e--to the door in
the court below, where men would be waiting--perhaps to take his life.
It was too horrible!

Nature mercifully intervened. The strain of long days and nights of
anguish had reached the limit of her endurance, and her nerves, too,
long under tension, suddenly rebelled. She sank helplessly upon the
floor, sobs racking her body from head to foot. She did not know how
long she lay there, but when she raised her head it was already growing
dark in the room, like the shadows that were stealing about her heart.
Whichever way she turned, groping mentally for a thought which would
lead her toward a light, disorder reigned, danger threatened. If there
was a man at the foot of the stairs to prevent her escape, there would
be others beneath the windows and at the door into the garden.

Yeva! She clung to the hope of Yeva's sincerity--the last thing left to
her. It was difficult for her to believe that this child with the body
of a woman could be guilty of complicity in any plot. She might have
obeyed instructions to be the bearer of any note that Marishka might
write--indeed her childish prattle as to the wishes of her lord and
master verified the voices of Marishka's dream, and suggested that
Marishka should be permitted to do as she chose--so that Yeva had
offered, without fear of consequences, to deliver Marishka's note at the
hotel. She had even consented to leave the lower door open that Marishka
might escape and follow her. No woman of the world could have acted a
part as Yeva had played it. If the girl had known of the guardian of the
lower door, her skill in dissimulation was consummate--so much out of
keeping with the simplicity of her mind as to be entirely incredible.
Yeva was innocent, a mere tool in the hands of Captain Goritz, who
disposed all the pawns in his command to play his game. Yeva had been
permitted to depart without hindrance. Would Marishka's note reach its
destination? Or would it be intercepted and its message read by Captain
Goritz? His cunning had amazed her but it frightened her now. A ruse so
carefully planned could have for its object nothing less than the
obliteration of Hugh Renwick, as a prisoner or something worse--perhaps
Death! She shuddered. She, Marishka, would unwittingly have caused it!
She had asked him to come at midnight and knock upon the door in the
court below and she knew enough of Hugh to be sure that if he received
the message, no matter how great the danger to