ainst his own, and reassured her gently,
pausing a moment to listen tensely for sounds at either door. And
then----

"Don't worry, dearest. He cannot harm you. I was not spared from death
for nothing."

"I am not frightened now, but tonight has been horrible--the noise--my
terror of I know not what. It has been like the end of the world to me."

"The beginning of our world, yours and mine," he said confidently.

She straightened, drew away from him and put a hand before her eyes
again. "Even yet I cannot believe." She looked up at him with a wide
gaze that still held in it something of the reflection of the long days
of helplessness and misery--something more deeply spiritual than he had
ever seen. "Hugh, dear," she went on softly, "you will think it strange,
but I--I have heard you calling to me--speaking to me, like a living
presence here in this room. Not as you are now, beloved, but
paler.... I thought that you were dead.... And so when you came--at the
door--I thought--I must have dreamed----"

"You were frightened, dear."

"Yes--terribly frightened, Hugh," she confessed, "by _him_--and by the
firing. It seemed at times as though the castle were rocking under me.
Listen!"

A terrific cannonading began again--louder, more continuous than any
that had gone before.

"Yes--they are fighting for the end of the Pass," he muttered; "the
Russians----"

"And will they----?"

"God knows. I pray----" he paused and scanned her face anxiously.

"What, Hugh?"

"That the Russians may win."

She started away from him, her eyes widely inquiring.

"Why?"

He smiled slowly.

"It's simple enough. Because if I am taken by the Austrians I shall be
shot as a spy."

"You--a spy!"

"No, not really," he said soberly. "But I'm an Englishman, an enemy of
Austria armed and in disguise. That is enough----"

"They--my people would shoot you!" She whispered, horror-stricken.

"I have no illusions about my fate--if taken----"

"But you have come here--to help me----"

"Unfortunately that does not change matters."

He put her gently aside and went for a while and listened at the doors,
and then came back to her.

"Silence. But we will wait a little longer," he whispered.

Marishka caught him by the shoulders and looked up into his eyes.

"Hugh, what you have said frightens me. You mean that you--that we are
enemies--you and I--because our nations are at war----!"

She drew away and held him at arm's length while