The man’s footsteps died away on the stairs, and silence settled down on the house. Still Dominica waited, counting the slow minutes. She went presently to her door, and softly opened it. All was dark in the passage. Holding her gown close about her that no rustle might betray her presence she stole down the short corridor to the upper hall. A bar of light beneath one of the doors showed that Don Diego was still awake. Dominica stayed where she was, motionless against the wall. In a few minutes the light disappeared. She crept back to her chamber, put more wood upon the fire, and went to arrange her curls in the mirror. When she judged that Don Diego had had time to fall asleep she went out again into the passage, and this time took the precaution of listening at her tirewoman’s door. She heard a snore, and was satisfied, knowing how very hard to wake was Carmelita. Flitting silently in her stockinged feet she reached the hall, went ghostlike to three doors, and at each listened intently. She must be sure, very sure, that the whole house slept before she signalled to Beauvallet, for he came to certain death if he should be discovered.
No sound reached her straining ears; she crept back to her room, stealthily shut the door, and little by little turned the key in the lock. It went home with a click that seemed to din through the stillness. She stayed, breathing fast, her ear to the crack. No answering stir sounded; nothing but the grating of a mouse nibbling at the wainscoting somewhere down the passage.
She left the door then, and went to the window, and parted the heavy curtains that hung over it. Holding her lamp in her hand she stepped out on to the little semicircular balcony.
Moonlight flooded the garden below, and the trees cast ink-black shadows on the ground. From out the shadow a shadow moved; she saw Beauvallet cross the garden, and raised her free hand in a little welcoming sign. He was beneath her balcony now; she had to lean over to see him. How he would contrive to climb up she did not know, but that he would manage it somehow she was very sure.
He made surprisingly little work over it. A climbing rose gave him his foothold. He came up swiftly and silently, braced a foot against the iron pipe that ran down the side of the house from the rain-gutter, seemed to measure the distance with his eye, and threw himself forward.
Dominica stretched out her hand involuntarily to help him, but he caught the rail of the balcony, and the next instant had swung a leg over it, and was beside her.
Neither spoke a word. Sir Nicholas had an arm about Dominica’s waist, and led her into the room, his other hand laid lightly across her parted lips. She set the lamp down on the table while he closed the long windows and drew the curtains over them.
He turned, a moment looked at her, and opened his arms. Dominica went into them in a little run, and felt them close tightly about her.
“My heart! My dove!”
She could only say: “You have come! You have come! It is you, really you!”
“Had you not my word?”
“How could I believe? How could I think that you would dare—even you? Oh, querida, why have you come?” Her hands tugged at his shoulders, “There’s death lurking in every corner for you!”
“I have played many games with Death, fondling, but the dice always fell my way. Trust me.”
“Mad!” she whispered. “Mad Nicholas!”
He kissed her. For a while she was content to lie in his arms, but presently she said on a sigh: “Folly, oh folly! I have brought you to your death!”
“Nay, nay, I came of mine own free will, as I swore I would—to make an Englishwoman of you.” He made her look up. “How now, my heart? Will you go with Mad Nicholas?”
She tried to hide her face. “It is not possible. You know it is not. God knows how you are here, but you must go quickly, quickly! You could never escape with me to burden you.”
“Give me a plain answer, fondling. Will you go with me?”
She evaded him. “I have been so unhappy,” she said pitifully.
“You shall never be so again, I swear.” He held her away from him. “Will you trust me further yet? Will you put your life in my hands?”
She looked up into his eyes, her own troubled and questioning. He had taken her by storm; he was a lover from a fairytale, and she had longed for him, and dreamed of him, but now that he spoke so urgently, and looked so keenly, she realized all that it would mean to her if she gave herself to him. He was a stranger and an Englishman, and if he won out of Spain a strange land and a strange people awaited her. She loved him, but how little she knew of him! A girl’s fears shook her; she looked searchingly, peering for the future, and the colour ebbed in her cheeks. He awaited her answer; she thought how bright his eyes were, how compelling.
“Nicholas—you could not understand,” she faltered. “I am so alone. I do not know—”
“I do understand,” he
