He had almost given up hope of seeing her when she appeared. He knew her instantly, though he could not easily distinguish her features. She sat in a chair at a table, conversing with some one whom he could not see. A pang of jealousy shot through him. Goritz—!
What if believing him dead Marishka had learned to tolerate the German agent, even to the point of friendship. There they were, sitting face to face at table, as they had done for two months or more. What were their relations? Prisoner and captive? And which was which? How could he have blamed Marishka,—Renwick, a dead man?
He knew that she had grieved, that she must have hated the man who had done him to death—perhaps still hated him as Renwick did. He peered at the fragment of Marishka's white dress, the only part of her that was visible to him, and upbraided himself for his unworthy thoughts of her.
And when the dead came to life what would she say to him?
Hedged about with difficulties and dangers as he was, the sight of the girl so near him and yet so inaccessible was maddening. Now that he had discovered her, every impulse urged him to the feat of scaling the wall. And yet, as though fascinated, he still sat, his gaze fixed on the bit of white drapery which was a part of Marishka. He tried to imagine what Goritz was saying to her, for he seemed to know that Goritz was her companion, seemed to hear the murmur of their voices. He waited long and then the white drapery vanished, reappeared, and Marishka's figure stood in the window, leaning with one hand upon the casement, in silhouette against the light. And now quite distinctly against the velvety soft background of the breathless night the sound of her voice, refined by the distance between them, but fearful in its tone and significance.
"I—I am not afraid to die, Herr Goritz," it said.
Renwick started to his feet as though suddenly awaking from a dreadful dream into a still more dreadful reality. Marishka still stood in the window motionless, but the words that she had spoken seemed to be ringing endlessly down the silent gorge and in his brain, which was suddenly empty of all but its echoes. He wanted to shout to her a cry of encouragement—and hope, but he remained silent, grimly watching and listening.
Marishka said something else and then turned into the room, while through another window he saw the dark figure of Goritz pass away from her toward the outward wall. Of Marishka he saw no more, but at intervals he saw Goritz pacing to and fro....
How much longer Renwick watched he did not know, but after a while he found himself stumbling along the face of the mountain, descending by the way that he had come, Marishka's words singing their message through and through him. It was as though the words had been meant for him instead of Goritz, that Renwick even in death should know of her danger and come to her aid. He was coming now, not as an avenging spirit, but in the flesh, armed with righteous wrath and a fearful lust for vengeance. He understood what the message meant. Hers was not a cry of despair but of defiance.... What had happened? He had not seen.
"I am not afraid to die." Nor was Renwick—but to live were better—to live at least for tonight. Fury gave him desperation, but for the task before him he needed coolness, too. And realizing that haste might send him hurtling to the bottom of the gorge, he moved more cautiously, stepping down with infinite pains until he reached the brook, which he crossed carefully, and then moved back up the declivity toward the castle.