conviction
that another man had taken the place of the old knight during the
scuffle. But a heavy pressure of an arm was suddenly round her waist,
and she was forced forward. She caught a shriek from Margot; the
girl's hand was torn from her own; a door slammed behind, and there
was a deep silence in which the heavy breathing of a man became
audible.

'If you cry out,' a soft voice said, 'I will let you go. But probably
you will lose your life.'

She had not a breath at all in her, but she gasped:

'Will you do a rape?' and fumbled in her pocket for her crucifix. Her
voice came back to her, muffled and close, so that she was in a very
small cellar.

'When you have seen my face, you may love me,' came to her ears in an
inane voice. 'I would you might, for you have a goodly mouth for
kisses.'

She breathed heavily; the click of the beads on her cross filled the
silence. She fitted the bar of the crucifix to her knuckles and felt
her breath come calmer. For, if the man struck a light she could
strike him in the face with the metal of her cross, held in the fist;
she could blind him if she hit an eye. She stepped back a little and
felt behind her the damp stone of a wall. The soft voice uttered more
loudly:

'I offer you a present of great price; I can solve your perplexities.'
Katharine breathed between her teeth and said nothing. 'But if you
draw a knife,' the voice went on, 'I will set you loose; there are as
good as Madam Howard.' On the door there came the sound of soft thuds.
'That is your maid, Margot Poins,' the voice said. 'You had better bid
her begone. This is a very evil gully; she will be strangled.'

Katharine called:

'Go and fetch some one to break down this door.'

The voice commented:

'In the City she will find none to enter this gully; it is a sanctuary
of outlaws.'

There was the faintest glimmer of a casement square, high up before
Katharine; violence and carryings off were things familiar to her
imagination. A hundred men might have desired her whilst she stood on
high in the masque. She said hotly:

'If you will hold me here for a ransom, you will find none to pay it.'

She heard the soft hiss of a laugh, and the voice:

'I would myself pay more than other men, but I would have no man see
us together.'

She shrank into herself, and held to the wall for comfort. She heard a
click, and in the light of a shower of brilliant sparks was the
phantom of a man's beard and dim walls; one