The Princess sat motionless, gazing down on the closed lids,
frowning, deep in thoughts I could not follow.
"You will not," said I, "leave this good foolish soul in her error?"
"I have heard," she answered quietly, without lifting her eyes, "that
a royal touch has virtue to heal sometimes--and there was a time when
you claimed to be King of Corsica. Nay, forgive me," she took
herself up quickly, "there is bitterness yet left in me, but that
speech shall be the last of it. . . . O husband, O my friend, I was
thinking that this child will grow into a man; and of what his mother
said, that there is such a thing as a good man: and I am trying to
believe her. . . . _Eccu!_ he sleeps, poor mite! Listen to his
breathing."
The farm-wife came out with a full bowl of milk. Her hands shook and
spilled some as she handed it to me, so eager were they to hold her
infant again. Taking it and feeling the damp sweat as she passed a
hand over its brow, she broke forth into blessings.
We told her of her mistake: but I doubt if she heard.
"I have dwelt here these three years," she persisted, "and none ever
walked the mountain by the path you have come.
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