At last came the door, a low, iron-spiked grating, like any other of the hundred we had passed.

“Key-metal is not often weared on this cell,” the man chuckled.  “Those stay not long above ground that bide here.”

The door swung back on its creaking hinges.  I slipped the fellow another gold piece.

“I must come in with you,” he said; “you might do the wench an ill turn which would cheat the Duke of his show and me of my head to-morrow.”

I slipped him another piece of gold, and then three together.

“Risk it, man,” I said.  “Have I not the Duke’s own pass?  I will do her no harm.”

“Well,” he said, “pray remember I am a man with five poor motherless children.  My wife died of falling down a flight of steps ten years agone—­praise the Lord for His mercies.  For He is ever mindful of us, the sinful children of men.”

The sound of his voice died away as the door closed.  I turned, and was alone with the Beloved.  The jailer had stuck the cresset in its niche behind the door, and its glow filled the little cell.

At first I could not see the Little Playmate—­only a rough pallet bed and something white at the head of it.  But as the cresset burned up more clearly, and my eyes became accustomed to the bleared and streaky light, I saw Helene, my love, kneeling at her bed’s head.

I stood still and waited.  Was she asleep?  Was she—­was she dead?  I almost hoped that she might be.  Then the Duke’s vengeance would be balked indeed.

“Helene!” I said, softly, as one speaks to the dying—­“Helene, dear, dear Helene!”

Slowly she looked up.  Her face dawned on me as one day the face of the blessed angel will shine when he calls me out of purgatory.

“My love—­my love!” she said, sweetly, like the first note of a hymn when the choir breathes the sweet music rather than sings it.

Ah, Lord of Innocence, that pure loving face, the purple deepness in the eyes, the flush on the cheek as on that of a little child asleep, the soft curled hair which crisped in the hollow of the neck—­the throat itself—­Eternal God, that I should be alive to think of the horror!

But time was passing swiftly.  The minutes were slipping by like men running for their lives.

I raised Helene from her knees, and she nestled her head on my shoulder.

“You have come to me!  I knew you would come.  I saw you on the day—­the day when they condemned me to die.”

I broke into an angry, desperate, protesting cry, so that I heard my own voice ring strangely through that dumb, horrible place.  And it was I who sobbed in her arms with my head on her shoulder.

“Hush, dear love,” she said, clasping her arms caressingly about my head; “do not fear for me.  God will keep your little one.  God has told me that He will bring me bravely through.  Hush thee, then; do not so, Hugo, great playmate!  This I cannot bear.  Help me to be good.  It will not be long nor painful.  Do not weep for your little girl!  I think, somehow, it is for our love that I suffer, and that will make it sweet!”