allen from the sky-level of counts and nobles,
faced his changed destiny with so immovable a courage. To weary of
honesty; that, at least, no one could do, but even to name it was
already a disgrace; and she beheld in fancy her uncle, and the young
lad, all laced and feathered, hand upon hip, bestriding his small horse.
The opposition seemed to perpetuate itself from generation to
generation; one side still doomed to the clumsy and the servile, the
other born to beauty.

She thought of the golden zones in which gentlemen were bred, and
figured with so excellent a grace; zones in which wisdom and smooth
words, white linen and slim hands, were the mark of the desired
inhabitants; where low temptations were unknown, and honesty no virtue,
but a thing as natural as breathing.

CHAPTER IV

MINGLING THREADS

It was nearly seven before Mr. Archer left his apartment. On the landing
he found another door beside his own opening on a roofless corridor, and
presently he was walking on the top of the ruins. On one hand he could
look down a good depth into the green courtyard; on the other his eye
roved along the downward course of the river, the wet woods all smoking,
the shadows long and blue, the mists golden and rosy in the sun, here
and there the water flashing across an obstacle. His heart expanded and
softened to a grateful melancholy, and with his eye fixed upon the
distance, and no thought of present danger, he continued to stroll along
the elevated and treacherous promenade.

A terror-stricken cry rose to him from the courtyard. He looked down,
and saw in a glimpse Nance standing below with hands clasped in horror
and his own foot trembling on the margin of a gulf. He recoiled and
leant against a pillar, quaking from head to foot, and covering his face
with his hands; and Nance had time to run round by the stair and rejoin
him where he stood before he had changed a line of his position.

"Ah!" he cried, and clutched her wrist; "don't leave me. The place
rocks; I have no head for altitudes."

"Sit down against that pillar," said Nance. "Don't you be afraid; I
won't leave you, and don't look up or down: look straight at me. How
white you are!"

"The gulf," he said, and closed his eyes again and shuddered.

"Why," said Nance, "what a poor climber you must be! That was where my
cousin Dick used to get out of the castle after Uncle Jonathan had shut
the gate. I've been down there myself with him helping me. I