"Press your knees against the battlements," I gasped.

She bent one knee and wedged it into a niche.

"Don't be afraid; you are not hurting me," she said, with a ghastly
smile.

I raised one hand and caught her shoulder, then, drawn forward, I
seized the parapet in both arms, and vaulted to the slate roof.

A fog seemed to blot my eyes; I shook from hair to heel and laid my
head against the solid stone, while the blank, throbbing seconds past.
The Countess stood there, shocked and breathless. I saw her sleeve in
rags, and the snowy skin all bruised beneath.

I tried to thank her; we both were badly shaken, and I do not know
that she even heard me. Her burnished hair had sagged to her white
neck; she twisted it up with unsteady fingers and turned away. I
followed slowly, back through the dim galleries, and presently she
seemed to remember my presence and waited for me as I felt my way
along the passage.

"Every little shadow is a yawning gulf," I said. "My nerve is gone,
madame. The banging of my own sabre scares me."

I strove to speak lightly, but my voice trembled, and so did hers when
she said: "High places always terrify me; something below seems to
draw me. Did you ever have that dreadful impulse to sway forward into
a precipice?"

There was a subtle change in her voice and manner, something almost
friendly in her gray eyes as she looked curiously at me when we came
into the half-light of an inner gallery.

What irony lurks in blind chance that I should owe this woman my
life--this woman whose home I had come to confiscate, whose friends I
had arrested, who herself was now my prisoner, destined to the shame
of exile!

Perhaps she divined my thoughts--I do not know--but she turned her
troubled eyes to the arched window, where a painted saint imbedded in
golden glass knelt and beat his breast with two heavy stones.

"Madame," I said, slowly, "your courage and your goodness to me have
made my task a heavy one. Can I lighten it for you in any manner?"

She turned towards me, almost timidly. "Could I go to Morsbronn
before--before I cross the frontier? I have a house there; there are a
few things I would like to take--"

She stopped short, seeing, doubtless, the pain of refusal in my face.
"But, after all, it does not matter. I suppose your orders are
formal?"

"Yes, madame."

"Then it is a matter of honor?"

"A soldier is always on his honor; a soldier's daughter will
understand that."

"I under