"Every way guarded!" The girl drew her breath; as they disappeared, the
striking of the clock caused her to start. One! two! About four hours of
darkness, hardly that long remained for him! And yet she would have
supposed it later; it had been after one o'clock when she had come to
her room.

She became aware of a throbbing in her head, a dull pain, and
mechanically seating herself near one of the tables, she put up her hand
and started to draw the pins from her hair, but soon desisted. Again she
began to think, more clearly this time, more poignantly, of all she had
experienced--listened to--that night!

She, a Wray, sprung from a long line of proud, illustrious folk! And he?
The breath of the roses outside was wafted upward; her eyes, deep,
self-scoffing, rested, without seeing, on a small dark object on a
handkerchief on the table. What was it to her if they took him?--What
indeed? Her fingers played with the object, closed hard on it. Why
should she care if he paid the penalty; he, a self-confessed---

Something fell from the velvet covering in her hand and struck with a
musical sound on the hard, polished top. Amid a turmoil of thoughts, she
was vaguely aware of it gleaming there on the cold white marble, a small
disk--a gold coin. At first it seemed only to catch without interesting
her glance; then slowly she took it, as if asking herself how it came
there, on her handkerchief, which, she dimly remembered, had been lying
on the floor. Some one, of course, must have picked up the handkerchief;
but no one had been in the room since she had noticed it except--

Her gaze swung to the window; he, then, had left it. Why? What had she