“Why?” He still continued to look straight before him.  “Because you—­were here!” He spoke quietly, simply.

“I?” she trembled.

“Oh, you need not fear!” quickly.  “You!” a bitter smile crossed his face.  “One may see a star and long to draw nearer it, though one knows it is always beyond reach, unattainable!  May even stumble forward, led by its light—­bright, beautiful!  Whither?” He laughed abruptly.  “One has not asked, nor cared.”

“Cared?” Her figure swayed; he too stood uncertainly; the lights seemed to tremble.

The man suddenly straightened; then turned.  “And now,” his voice sounded harsh, tense; he stepped toward the balcony.

His words, the abrupt action—­what it portended, aroused her.

“No; no!” The exclamation broke from her involuntarily; she seemed to waken as from something unreal that had momentarily held her.  “There—­there may be a safer way!” She hardly knew what she was saying; one thought alone possessed her mind; she looked with strained, bright glance before her.  “The Queen Elizabeth staircase leading into the garden from my—­” The words were arrested; her blue eyes, dark, dilated, lingered on him in an odd, impersonal way.  “Wait!” Bright spots of color now tinted her cheeks; she went quickly toward the door she had left, her manner that of one who hastens to some course on impulse, without pausing to reason.  “A few minutes!” She listened, turned the key; then opening the door, stepped hastily out into the hall.

The latch clicked; the man stood alone.  Whatever her purpose, only the desire to act quickly, to have done with an intolerable situation moved him.  Once more he looked toward the window through which he had entered; first, however, before going, he bethought himself of something, an answer to one of her questions.  She should find the answer after he was gone!  His fingers thrust themselves into a breast-pocket; he took out a small object, wrapped in velvet.  An instant his eyes rested upon it; then, stooping, he picked up the bit of lace handkerchief from the floor and laying the dark velvet against it placed the two on the table.

Would she understand?  The debt he had felt he owed her long before to-night, that sense of obligation to the child who had reached out her hand, in a different life, a different world!  No; she had, of course, forgotten; still he would leave it, that talisman so precious, which he had cherished almost superstitiously.

When a few minutes later the girl hastily reentered the room, she carried on her arm a man’s coat and hat; her appearance was feverish, her eyes wide and shining.

“Your clothes are torn—­would attract attention!  These were on the rack—­I don’t know whose—­but I stole them!—­stole them!”

She spoke quickly with a little hard note of self-mockery.  Her voice broke off suddenly; she looked around her.