from head to foot from thrilling through by way of our
clasped hands.

"Kiss me, Phil!" she said, of a sudden.

And I pressed my face into the rough bars, and could just touch her sweet
lips with mine.

"We may never come closer, dear," she said. "But if they kill you I will
follow soon, and--oh, it is good to feel you here!"

When the first wild joy of our uncovered hearts permitted us to speak of
other things, she had much to ask and I much to tell. I told her most of my
story, but said no word as yet of her brother Helier, for she had quite
enough to bear.

And, through all her askings, I could catch unconscious glimpses of the
faith and hope and love she had borne for me all through those weary
months. She had never believed me dead, she said, though John Ozanne and
all his men had long since been given up in Peter Port.

"Your mother and I hoped on, Phil, in spite of them all; for the world was
not all dark to us, and if you had been dead I think it would have been."

"And it was thought of you, Carette,--of you and my mother,--that kept my
heart up in the prison. It was weary work, but when I thought of you I felt
strong and hopeful."

"I am glad," she said simply. "We have helped one another."

"And we will do yet. I am going to get you out of this."

"The good God help you!"

When the night began to thin I told her I must go, though it would not be
out of hearing.

"Be ready the moment I open the gate," I said, "for every second will be of
consequence. Now, good-bye, dearest!" and we kissed once more through the
rusty bars, and I stole away.

The passage in the rock which led up to the gate was a continuation of the
natural cleft which formed the chamber. The slope of the rocks left the
gateway no more than eight or nine feet high, though, at the highest point
inside, the roof of the chamber was perhaps twenty feet above the floor.
The same slope continued outside, so that the side walls of the passage
were some eight or nine feet high, and fell almost straight to the rock
flooring. Both cleft and passage were made, I think, like the clefts and
caves on Sercq, by the decay of a softer vein of rock in the harder
granite, so leaving, in course of time, a straight cleavage, which among
the higher rocks formed the chamber, and on the lower slope formed the
passage up to it.

My very simple plan was to lie in wait, crouched flat upon the top wall of
the passage close to the gateway, and from there to