ng and uneasy
movements, though the heart of oak suffered in silence.

CHAPTER II

THE ELOPEMENT

This side of the house lay so black against the fine, clear, starry
dusk of the sky that it was impossible to see the outlines of the
windows in it. I could manage, however, to faintly trace the line of
the balcony. My heart beat fast as I thought that even now my darling
might be standing at the window peering through it, waiting for the
signal flash. Caudel was thinking of her too.

"The young lady, begging of your pardon, sir, must be a gal of uncommon
spirit, Mr. Barclay."

"She loves me, Caudel, and love is the most animating of spirits, my
friend."

"I dorn't doubt it, sir. What room will it be that she's to come out
of?"

"The dining-room--a big, deserted apartment where the girls take their
meals."

"'Tain't her bedroom, then?"

"No. She is to steal dressed from her bedroom to the
_salle-a-manger_--"

"The Sally what, sir?"

"No matter, no matter," I answered.

I pulled out my watch, but there was no power in the starlight to
reveal the dial-plate. All continued still as the tomb, saving at
fitful intervals a low note of silken rustling that stole upon the ear
with some tender, dream-like gushing of night-air, as though the
atmosphere had been stirred by the sweep of a large, near, invisible
pinion.

"This here posture ain't so agreeable as dancing," hoarsely grumbled
Caudel, "could almost wish myself a dwarf. That there word beginning
with a Sally--"

"Not so loud, man; not so loud."

"It's oncommon queer," he persisted, "to feel one's self in a country
where one's language ain't spoke. The werry soil don't seem natural.
As to the language itself, burst me if I can understand how a man
masters it. I was once trying to teach an Irish sailor how to dance a
quadrille. 'Now, Murphy,' says I to him, 'you onderstand you're my
wiz-a-wee?' 'What's dat you call me?' he cried out. 'You're anoder
and a damn scoundrel besoides!' Half the words in this here tongue
sound like cussing of a man. And to think of a dining-room being
called a Sally--"

The convent clock struck one.

"Now," said I, "stand by."

I held up the lamp, and so turned the darkened part as to produce two
flashes. A moment after a tiny flame showed and vanished above the
balcony.

"My brave darling!" I exclaimed. "Have you the ladder in your hand?"

"Ay, sir."

"Mind these confounded hooks don't chink."