She seemed to be always saying Come along.
I obeyed, full of gratitude and relief. She skipped to the tiny turret which rose above our heads, and lifted the door-latch. But, instead of disappearing within, she turned and looked at me in white dismay. The door was bolted. Her look roused what there was of manhood in me. I felt that, as it had now come to the last gasp, it was mine to comfort her.
‘We are no worse than we were,’ I said. ‘Never mind.’
‘I don’t know that,’ she answered mysteriously.—‘Can you go back as you came? I can’t.’
I looked over the edge of the battlement where I stood. There was the buttress crossing the angle of moonlight, with its shadow lying far down on the wall. I shuddered at the thought of renewing my unspeakable dismay. But what must be must.
{Illustration: SHE BENT OVER THE BATTLEMENT, STOOPED HER FACE TOWARD ME, AND KISSED ME.}
Besides, Clara had praised me for creeping where she could fly: now I might show her that I could creep where she could not fly.
‘I will try,’ I returned, putting one leg through an embrasure, and holding on by the adjoining battlement.
‘Do take care, Wilfrid,’ she cried, stretching out her hands, as if to keep me from falling.
A sudden pulse of life rushed through me. All at once I became not only bold, but ambitious.