"You are mad. You are breaking your parole and risking shame for me.
Nay, you have shamed me already. Polly is here."
"Polly is a good girl; she understands. A word, then, if you must drive me away."
"Your parole!"
"I can pass the sentries. No fear of the patrol hereabouts. Your hand— let down your hand to me. I can reach it from the parapet here—with my fingers only, not with my lips, though even that you never forbade!"
Weakly, she lowered her arm over the sill. He reached to touch it, and she leaned her face towards his—hers in shadow, his pale in the moonlight.
Before their fingers met, a yellow flame leapt from the angle to the left; a loud report banged in her ears and echoed across the park; and Raoul, after swaying a second, pitched forward with a sharp cry and rolled to the foot of the glacis.
Dorothea forced herself back in the room, and stood there upright and shook, with Polly beside her holding her two hands.
"They have shot him!"
The two women listened for a moment. All was still now. Polly stepped to the window and, closed it softly.
"But why? What are you doing?" Dorothea asked, in a hoarse whisper.