speak
with you alone--I waited to tell you; and just now, when I was
drawing the blinds, I heard a whistle--"

"M. Raoul had no right to send me such a message, Polly. I cannot
think what he means by it. Nothing that I have ever said to him--"

"No, Miss," Polly assented readily. After a pause she added: "I suppose
you'd like me to go now? You won't be wanting your hair done to-night?"

"Certainly I wish you to stay. Is he--is M. Raoul outside?"

"I think so, Miss. Oh, yes--for certain he is."

"Then I must insist on your staying with me while I dismiss him."

"Very good, Miss. Would you wish me to stay here, or to come with you?"

Dorothea felt herself blushing, and her temper rose again. "For the
moment, stay here. I will leave the door open and call you when you
are wanted."

She passed into the boudoir and bent to the open window. At this corner
the foundations of the house stood some feet lower than the slope out
of which they had been levelled, and she looked down upon a glacis of
smooth turf, capped by a glimmering parapet of Bath stone. Beyond
stretched the moonlit park.

"M. Raoul!" she called, but scarcely above a whisper.

A figure crept out from the dark angle below and climbed to the parapet.

"Dorothea! Forgive me! Another night and no word with you--I could not
bear it."

"You are mad. You are breaking your parole and risking shame for me.
Nay, you have shamed me already. Polly is here."

"Polly is a good girl; she understands. A word, then, if you must drive
me away."

"Your _parole!_"

"I can pass the sentries. No fear of the patrol hereabouts. Your hand--
let down your hand to me. I can reach it from the parapet here--with
my fingers only, not with my lips, though even that you never forbade!"

Weakly, she lowered her arm over the sill. He reached to touch it, and
she leaned her face towards his--hers in shadow, his pale in the
moonlight.

Before their fingers met, a yellow flame leapt from the angle to the
left; a loud report banged in her ears and echoed across the park; and
Raoul, after swaying a second, pitched forward with a sharp cry and
rolled to the foot of the glacis.

Dorothea forced herself back in the room, and stood there upright and
shook, with Polly beside her holding her two hands.

"They have shot him!"

The two women listened for a moment. All was still now. Polly stepped
to the window and, closed it softly.

"But why? What are you doing?" Dorothea asked, in