the room, leaving wide the windows, so that faintly, as from a
distance, her voice still reached me after she was gone from sight.

It was in that hour that it came to me to cast myself upon this fair
creature's mercy. Surely one so sweet and saintly to behold would
take compassion on an unfortunate! Haply my wound and all the rest
that I had that night endured made me dull-witted and warped my
reason.

With what strength I still possessed I went to work to scale her
balcony. The task was easy even for one in my spent condition. The
wall was thick with ivy, and, moreover, a window beneath afforded
some support, for by standing on the heavy coping I could with my
fingers touch the sill of the balcony above. Thus I hoisted myself,
and presently I threw an arm over the parapet. Already I was astride
of that same Parapet before she became aware of my presence.

The song died suddenly on her lips, and her eyes, blue as
forget-me-nots, were wide now with the fear that the sight of me
occasioned. Another second and there had been an outcry that would
have brought the house about our ears, when, stepping to the
threshold of the room, "Mademoiselle," I entreated, "for the love of
God, be silent! I mean you no harm. I am a fugitive. I am pursued."

This was no considered speech. There had been no preparing of words;
I had uttered them mechanically almost - perhaps by inspiration, for
they were surely the best calculated to enlist this lady's sympathy.
And so far as went the words themselves, they were rigorously true.

With eyes wide open still, she confronted me, and I now observed that