nder the
echoing portals of one of the city gates.

Her head after awhile began to ache terribly and her eyes felt as if
they were seared with coal. Of course she lost all count of time: it
seemed an eternity since she had spoken to the girl in the dark passage
which leads to the chapel of St. Pieter.

Maria who lay beside her moaned incessantly for awhile like a fretful
child, but presently she became silent.

Perhaps she had gone to sleep. The night air which found its way through
the chinks of the hood came more keen and biting against Gilda's face.
It cooled her eyes and eased the throbbing of her head. She felt very
tired and as if her body had been bruised all over.

The noises around her became more monotonous, the tramping of the horses
in the rear of the sleigh sounded muffled and subdued. Drowsiness
overcame Gilda Beresteyn and she fell into a troubled, half-waking
sleep.

CHAPTER XV

THE HALT AT BENNEBROCK

For a long time she had been half-awake, ever since the vehicle had
stopped, which must have been ages and ages ago. She had lain in a kind
of torpor, various sounds coming to her ear as through the veil of
dreams: there was Maria snoring contentedly close by, and the horses
champing their bits and pawing the hard-frozen ground, also there was
the murmur of voices, subdued and muffled--but she could not distinguish
words.

Not for a long time at any rate--an interminably long time!

Her body and limbs felt quite numb, pleasantly warm under the rugs and
cloaks, only her face rejoiced in the cold blast that played around it
and kept her forehead and eyes cool.

Once it seemed to her as if out of the darkness more than one pair of
eyes were looking down on her, and she had the sense as of a warm rapid
breath that mingled with the pure frosty air. After which some one
murmured:

"She is still unconscious."

"I think not," was the whispered reply.

She lay quite still, in case those eyes came to look on her again. The
murmuring voices sounded quite close to the sleigh now, and soon she
found that by holding her breath, and straining her every listening
faculty she could detach the words that struck her ear from all the
other sounds around her.

Two men, she thought, were speaking, but their voices were never once
raised above a whisper.

"You are satisfied?" she heard one of these saying quite distinctly.

"Entirely!" was the response.

"The letter to Ben Isaje?"

"I am not lik