et go--he might have fallen had he not supported himself by clinging to
the vegetation on the wall. From time to time he felt horrible pain
between the shoulders. Birds hustled against him now and then; he feared
at the first contact with them that pursuers were coming down the rope
after him. But he reached the rampart undamaged save for bleeding hands.

He was quite exhausted; for a few minutes he slept. On waking and
realising the situation, he attached his third rope to a cannon, and
hurried down to the ground. Two men seized him just as he fainted at the
foot.

A few hours afterwards a carriage crossed the frontier with Ludovico on
the box, and within it the Duchess watching over the sleeping Fabrice.
The journey did not end until they had reached Locarno on Lake Maggiore.

_V.--Clelia's Vow_

To Locarno soon afterwards came die news that Ranuce Ernest IV. was
dead. Fabrice could now safely return, for the young Ranuce Ernest V.
was believed to be entirely under the influence of Count Mosca, and was
an honest youth without the tyrannical instincts of his father.
Nevertheless the Duchess returned first, to make certain of Fabrice's
security. She employed her whole influence to hasten forward the wedding
of Clelia with the Marquis Crescenzi; she was jealous of the ascendancy
the girl had gained over her beloved nephew.

Fabrice, on reaching Parma, was well received by the young Prince.
Witnesses, he was told, had been found who could prove that he had
killed Giletti in self-defence. He would spend a few days in a purely
nominal confinement in the city gaol, and then would be tried by
impartial judges and released.

Imagine the consternation of the Duchess when she learnt that Fabrice,
having to go to prison, had deliberately given himself up at the
citadel!

She saw the danger clearly. Fabrice was in the hands of Count Mosca's
political opponents, among whom General Conti was still a leading
spirit. They would not suffer him to escape this time. Fabrice would be
poisoned.

Clelia, too, knew that this would be his fate. When she saw him once
again at the old window, happily signalling to her, she was smitten with
panic terror. Her alarm was realised when she learnt of a plot between
Rassi and her father to poison the prisoner.

On the second day of his confinement Fabrice was about to eat his dinner
when Clelia, in desperate agitation, forced her way into his cell.

"Have you tasted it?" she cried, gra