st, she stood unscathed;
but her companion lay at her feet, with legs buried deep, body buried
to the ribs.

"Your hand!" she gasped.

He stretched it out feebly, but withdrew it in an agony; for the
stones crushed his bowels.

"You are hurt?"

"Killed." He contrived a smile. "Not so wide as a church door," he
quoted, looking up at her strangely through the wan light; "but
'twill serve."

"My friend! and I cannot help you!" She plucked vainly at the mass
of stones burying his legs.

He gasped on his anguish, and controlled it.

"Let be these silly bricks. . . . They belong to some grocer's
kitchen-chimney, belike--but they have killed me, and may as well
serve for my tomb. Reach me your hand."

He took it and thrust it gently within the breast of his waistcoat.
There, guided by him, her fingers closed on the handle of a tiny
stiletto.

"The sheath too . . . it is sewn by a few stitches only." He looked
up into her eyes. "You are too beautiful to be wandering these
streets alone."

"I understand," she said gravely.

"Now go." He pressed the back of her hand to his lips, and released
it.

"Can I do nothing?" she asked, with a hard sob.

"Yes . . . 'tis unlucky, they say, to accept a knife without paying
for it. One kiss. . . . You may tell Noll. Is it too high a price?"

She knelt and kissed him on the brow.

"Ah! . . ." He drew a long sigh. "I have held you to-day, and
to-day you have kissed me. Go now."

She went. The dog ran with her a little way, then turned and crept
back to its master.

Chapter V.

THE FINDING.

"Hola!" hailed a man, signalling by a brazier with his back to the
wind. "For what are you seeking?"

Ruth halted, gripping her stiletto. This man might help her,
perhaps. At any rate, he seemed a cool-headed fellow who made the
best of things.

For two hours she had searched, and for the time her strength was
nearly spent. Dust filled her hair and caked her long eyelashes.
Her face, haggard with woe and weariness, was a mask of dust.

"For one," she answered, "who was to have attended High Mass in the
Cathedral."

"Eh?" The man swept a hand to the ruined shell of that building, at
the end of the Square, and to a horrible pile of masonry covering
many hundreds of bodies. "If he reached there, your Excellency had
better go home and pray for his soul; that is, if your Excellency
believes it efficacious. But first, will your Excellency sit here
and