panted, "O messire, bethink thee. For death am I
prepared--to live each moment fully till the dawn, then when they came
to drag me down to--to shame, then should thy dagger free me quite--
such death I'd smile to meet. But ah! should we strive to flee, and
thou in the attempt be slain--and I alive--the sport of that vile
rabblement below--O, Christ,--not that!" and cowering, she hid her
face.

"Noble lady," said Beltane, looking on her gentle-eyed, "indeed I too
had thought on that!" and, coming to the table, he took thence the
dagger of Sir Gilles and would have put it in her hand, but lo! she
shrank away.

"Not that, messire, not that," she sighed, "thy dagger let it be, since
true knight art thou and honourable, I pray you give me thine. It is
thy reverend mother asks," and smiling pale and wan, she reached out a
white, imperious hand. So Beltane drew his dagger and gave it to her
keeping; then, having set the other in his girdle, he crossed to the
door and stood awhile to hearken.

"Lady," said he, "there is no way for us but this stair, and meseemeth
'tis a dangerous way, yet must we tread it together. Reach me now thy
hand and set it here in my girdle, and, whatsoe'er befall, loose not
thy hold." So saying, Beltane drew his sword and set wide the door.
"Look to thy feet," he whispered, "and tread soft!" Then, with her
trailing habit caught up in her left hand and with her right upon his
belt, the nun followed Beltane out upon the narrow stair. Step by step
they stole downwards into the dark, pausing with breath in check each
time the timbers creaked, and hearkening with straining ears. Down they
went amid the gloom until they spied an open door below, beyond which a
dim light shone, and whence rose the snoring of wearied sleepers. Ever
and anon a wind-gust smote the ancient mill and a broken shutter
rattled near by, what time they crept a pace down the creaking stair
until at last they stood upon the threshold of a square chamber upon
whose broken hearth a waning fire burned, by whose uncertain light they
espied divers vague forms that stirred now and then and groaned in
their sleep as they sprawled upon the floor: and Beltane counted three
who lay 'twixt him and the open doorway, for door was there none.
Awhile stood Beltane, viewing the sleepers 'neath frowning brows, then,
sheathing his sword, he turned and reached out his arms to the nun in
the darkness and, in the dark, she gave herself, warm and yielding