that in his opinion jealousy of himself had been the spring of the
Chamberlain's midnight attacks on the castle of Doom? That were
preposterous! And yet that seemed the only grounds that would justify
his challenging the Chamberlain.

When Annapla was gone then Doom got the baldest of histories. He was
encouraged to believe that all this busy day of adventure had been due
to a simple quarrel after a game of cards, and where he should have
preferred a little more detail he had to content himself with a humorous
narrative of the escape, the borrowing of the coat, and the interview
with the Duchess.

"And now with your permission, Baron, I shall go to bed," at last said
Count Victor. "I shall sleep to-night, like a _sabot_. I am, I know, the
boldest of beggars for your grace and kindness. It seems I am fated in
this country to make free, not only with my enemy's coat, but with my
dear friend's domicile as if it were an inn. To-morrow, Baron, I shall
make my dispositions. The coat can be returned to its owner none the
worse for my use of it, but I shall not so easily be able to square
accounts with you."

CHAPTER XXXIV -- IN DAYS OF STORM

In a rigorous privacy of storm that lasted many days after his return,
and cut Doom wholly off from the world at large, Count Victor spent
what but for several considerations would have been--perhaps indeed they
really were--among the happiest moments of his life. It was good in
that tumultuous weather, when tempests snarled and frosts fettered the
countryside, and the sea continually wrangled round the rock of Doom, to
look out on the inclemency from windows where Olivia looked out too.
She used to come and stand beside him, timidly perhaps at first, but
by-and-by with no self-consciousness. Her sleeve would touch his,
sometimes, indeed, her shoulder must press against his arm and little
strands of her hair almost blow against his lips as in the narrow
apertures of the tower they watched the wheeling birds from the outer
ocean. For these birds she had what was little less than a passion. To
her they represented the unlimited world of liberty and endeavour; at
sight of them something stirred in her that was the gift of all the
wandering years of that old Ulysses, her grandfather, to whom the
beckoning lights of ships at sea were irresistible, and though she doted
on the glens of her nativity, she had the spirit that invests every hint
of distant places and far-off happenings wit