le. It was the wreck of a chaise. Two males lay
crushed under it, their heads and a couple of legs protruding.
A splintered door, wrenched from its hinges, lay face-uppermost
crowning the heap. It bore a coronet and the arms of Montalegre.

"Are they--" she stammered, but caught at her voice and recovered it.
"--Are they _here_, under this?"

"No," he said, and again led the way, crossing the street to a house
of which the upper storey overhung the street, supported by a line of
pillars. Three or four of these pillars had fallen. Of the rest,
nine out of ten stood askew, barely holding up the house, through the
floors of which stout beams had thrust themselves and stuck at all
angles from the burst plaster.

"Here is Milord Vyell," said the Penitent, picking up a broken lath
and pointing with it.

He lay on his back, as he had lain for close upon three hours, deep
in the shadow of the overhanging house. His eyes were wide open.
They stared up at the cobwebs that dangled from the broken plaster.
A pillar, in weight maybe half a ton, rested across his thighs; an
oaken beam across his chest and his broken left arm. The two pinned
him hopelessly.

Clutched to him in his right lay Donna Maria. She seemed to sleep,
with her head turned from his breast and laid upon the upper arm.
The weight of the pillar resting on her bowels had squeezed the life
out of her. She was dead: her flesh by this time almost cold.

"Oliver!--Ah, look at me!--I am here--I have come to help!"

The lids twitched slightly over his wide eyes. In the dim light she
could almost be sworn that the lips, too, moved as though to speak.
But no words came, and the eyes did not see her.

He was alive. What else mattered?

She knelt and flung her arms about the pillar. Frantically, vainly,
she tugged at it: not by an inch or the tenth part of an inch could
she stir it.

"Speak to me, Oliver! . . . Look at least!"

"If your Excellency will but have patience!" The Penitent stepped
out into the street and she heard him blowing a whistle. Clearly he
was a man to be obeyed; for in less than ten minutes a dozen figures
crowded about the entrance, shutting out the day. This darkness of
their making was in truth their best commendation. For against any
one of them coming singly Ruth had undoubtedly held her dagger ready.
They grumbled, too, and some even cursed the Penitent for having
dragged them away from their loot. The Penitent called