ning:

"Listen! We were such good comrades----"

"Don't come any nearer to me!" she called out sharply; but he still
shuffled toward her, whimpering, drenched in blood, both hands uplifted.

"Kamerad!" he whined, "Kamerad--" and suddenly launched a kick at her.

She just avoided it, springing behind the bell Bayard; and he rushed at
her and struck with both uplifted arms, showering her with blood, but not
quite reaching her.

In the darkness among the beams and the deep shadows of the bells she
could hear him hunting for her, breathing heavily and making ferocious,
inarticulate noises, as she swung herself up onto the first beam above and
continued to crawl upward.

"Where are you, little fool?" he cried at length. "I have business with
you before I cut your throat--that smooth, white throat of yours that I
kissed down there by the _lavoir_!" There was no sound from her.

He went back toward the stairs and began hunting about in the starlight
for his pistol; but there was no parapet on the bell platform, and he
probably concluded that it had fallen over the edge of the tower into the
street.

Supporting his wounded hand, he stood glaring blankly about him, and his
bloodshot eyes presently fell on the door to the stairs. But he must have
realized that flight would be useless for him if he left this girl alive
in her bell-tower, ready to alarm the town the moment he ran for the
stairs.

With his left hand he fumbled under his tunic and disengaged a heavy
trench knife from its sheath. The loss of blood was making his legs a
trifle unsteady, but he pulled himself together and moved stealthily under
the shadows of beam and bell until he came to the spot he selected. And
there he lay down, the hilt of the knife in his left hand, the blade
concealed by his opened tunic.

------------------

His heavy groans at last had their effect on the girl, who had climbed
high up into the darkness, creeping from beam to beam and mounting from
one tier of bells to another.

Standing on the lowest beam, she cautiously looked out through an
oubliette and saw him lying on his back near the sheer edge of the roof.

Evidently he, also, could see her head silhouetted against the stars, for
he called up to her in a plaintive voice that he was bleeding to death and
unable to move.

After a few moments, opening his eyes again, he saw her standing on the
roof beside him, looking down at him. And he whispe