"You cannot. The High Bridge to the north is always guarded, and on the
other three sides of the city there is deep water."

"I shall manage it," returned the girl, confidently. "It is simply a
question of my going empty-handed to my uncle's house. Now gold among
the House-dwellers has a value that it does not possess with us; so Ulick
once told me. They use it as money."

"Here in Doom it is nothing," assented Nanna, "save that we women like
the pretty things that the ancients fashioned from it."

"Precisely; and as you know there is not much of it in existence, even
here in Doom, where silver is almost as common as iron."

"Well, and then?"

"Don't you see? If only golden tongues could plead my cause in Croye I
should be independent, even of my uncle Hugolin. Now there is store of
this gold somewhere in Doom. It must be so, for the war-galleys always
carry a money-chest when they sail to the northern colonies."

"A treasure," said Nanna, slowly. "Who would know of it here in Doom?
Dom Gillian himself--or perhaps----"

"Master Quinton Edge," supplied Esmay, and thereupon silence fell
between them.

The minutes passed away. Then, suddenly, Esmay stopped in her monotonous
pacing of the room and flung herself on her knees by her sister's chair.

"You goose!" she exclaimed, with tender suspicion. "I believe you have
been crying."

"Not a bit of it," returned Nanna, sitting bolt upright and staring hard
at the ceiling. "I only want you to be sure and let me know before you
go. Or couldn't you take me with you?" she added, wistfully, as though
the idea had but just occurred to her.

"Why, Nanna, as though I could have dreamed of anything else! Go without
you! Don't you see yourself how ridiculous that would be?"

"Then nothing else matters," said Nanna, comfortably, and openly wiped
her eyes. "When do you want to go--to-night?"

"Foolish one! But then you love me, and I can forgive you. Now let me be
quiet; I want to think out my--our plan."

Nanna left the room softly. Esmay sat looking into the fire, her small,
firm chin propped in her palm. So violent was the storm that she did not
hear the opening and closing of the street-door, but the flickering of
the lamp in the swirl of a current from the outer air warned her that
she had a visitor. She recognized him instantly as he came forward, his
laced hat in the hollow of his arm. There was no one in Doom besides
Master Quinton Edge who bowed with so easy a g