y rate, the origin of it all is.'

'I don't agree to it. And you needn't get so angry with me; I am not
worth it.'

'Indeed you are. You are worth the enmity of princes, as was said of
such another. Now, then, will you clasp your hands behind my neck, that
I may carry you down without hurting you?'

'No, no.'

'You had better, or I shall foreclose.'

'What's that!'

'Deprive you of your chance.'

Elfride gave a little toss.

'Now, don't writhe so when I attempt to carry you.'

'I can't help it.'

'Then submit quietly.'

'I don't care. I don't care,' she murmured in languid tones and with
closed eyes.

He took her into his arms, entered the turret, and with slow and
cautious steps descended round and round. Then, with the gentleness of
a nursing mother, he attended to the cut on her arm. During his progress
through the operations of wiping it and binding it up anew, her face
changed its aspect from pained indifference to something like bashful
interest, interspersed with small tremors and shudders of a trifling
kind.

In the centre of each pale cheek a small red spot the size of a wafer
had now made its appearance, and continued to grow larger. Elfride
momentarily expected a recurrence to the lecture on her foolishness, but
Knight said no more than this--

'Promise me NEVER to walk on that parapet again.'

'It will be pulled down soon: so I do.' In a few minutes she continued
in a lower tone, and seriously, 'You are familiar of course, as
everybody is, with those strange sensations we sometimes have, that our
life for the moment exists in duplicate.'

'That we have lived through that moment before?'

'Or shall again. Well, I felt on the tower that something similar to
that scene is again to be common to us both.'

'God forbid!' said Knight. 'Promise me that you will never again walk on
any such place on any consideration.'

'I do.'

'That such a thing has not been before, we know. That it shall not be
again, you vow. Therefore think no more of such a foolish fancy.'

There had fallen a great deal of rain, but unaccompanied by lightning. A
few minutes longer, and the storm had ceased.

'Now, take my arm, please.'

'Oh no, it is not necessary.' This relapse into wilfulness was because
he had again connected the epithet foolish with her.

'Nonsense: it is quite necessary; it will rain again directly, and you
are not half recovered.' And without more ado Knight took her hand, drew
it under h