t kill me too?"

For his life he could not have answered: he but looked at her in mortal
pity, and at that she ground her teeth and struck him on the lips.

"Awake, decidedly awake!" he said, and shrugged his shoulders; and then
for the first time he saw that she was shivering.

"Madame," he said, "you will die of cold: permit me," and he stooped and
picked up his coat from the sand and placed it without resistance on her
shoulders, like a cloak. She drew it, indeed, about her with trembling
fingers as if her senses craved the comfort though her detestation
of the man who gave it was great. But in truth she was demented now,
forgetting even the bleeding lover. She gave little paces on the sand,
with one of her shoes gone from her feet, and wrung her hands and sobbed
miserably.

Count Victor bent to the wounded man and found him regaining
consciousness. He did what he could, though that of necessity was
little, to hasten his restoration, and relinquished the office only when
approaching footsteps on the shore made him look up to see a group of
workmen hastening to the spot where the Chamberlain lay on the edge of
the tide and the lady and the foreigner beside him.

"This man killed him," cried Mrs. Petullo, pointing an accusing finger.

"I hope I have not killed him," said he, "and in any case it was an
honourable engagement; but that matters little at this moment when the
first thing to do is to have him removed home. So far as I am concerned,
I promise you I shall be quite ready to go with you and see him safely
lodged."

As the wounded man was borne through the lodge gate with Count Victor,
coatless, in attendance, the latter looked back and saw Mrs. Petullo,
again bare-shouldered, standing before her husband's door and gazing
after them.

Her temper had come back; she had thrown his laced coat into the
approaching sea!

CHAPTER XXIX -- THE CELL IN THE FOSSE

By this time the morning was well gone; the town had wakened to the
day's affairs--a pleasant light grey reek with the acrid odour of
burning wood soaring from chimneys into a sky intensely blue; and the
roads that lay interlaced and spacious around the castle of Argyll
were--not thronged, but busy at least with labouring folk setting out
upon their duties. To them, meeting the wounded form of the Chamberlain,
the hour was tragic, and figured long at fireside stories after, acutely
memorable for years. They passed astounded or turned to follow h