bore her along, yet she was
only carried from the room to the terrace; and when her eyes could see,
she knew that she was in the open air on a stone seat in the moonlight,
the cool night breeze fanning her face, while a gentle hand supported
her head,--the same hand that had been so masterfully strong a moment
earlier. A face she knew and did not dread, though it was unlike other
faces, was just at the same height with her own, though the man was
standing beside her and she was seated; and the moonlight made very soft
shadows in the ill-drawn features of the dwarf, so that his thin and
twisted lips were kind and his deep-set eyes were overflowing with human
sympathy. When he understood that she saw him and was not fainting, he
gently drew away his hand and let her head rest against the stone
parapet.

She was dazed still, and the tears veiled her sight. He stood before
her, as if guarding her, ready in case she should move and try to leave
him. His long arms hung by his sides, but not quite motionless, so that
he could have caught her instantly had she attempted to spring past him;
and he was wise and guessed rightly what she would do. Her eyes
brightened suddenly, and she half rose before he held her again.

"No, no!" she said desperately. "I must go to him--let me go--let me go
back!"

But his hands were on her shoulders in an instant, and she was in a
vise, forced back to her seat.

"How dare you touch me!" she cried, in the furious anger of a woman
beside herself with grief. "How dare you lay hands on me!" she repeated
in a rising key, but struggling in vain against his greater strength.

"You would have died, if I had left you there," answered the jester.
"And besides, the people will come soon, and they would have found you
there, lying on his body, and your good name would have gone forever."

"My name! What does a name matter? Or anything? Oh, let me go! No one
must touch him--no hands that do not love him must come near him--let me
get up--let me go in again!"

She tried to force the dwarf from her--she would have struck him,
crushed him, thrown him from the terrace, if she could. She was strong,
too, in her grief; but his vast arms were like iron bars, growing from
his misshapen body. His face was very grave and kind, and his eyes more
tender than they had ever been in his life.

"No," he said gently. "You must not go. By and by you shall see him
again, but not now. Do not try, for I am much stronger