lips--are mine," she said proudly. "I give them willingly or not at
all."

His gaze flickered and fell before the high resolve that he read in her
face. And her courage enthralled him.

"_Herr Gott!_" he muttered, "you have never been so beautiful as now,
Marishka!"

She did not reply or move, but only watched him steadily.

He paced the floor stiffly, his hands behind him, struggling for his
self-control. And the better instinct in him, the part of him that had
made life possible for Marishka at Schloss Szolnok, was slowly
triumphant.

"A kiss means much or little," he said quietly at last. "To me, the
consecration of a love which has leaped the bounds of mere platitude. A
woman of your training perhaps cannot grasp the honesty of my
unconvention. I have meant you no harm. But that you should have
misunderstood--!"

"One thing only I understand--that you have violated the hospitality of
Schloss Szolnok."

"I beg of you----"

"It is true. Was your kindness, your courtesy, your consideration, but
the means to this end? I can never believe in you again."

"Do you mean that?"

"I do----"

"It is a pity."

"It is the truth. Fear and affection cannot survive together."

"Fear?"

"I can never trust you again. Let me go--I beg that you will excuse me."

He bowed. "If that is your wish----" and turned and walked to the window
opposite, while Marishka found her way up the stairs and so to her room
where she lay upon her bed fully dressed, in a high state of nervous
excitement.

CHAPTER XXV

THE RIFT IN THE ROCK

Hugh Renwick in his borrowed plumage, strode forth before dawn, and
reaching a spot where the valley narrowed into the gorge and marked the
grim outline of Schloss Szolnok against the lightening East, slowly
climbed the rugged slope of the mountain on his left which faced it. He
meant to spend the morning in a study of the approaches to the castle,
and if possible devise some means by which he could inspect it
unobserved at closer range. Daylight found him perched in a crevice of
rock among some trees, through the leaves of which he could clearly see
the distant mass of stone which rose in solitary dignity, an island
above the mists of the valley, a grim relic of an age when such a
situation meant isolation and impregnability.

Indeed, it scarcely seemed less impregnable now, for upon two sides at
least, the cliffs rose sheer from the gorge until they were joined by
the heavy buttress