to talking of their impending flight, and they laughed
together at the discomfiture that would be the Dowager's and her son's
when, in the morning, they came to discover the empty cage. From that
they passed on to talk of Valerie herself, of her earlier life at
La Vauvraye, and later the conversation shifted to Garnache, and she
questioned him touching the warring he had seen in early youth, and
afterwards asked him for particulars of Paris--that wonderful city which
to her mind was the only earthly parallel of Paradise--and of the life
at Court.

Thus in intimate talk did they while away the time of waiting, and in
the hour that sped they came, perhaps, to know more of each other than
they had done hitherto. Intimate, indeed, had they unconsciously become
already. Their singular position, locked together in that tower--a
position utterly impossible under any but the conditions that attended
it--had conduced to that good-fellowship, whilst the girl's trust and
dependence upon the man, the man's observance of that trust, and his
determination to show her that it had not been misplaced, had done the
rest.

But to-night they seemed to have drawn nearer in spirit to each other,
and that, maybe, it was that prompted Valerie to sigh, and in her sweet,
unthinking innocence to say again:

"I am truly sorry, Monsieur de Garnache, that our sojourn here is coming
to an end."

He was no coxcomb, and he set no false value on the words. He laughed
for answer, as he rejoined:

"Not so am I, mademoiselle. Nor shall I know peace of mind again until
this ill-omened chateau is a good three leagues or so behind us. Sh!
What was that?"

He came instantly to his feet, his face intent and serious. He had been
sitting at his ease in an armchair, over the back of which he had tossed
the baldric from which his sword depended. The clang of the heavy door
below, striking the wall as it was pushed open, had reached his ears.

"Can it be time already?" asked mademoiselle; yet a panic took her, and
she blenched a little.

He shook his head.

"Impossible," said he; "it is not more than ten o'clock. Unless that
fool Arsenio has blundered--" He stopped. "Sh!" he whispered. "Some one
is coming here."

And suddenly he realized the peril that might lie in being found thus in
her company. It alarmed him more than did the visit itself, so unusual
at this hour. He saw that he had not time to reach the guard-room;
he would be caught in the act o