er night-rail, and that this room to which I had penetrated was her
chamber.

"Who are you?" she asked breathlessly, as though in such a pass my
identity were a thing that signified.

I had almost answered her, as I had answered the troopers at Mirepoix,
that I was Lesperon. Then, bethinking me that there was no need for such
equivocation here, I was on the point of giving her my name. But noting
my hesitation, and misconstruing it, she forestalled me.

"I understand, monsieur," said she more composedly. "And you need have
no fear. You are among friends."

Her eyes had travelled over my sodden clothes, the haggard pallor of my
face, and the blood that stained my doublet from the shoulder downward.
From all this she had drawn her conclusions that I was a hunted rebel.
She drew me into the room, and, closing the window, she dragged the
heavy curtain across it, thereby giving me a proof of confidence that
smote me hard--impostor that I was.

"I crave your pardon, mademoiselle, for having startled you by the rude
manner of my coming," said I, and never in my life had I felt less at
ease than then. "But I was exhausted and desperate. I am wounded, I have
ridden hard, and I swam the river."

The latter piece of information was vastly unnecessary, seeing that the
water from my clothes was forming a pool about my feet. "I saw you from
below; mademoiselle, and surely, I thought, so sweet a lady would have
pity on an unfortunate." She observed that my eyes were upon her, and
in an act of instinctive maidenliness she bore her hand to her throat to
draw the draperies together and screen the beauties of her neck from my
unwarranted glance, as though her daily gown did not reveal as much and
more of them.

That act, however, served to arouse me to a sense of my position. What
did I there? It was a profanity--a defiling, I swore; from which you'll
see, that Bardelys was grown of a sudden very nice.

"Monsieur," she was saying, "you are exhausted."

"But that I rode hard," I laughed, "it is likely they had taken me to
Toulouse, were I might have lost my head before my friends could have
found and claimed me. I hope you'll see it is too comely a head to be so
lightly parted with."

"For that," said she, half seriously, half whimsically, "the ugliest
head would be too comely."

I laughed softly, amusedly; then of a sudden, without warning, a
faintness took me, and I was forced to brace myself against the wall,
breathing hea