he would no
more wish to go than he would permit her to leave him.

She was utterly in his power if he awakened and chose to exert it. He
had mastered her, conquered her, routed her career and her peace, and
she had gloried in her submission; gloried in it still. A commonplace
woman would have been satisfied, satiated, felt free for the moment,
turned with relief to the dry convention of the daily adventure, rather
resenting, if she had a pretty will, the supreme surrender to the race
in an unguarded hour.

Gisela was cast in the heroic mold. She came down from the old race of
goddesses of her own Nibelungenlied, whose passions might consume them
but had nothing in common with the ebb and flow of mortals. But great
brains are fed by stormy souls, and in the souls of women there is an
element of weakness, unknown, save in a few notable instances, to great
men in the crises of their destiny; for women are the slaves of the
race, and nature when permitting them the abnormality of genius takes
her revenge.

If he awakened.... There was little time for thought. She must plan
quickly. If she left the house at once he might awaken immediately and
after searching the apartment, follow her; there was the dire
possibility that he would learn too much before the terrific drama of
the revolution opened, and manage to thwart their plans. He was a man of
quick brain and ruthless will; no consideration for her would stop him,
although he would save her from the consequences of her act, no doubt of
that. Save her for himself.

Mimi Brandt, and Heloise and Marie von Erkel were asleep in rooms at the
end of the hall.... She had a mad idea of binding him hand and foot and
locking him in her bedroom.... Either he would hate her for the
humiliation he--Franz von Nettelbeck, glorious on the field of honor, a
bound prisoner in a woman's bedroom while his class was blown to atoms,
and his caste was roaring its impotent fury to a napping Gott!... Oh, an
insufferable affront to a man of his order who held even the dearest
woman as the favored pensioner on his bounty ... or she would be
consumed with remorse, melt ... it was positive that she must visit
him--not leave him to starve ... nor could she keep him bound ... and
once more she would be his slave ... could she hold out even for a day?

The first blow of a revolution is, after all, only its first. There is
always the danger of a swift reaction.

Unremitting vigilance, work, encoura