Otho was interrupted by a sudden cry. He turned to find his mother standing behind him.
“You are here with Isabella! she has promised herself to you!” she exclaimed. “It is a fatality, a terrible fatality! Listen, Isabella! You are the Queen of the Red Chessmen; and he, Otho, is the King of the White Chessmen,–and I, their Queen. Can there be two queens? Can there be a marriage between two hostile families? Do you not see, if there were a marriage between the Reds and the Whites, there were no game? Look! I have found our old prison! The pieces would all be here,–but we, we are missing! Would you return to the imprisonment of this poor box,–to your old mimic life? No, my children, go back! Isabella, marry this Lawrence Egerton, who loves you. You will find what life is, then. Leave Otho, that he may find this same life also.”
Isabella stood motionless.
“Otho, the White Prince! Alas! where is my hatred? But life without him! Even stagnation were better! I must needs be captive to the White Prince!”
She stretched out her hand to Otho. He seized it passionately. At this moment there was a grand crash of thunder.
A gust of wind extinguished at once all the lights in the drawing-room. The terrified guests hurried into the hall, into the other rooms.
“The lightning must have struck the house!” they exclaimed.
A heavy rain followed; then all was still. Everybody began to recover his spirits. The servants relighted the candles. The drawing-room was found untenanted. It was time to go; yet there was a constraint upon all the party, who were eager to find their hostess and bid her good-bye.