dream. I saw the angels and the redeemed ascending
and descending as I prayed, even when you came in to call me back. I
shall ask God to let me wait at the stair-head a little while for
you--till it should be time for you to come, my dear, my dear. You would
not be very long, and I could wait. I would listen for your feet upon the
stair, dear love. And when at last you came, I should know your footfall;
yes, I should know it ever so far away. You would not be thinking of me
just then. And when you came to the top of the golden stairs,
there--there, all so suddenly, would be your little lass, with her arms
ready to welcome you!"

The door of the cell creaked open.

The jailer appeared. "It is time!" he said, curtly, and stood waiting. We
stood up, and I looked in her eyes. She was smiling, dry-eyed, but
I--the water was running down my face.

"You will be brave, Hugo, for my sake. Next to life with you--to die by
your dear hand, knowing that you love me, is the best gift they could
have given me. They thought to hurt, but instead they have made me so
happy. Till we meet again, dear love--till we meet soon again!"

And she accompanied me to the door, and kissed me as I went out, standing
smilingly on tiptoe to do it, even as of old she was wont to do in the
Red Tower.

And the last thing I saw of her, as the door closed upon the darkness of
the cell, was my love standing smiling up at me, her eyes filled with the
splendors of the love that casteth out fear.

CHAPTER LI

THE NIGHT BEFORE THE MORN

Even as the dwarf on the ledge of the castle clocktower creaked his wires
and clicked back his hammer to strike the midnight over the city, even as
the first solemn toll of the hour reverberated over the Wolfsberg, I was
at the door of the Duke's room waiting for admission.

The Chamberlain in attendance looked within, and seeing his master
writing at a table, he was going out again without speech.

"Has Hugo Gottfried returned?" said the Duke, without looking up.

"Hugo Gottfried is here!" I replied, stepping unannounced into the room.

He looked up without smiling, a keen inquiring glance glittering from
between eyelids so close together that only the faintest line of the
pupil showed black under the lashes.

"Well?" he questioned.

"I will do the thing you have asked," answered I.

And said no more.

The Duke instantly became restless, and getting up, he began to pace
about the floor like a caged b