'I cannot.'
'Do you forget your promise?'
'Under the circumstances'—he glanced back at the Duke's door—'you know I could make none.'
'But I am in danger—and you promised, surely you promised, with your lips there!'
Rallywood stared at the shapely hand and firm white wrist thrust out from the dark sables, with a great leap at his heart. The sight took him unawares.
'Valerie!' he exclaimed.
CHAPTER XVII.
IRIS.
From its beetling crags the Castle of Sagan looked out that night with many luminous eyes over the crowding black pine woods and away across the frost-bound, melancholy marshes of the frontier. The renewed violence of the storm had not abated, and the wind moaned about the old walls.