kept by the superintending governess of the class domiciled therein. The Jansiewich family, however, being people of importance, and bringing a jungfer of their own, occupied one entire set of rooms on the ground floor for the convenience of the old gentleman, who could not climb stairs. Miss Malone’s only difficulty, therefore, lay in clearing the front door, which difficulty was not trivial. About ten o’clock the female servants of the establishment held a levée on the stone steps, sub dio, to which numerous hussars and moustached boy-guards were enticed by basins of coffee and portions of fruit pasties cribbed from the housekeeper’s cupboards. Then, again, the return! By eleven o’clock, the housemaids would be sent off to their narrow quarters aloft, and the street-door locked.
A sash-window might have removed all perplexity, but, as all travellers in Germany are aware, the windows only open in the centre, thus hardly admitting room for a child to get through. Therefore only one course lay clear to Miss Malone. She must watch her opportunity when the maids were all in the front, secrete the key of the back kitchen entrance, and make her escape that way. The kitchen-maid, she well knew, would be far too lazy and indifferent to take the trouble of looking for the key; perhaps she might not even observe the fact of its absence.
With a stealthy step she crept through the dark passage, and by the kitchen, into the back yard. Her hand trembled as she felt over and over for the key, but it was not there. So reckless and agitated was she, however, that without heeding this obstruction, without pausing to question the possibility of being locked out on her return, she rushed into the open air, and never slackened her wild haste, till she stood beneath the portico of the conservatory.
CHAPTER II.
M. Pierre was the first to speak.
“It’s deuced cold,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, “let us seek the south side, where we shall be safe from the wind. Take my arm.”
She did not hear or would not heed his proposal, but kept both hands elapsed on her breast. Did she fear her heart was breaking? It might well have broken under the weight that oppressed it.
Beneath the feeble light of one small lamp they stood face to face on the south side of the portico. What a handsome, wild-looking couple they were!
“Well, Norah, we have met again. What is to be the next act of the drama?” he said, in the same light tones.
Her words could be hardly heard for her gasping sobs.
“Have you no heart—no pity,” she exclaimed, “am I to be not only your slave but your scorn? Am I so much less than other women, that you should treat me in this way? Let me go on as I have begun since we parted; let me be innocent, if I cannot be happy. Oh! if you knew the misery that those days have left to me—if you could tell my shame and agony—”
“You will hardly think I took so much trouble to see you for the purpose of hearing this! My dear girl, collect your sober senses. We have done with romance, you and I. Will you help me, or will you not? That is the point, and let us stick to it.”
“Help you? Oh, Pierre!”
She trembled so much that he held out his hand to support her; but stepping back, as if unwilling to be touched by him, she leaned on a marble pillar and gazed at him with tearless, despairing eyes.
“I should be so glad to die now,” she said, “or to hide myself from your eyes. Here I thought I could live an honest and clean life; and though I never hoped for peace, much less happiness, I was reconciled to it. I cannot go back again to that terrible sinful existence—”
“Remember,” he said, gloomily, “that you are speaking to one who holds your fate in his hands. You are in my power; yield to it. Do you not see that it is useless resisting?”
“I will die rather than yield to it,” she answered with calmness.
His eyes flashed, and he laid one hand heavily on her shoulder.
“You shall not die,” he said, in a low, hard voice, “you shall live, and live for me. Do you hear what I say? It is as useless for you to try to free yourself, as it would be for you to try and bring down that pillar on which you lean. You were mine in your youth and beauty and innocence; you are more than ever mine since you have lost these; you are mine so long as there is breath in your body.”
She turned deadly pale as he went on speaking, and tried once or twice to reply without the power.
He added, “You are mine so long as I love you.”
Her face changed then, as the calm sea will change when a breath of wind rises in the east, and the waves dance and sparkle in wild haste beneath the first blush of the morning.
Colour and life came into her cheeks, light and passion sprang to her eyes; all the woman’s nature rose to her face. Half proudly, half pathetically, half entreatingly, she stretched out her hands towards him, whom her whole life had loved unchangeably.
“Do you love me still, Pierre?” she said, softly. “Am I more to you than all other women? Are you glad to see me again?”
Her youth and beauty seemed to come back to her then, and the man was touched. His voice softened.
“You know that all other women are nothing to me; that through all I have loved you; through all I will love you. Yet knowing this, you will not serve me: you will do nothing for one who has been so faithful to you.”
The beauty and warmth of youthfulness faded from her face in an instant. Despairingly and brokenly, she answered him:
“You ask too much of me, Pierre. Any hardship, any toil, any sacrifice, I am ready to make for you. I cannot surrender my soul.”
“Hear me, Norah. There is no question of souls. You belong to me, and you are by no
