ked himself, 'Why don't I blow out my brains and escape?'
Nothing but the simple faith and heroism of common men about him
saved him from despair. One day a blinded soldier said, 'See for
us!' So he began to see,--but still without hope, still without
happiness, until he came here and found--_you_." His voice was
melted gold.

She had listened breathlessly. And after a pause she asked:

"Who was--the keeper of his prison?"

"The woman to whom he had been married."

Her arms fell from him. She tried to draw herself away, but he held
her all the closer.

"Do not think unkindly of her. I don't think she really knew she
was an ogress! After all, she did unlock the door and say, 'Go!'
And--well, here I am, darling woman. And I'm going to marry _you_!"

"Did you _never_ love her?"

"Never. I was so frightfully unhappy that the best I could do was
not to hate her. I'm afraid she hated me--poor ogress! Well! That's
all over and done with. Like an evil dream. I'm here, and _you_'re
going to marry me." Very gently he drew her arms around him again.
"Ah, hold fast to me! Hold fast! I have waited for you so long, I
need you so much!" he breathed.

"I don't seem able to help myself!" she sighed. And she asked
seriously: "What do the people who love you most call you when they
speak to you?"

The brown and bearded faces of comrades rose before him, their
voices sounded in his ears.

"Pierre."

"Pierre," said she, bravely, as if to call him by his name
emboldened her, "I too have been freed from a hateful marriage.
Sometime I will tell you all about it. But--oh, do not let us talk
about it now! I cannot bear to think of him! I cannot bear to have
his shadow, even, fall upon me now, or come near _you_!" That
gangling bridegroom in his ill-fitting suit, with his wincing mouth,
his eyes full of disgust and aversion, his air of a man sentenced to
death--or marriage with herself--came before her, and she shivered.

Despite her words a horrible jealousy of that unknown man assailed
him. He asked fiercely:

"You loved him, once?"

"Oh, no! Oh, no! Never! I--why, Pierre, until you came, I didn't
even know what love meant! Once that ignorant, undisciplined girl I
spoke of, thought she loved a boy. She didn't. She loved the idea of
love. And once again, Pierre, because my life was so empty, and
because I didn't know any better, I thought I should be willing to
marry somebody else. I thought that somebody else could fill my