hush, hush!" and she pressed her lips to mine. "If never," I whispered, "you must take my place; you'll be the only one of the House then. You must reign, and not weep for me." For a moment she drew herself up like a very queen. "Yes, I will!" she said. "I will reign. I will do my part though all my life will be empty and my heart dead; yet I'll do it!" She paused, and sinking against me again, wailed softly. "Come soon! come soon!" Carried away, I cried loudly: "As God lives, I-yes, I myself-will see you once more before I die!" "What do you mean?" she exclaimed, with wondering eyes; but I had no answer for her, and she gazed at me with her wondering eyes. I dared not ask her to forget, she would have found it an insult. I could not tell her then who and what I was. She was weeping, and I had but to dry her tears. "Shall a man not come back to the loveliest lady in all the wide world?" said I. "A thousand Michaels should not keep me from you!" She clung to me, a little comforted. "You won't let Michael hurt you?" "No, sweetheart." "Or keep you from me?" "No, sweetheart." "Nor anyone else?" And again I answered: "No, sweetheart." Yet there was one-not Michael-who, if he lived, must keep me from her; and for whose life I was going forth to stake my own. And his figure-the lithe, buoyant figure I had met in the woods of Zenda-the dull, inert mass I had left in the cellar of the hunting-lodge-seemed to rise, double-shaped,...