I raised one hand and caught her shoulder, then, drawn forward, I seized the parapet in both arms, and vaulted to the slate roof.
A fog seemed to blot my eyes; I shook from hair to heel and laid my head against the solid stone, while the blank, throbbing seconds past. The Countess stood there, shocked and breathless. I saw her sleeve in rags, and the snowy skin all bruised beneath.
I tried to thank her; we both were badly shaken, and I do not know that she even heard me. Her burnished hair had sagged to her white neck; she twisted it up with unsteady fingers and turned away. I followed slowly, back through the dim galleries, and presently she seemed to remember my presence and waited for me as I felt my way along the passage.
“Every little shadow is a yawning gulf,” I said. “My nerve is gone, madame. The banging of my own sabre scares me.” 46
I strove to speak lightly, but my voice trembled, and so did hers when she said: “High places always terrify me; something below seems to draw me. Did you ever have that dreadful impulse to sway forward into a precipice?”
There was a subtle change in her voice and manner, something almost friendly in her gray eyes as she looked curiously at me when we came into the half-light of an inner gallery.
What irony lurks in blind chance that I should owe this woman my life—this woman whose home I had come to confiscate, whose friends I had arrested, who herself was now my prisoner, destined to the shame of exile!
Perhaps she divined my thoughts—I do not know—but she turned her troubled eyes to the arched window, where a painted saint imbedded in golden glass knelt and beat his breast with two heavy stones.
“Madame,” I said, slowly, “your courage and your goodness to me have made my task a heavy one. Can I lighten it for you in any manner?”
She turned towards me, almost timidly. “Could I go to Morsbronn before—before I cross the frontier? I have a house there; there are a few things I would like to take—”