waken as from something unreal that had momentarily held her.
"There--there may be a safer way!" She hardly knew what she was saying;
one thought alone possessed her mind; she looked with strained, bright
glance before her. "The Queen Elizabeth staircase leading into the
garden from my--" The words were arrested; her blue eyes, dark, dilated,
lingered on him in an odd, impersonal way. "Wait!" Bright spots of color
now tinted her cheeks; she went quickly toward the door she had left,
her manner that of one who hastens to some course on impulse, without
pausing to reason. "A few minutes!" She listened, turned the key; then
opening the door, stepped hastily out into the hall.

The latch clicked; the man stood alone. Whatever her purpose, only the
desire to act quickly, to have done with an intolerable situation moved
him. Once more he looked toward the window through which he had entered;
first, however, before going, he bethought himself of something, an
answer to one of her questions. She should find the answer after he was
gone! His fingers thrust themselves into a breast-pocket; he took out a
small object, wrapped in velvet. An instant his eyes rested upon it;
then, stooping, he picked up the bit of lace handkerchief from the floor
and laying the dark velvet against it placed the two on the table.

Would she understand? The debt he had felt he owed her long before
to-night, that sense of obligation to the child who had reached out her
hand, in a different life, a different world! No; she had, of course,
forgotten; still he would leave it, that talisman so precious, which he
had cherished almost superstitiously.

When a few minutes later the girl hastily reëntered the room, she
carried on her arm a man's coat and hat; her appearance was feverish,
her eyes wide and shining.