hough you and I were the last
people left upon the earth."

His tone was mild, but there was a depth of meaning under it.

"I--I can scarcely be unaware of it," she murmured. "What are you going
to do with me?"

"For the present we shall stay here--until an opportunity presents----"

"For escape?"

"I could go alone tonight--and reach Germany--without you. That is not
my purpose."

"Then you propose to take me with you?"

"When the coast is clear--yes."

"And if the coast should not be clear?"

"I shall remain."

The situation was as she had supposed, but his motive--the real motive!
She drew the wrap more closely around her throat and turned away from
him again. To escape from him! That was the only thing she could think
of now. Upon the road, his attitude of firm consideration, his cool
insistence upon compliance with his wishes, had not been nearly so
ominous as the personal note which he had injected into their relations.
He frightened her now. But to escape? She was watched, she was sure, for
in the afternoon, while the drawbridge was lowered, she had made out the
figure of a man on guard at the end of the causeway. But while her
conversation with Goritz dismayed her, she studied him keenly, trying to
read him by what he did not say.

She smiled at him impudently.

"And suppose I attempted to escape?" she asked.

"You would fail. There is but one exit from Szolnok--the drawbridge--and
that is continually guarded."

"You have ordered your men to shoot me?"

"No--but you will not pass."

"I see. Your contrition does not go as far as that."

"Not beyond the walls of Schloss Szolnok," he said coolly.

"And you ask me to believe in the integrity of your motives? What was
the use, Herr Hauptmann? I could understand duplicity to me in the
performance of a duty, but to practice your machine-made emotions upon
my simplicity--! I could hardly forgive you that."

He kept himself well in hand and even smiled again.

"You wrong me, Countess Strahni. I have spoken the truth."

"You cannot deny me the privilege of doubting you," she replied.

"What further proof would you have me give you that I am honest in my
love for you?"

She pointed past the drawbridge along the causeway toward the valley
below.

"Permit me to go--there--alone--tonight."

He laughed quietly.

"Alone? I do not know what danger may lurk in the valley. The fact that
I wish to keep you here--is a better proof of my tenderness.