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"How can this be!" I whispered. "That I should find her and know her only for one night, one precious night of quarreling. "

"You and she are equals," he said. "I am but an instrument. "

I closed my eyes.

Quite suddenly I could hear her weeping, and when this sound came to my ears, Arjun gently freed himself from me and said in his soft gentle voice that he must go to her.

I walked slowly out of the hallway, and down the marble steps and into the night, ignoring my carriage.

I walked home through the forest.

When I reached my house, I went into my library, took off the wig which I had worn to the ball, threw it across the room and sat in a chair at my writing table.

I put my head down on my folded arms and silently wept as I had not wept since the death of Eudoxia. I wept. And the hours passed, and at last I realized that Bianca was standing beside me.

She was stroking my hair with her hand, and then I heard her whisper.

"Time to come down the steps to our cold grave, Marius. It is early for you, but I must go and I can't leave you this way. "

I rose to my feet. I took her in my arms and gave way to the most awful tears, and all the while she held me silently and warmly.

And then we went down to our coffins together.

The following night, I went immediately to the house where I'd left Pandora.

I found it deserted and then I searched all of Dresden and the many palaces or schlosses around it.

She and Arjun were gone, there was no doubt of it. And going up to the Ducal Palace where there was a little concert in progress I soon learned the "official" news of it, of how the handsome black coach of the Marquis and the Marquis a De Malvrier had left before dawn for Russia.

Russia.

Being in no mood for the music, I soon made my apologies to those gathered in the salon and I went home again, as miserable as I have ever been in my existence. As heartbroken.

I sat down at my desk. I looked out over the river. I felt the warm spring breeze.

I thought of all the many things she and I should have said to each other, all the many things I might have said in a calmer spirit to persuade her. I told myself she wasn't gone beyond reach. I told myself that she knew where I was, and that she could write to me. I told myself anything I needed to keep my sanity.

And I did not hear it when Bianca came into the room. I did not hear it when she sat down in a large tapestried armchair quite near to me.

I saw her as if she were a vision when I looked up¡ªa flawless young boy with porcelain cheeks, her blond hair pulled back in a black ribbon, her frock coat embroidered in gold, her shapely legs in spotless white hose, her feet in ruby buckled shoes.

Oh, what a divine guise it was¡ªBianca as the young nobleman, known to the few mortals who mattered as her own brother. And how sad were her peerless blue eyes, as she looked at me.

/> "I feel sorry for you," she said quietly.

"Do you?" I asked. I said these words with my broken heart. "I hope you do, my precious darling, because I love you, I love you more than I have ever loved you, and I need you. "

"But that's just the point, you see," she said in a low compassionate voice. "I heard the things you said to her. And I'm leaving you. "

Chapter 33

33

FOR THREE LONG NIGHTS I pleaded with her not to go as she made her preparations. I went down on my knees. I swore to her that I had said only what needed to be said to make Pandora remain with me.

I told her in every way I knew how that I loved her, and would never have abandoned her.

I told her that she would never be able to survive alone, and that I feared for her.