ealized that the dark mass at the back of the niche
was merely ivy, some of which I had grasped, tearing quite a little
opening, and through this I could see a blessed glimpse of blue sky.

Putting my eyes close to this peep-hole I looked downward and saw below
me the grass plots of the convent garden. A great tangle of bushes was
at the foot of the wall, but in spite of that it looked a dreadful
drop. I glanced over my shoulder into the room behind me, and thought
I saw a shadow moving down the floor. I do not know how I turned
myself in the cramped space where I knelt. All I could remember
afterward was the feel of the edge of the rough masonry under my
fingers; the tearing of the ivy as my body crushed through it; the
straining of my arms as I swung downward. I gave one horrified glance
into the depths of the garden; then closed my eyes and let go.

CHAPTER VII

THE REFUGE

I could not tell how long a time had passed, but gradually out of
complete consciousness, grew up the sense of a wretched throbbing. I
thought it was my head. I opened my eyes and found I was looking
straight up into the sky. I lay staring at it, it was so wonderfully
soft and blue. Presently the wind swayed a green branch into my line
of vision; at sight of that the query of where I was came into my mind.

I moved my head and felt the crackle of twigs at my cheek. I was lying
in a mass of ivy and lemon verbena bushes, and at one side of me rose
the great face of a wall. The memory of what had happened returned. I
scrambled to a sitting posture. My head was so dizzy that I had to
catch at the bushes to hold myself upright, and my body felt sore and
shaken, but the impulse to get away from the house, whose windows
overlooking the convent wall still spied upon me, carried me to my feet.

Through the shrubbery I peered at the garden beyond. There was a level
green lawn, with sedate paths marching around it, but no black hooded
figures were moving there in ones or twos or in solemn file, as I had
been wont to see them. I walked rather uncertainly forward across the
grass, across the dank and mossy paths, and into the shadowy length of
the corridor. This, too, was empty, and at one end of it a little
door, with a grill across it, seemed as effectually to bar me out as
the Spanish Woman's house had shut me in. In my dazed state the only
thing I could think of doing, to call the attention of the place to my
presence, was to s