"But I was afraid, Hugh—it was so far—so dark below." She shuddered.
He pressed her closer to him. "Has he—has Goritz——"
"Until tonight, Hugh—he has not been unkind," she said slowly. "I was sick; he nursed me. But I've feared him—I fear him still——"
He felt her body trembling against his own, and reassured her gently, pausing a moment to listen tensely for sounds at either door. And then——
"Don't worry, dearest. He cannot harm you. I was not spared from death for nothing."
"I am not frightened now, but tonight has been horrible—the noise—my terror of I know not what. It has been like the end of the world to me."
"The beginning of our world, yours and mine," he said confidently.
She straightened, drew away from him and put a hand before her eyes again. "Even yet I cannot believe." She looked up at him with a wide gaze that still held in it something of the reflection of the long days of helplessness and misery—something more deeply spiritual than he had ever seen. "Hugh, dear," she went on softly, "you will think it strange, but I—I have heard you calling to me—speaking to me, like a living presence here in this room. Not as you are now, belovèd, but paler.... I thought that you were dead.... And so when you came—at the door—I thought—I must have dreamed——"
"You were frightened, dear."
"Yes—terribly frightened, Hugh," she confessed, "by him—and by the firing. It seemed at times as though the castle were rocking under me. Listen!"