ed
ramparts close under the shadow of the Episcopal Palace. Below them was
darkness. To the right, beneath them, the white falls of the river
gleamed dimly above the bridge, and the roar of it came to their ears
like the roar of the sea.

Far across the plain, the Pyrenees rose, range behind range, a white wall
in the moonlight. At their feet the walls of the ramparts, bastion below
bastion, broken and crenelated, a triumph of mediaeval fortification,
faded into the shadow where the river ran.

"There is a snow-drift in this corner," whispered Marcos. "It is piled up
against the rampart by the north wind. I will drop you over the wall on
to it and then follow you. You remember how to hold to my hand?"

"Yes," she answered, very quick and alert. There was good blood in her
veins, which was astir now, in the presence of danger. "Yes--as we used
to do it in the mountains--my hand round your wrist and your fingers
round mine."

They were standing on the wall now. She knelt down and looked over; then
she turned, still on her knees, and clasped her right hand round his
wrist while he held hers in his strong grip. She leant forward and
without hesitation swung out, suspended by one arm, into the darkness. He
stooped, then knelt, and finally lay face downwards on the wall, lowering
her all the while.

"Go!" he whispered. And she dropped lightly on to the snow-slope beaten
by the wind into an icy buttress against the wall. A moment later he
dropped beside her.

"My father is at the bridge," he said, as they scrambled down to the
narrow path that runs along the river bank beneath the walls. "He is
waiting for us there with a carriage and a priest."

Juanita stopped short.

"Oh, I wish I had not come!" she exclaimed.

"You can go back," said Marcos slowly; "it is not too late. You can still
go back if you want to."

But Juanita only laughed at him.

"And know for the rest of my life that I am a miserable coward. And it is
of cowards that nuns are made; no, thank you. I will carry it through
now. Come along. Come and get married."

She gave a laugh as she led the way. When they reached the road they were
in the full moonlight, and for the first time could see each other.

"What is the matter?" said Juanita suddenly. "Your face looks white;
there is something I do not understand in it."

"Nothing," answered Marcos. "Nothing. We must be quick."

"You are sure you are keeping nothing back from me?" she asked, glanci