THE SOUND OF A TRUMPET
herself into a chair and covered her face with her hands, sobbing bitterly.
The Prince gently caressed her shaking shoulder, but he raised his eyes to Sophy, who had stood quiet through the scene.
"Are you ready for what comes, Sophy?" he asked.
"Monseigneur, I am ready," she said, with head erect and her face set. But the next instant she broke into a low yet rich and ringing laugh; it mingled strangely with Marie's sobs, which were gradually dying away, yet sounded still, an undertone of discord with Sophy's mirth. She stretched out her hands towards him again, whispering in an amused pity: "Poor child—she thought that we should be afraid!"
Out from the dusk of the quiet evening came suddenly the blare of a trumpet, blown from Volseni by a favoring breeze. It sounded every evening, at nightfall, to warn the herdsmen in the hills of the closing of the gates, and had so sounded from time beyond man's memory.
The Prince raised his hand to bid her listen.
"In good Volseni there is watch and ward for us!"
The echoes of the blast rang for an instant round the hills.
"And there is watch and ward, and the glad sound of a trumpet, in my heart, Monseigneur," she said. The sobs were still, laughter was hushed, the echoes died away. In utter silence their hands and their eyes met. Only in their hearts love's clarion rang indomitable and marvellously glad.
