The old man lingered a moment after the servant had withdrawn, and his hollow eyes rested on me for a second.  I thought that he was on the point of saying something, and I waited returning his glance with one that quailed before the anguish of his own.  I feared to speak, to offer an expression of the sympathy that filled my heart; for in that strange place I could not tell how far a man was to be trusted—­even a man so wronged as this one.  On his own part it may be that a like doubt beset him concerning me, for in the end he departed as he had come, no word having passed his ashen lips.

Left alone, I surveyed my surroundings by the light of the taper he had left in the iron sconce on the wall.  The single window overlooked the courtyard, so that even had I been disposed and able to cut through the iron that barred it, I should but succeed in falling into the hands of the guards who abounded in that nest of infamy.

So that, for the night at least, the notion of flight must be abandoned.  What the morrow would bring forth we must wait and see.  Perhaps some way of escape would offer itself.  Then my thoughts returned to Paola, and I was tortured by surmises as to her fate, and chiefly as to how she could have eluded the search that must have been made for her in the hut where I had left her.  Had the peasant befriended her, I wondered; and what did she think of my protracted absence?  I sat on the edge of the bed and gave rein to my conjectures.  The noises in the castle had all ceased, and still I sat on, unconscious of time, my taper burning low.

It may have been midnight when I was startled by the sound of a stealthy step in the corridor near my door.  A heavy footfall I should have left unheeded, but this soft tread aroused me on the instant, and I sat listening.

It halted at my door, and was succeeded by a soft, scratching sound.  Noiselessly I rose, and with ready hands I waited, prepared, in the instinct of self-preservation, to fall upon the intruder, however futile the act might be.  But the door did not open as I expected.  Instead, the scratching sound continued, growing slightly louder.  Then it occurred to me, at last, that whoever came might be a friend craving admittance, and proceeding stealthily that others in the castle might not overhear him.

Swiftly I crossed to the door, and opened.  On the threshold a dark figure straightened itself from a stooping posture, and the light of the taper behind me fell on a face of a pallor that seemed to glisten in its intensity.  It was the face of Mariani, the seneschal of the Castle of Cessna.

One glance we exchanged, and intuitively I seemed to apprehend the motive of this midnight visit.  He came either to bring me aid or to seek mine, with vengeance for his guerdon.  I stood aside, and silently he entered my room and closed the door.

“Quench your taper,” he bade me in a husky whisper.