we came to a little open door, through which
the air blew chill and cold, bringing for the first
time a sensation of life to me. The door led
into a kind of cellar, through which we groped
our way to an opening like a window, but which,
instead of being glazed, was only fenced with
iron bars, two of which were loose, as Amante
evidently knew, for she took them out with the
ease of one who had performed the action often
before, and then helped me to follow her out into
the free open air.

We stole round the end of the building, and
on turning the corner—she first—I felt her hold
of me tighten for an instant, and the next step
I too heard distant voices, and the blows of a
spade upon the heavy soil, for the night was
very warm and still.

We had not spoken a word; we did not speak
now. Touch was safer and as expressive. She
turned down towards the high road; I followed.
I did not know the path; we stumbled again
and again, and I was much bruised; so doubtless
was she; but bodily pain did me good. At
last we were on the plainer path of the high
road.

I had such faith in her that I did not venture
to speak, even when she paused, as wondering
to which hand she should turn. But now, for
the tlrst time, she spoke:

"Which way did you come when he brought
you here first?"

I pointed, I could not speak.

We turned in the opposite direction; still
going along the high road. In about an hour,
we struck up to the mountain-side, scrambling
far up before we even dared to rest; far up and
away again before day had fully dawned. Then
we looked about for some place of rest and
concealment: and now we dared to speak in whispers.
Amante told me that she had locked the
door of communication between his bedroom
and mine, and, as in a dream, I was aware that
she had also locked and brought away the key
of the door between the latter and the salon.

"He will have been too busy this night to
think much about you—he will suppose you are
asleep—I shall be the first to be missed but
they will only just now be discovering our
loss."

I remember those last words of hers made me
pray to go on—I felt as if we were losing
precious time in thinking either of rest or concealment;
but she hardly replied to me, so busy was
she in seeking out some hiding-place. At length,
giving it up m despair, we proceeded onwards a
little way; the mountain-side sloped downwards
rapidly, and in the full morning light we saw
ourselves in a narrow valley, made by a stream
which forced its way along it. About a mile lower
down there rose the pale blue smoke of a village,
a mill-wheel was lashing up the water close at
hand, though out of sight. Keeping under the
cover of every sheltering tree or bush, we
worked our way down past the mill, down to
a one-arched bridge, which doubtless formed
part of the road between the village and the
mill.

"This will do," said she; and we crept under
the space, and climbing a little way up the rough
stone-work, we seated ourselves on a projecting
ledge, and crouched in the deep damp shadow.
Amante sat a little above me, and made me lay
my head on her lap. Then she fed me and took
some food herself; and opening out her great dark
cloak, she covered up every light-coloured speck
about us; and thus we sat, shivering and
shuddering, yet feeling a kind of rest through it all,
simply from the tact that motion was no longer
imperative, and that during the daylight our only
chance of safety was to be still. But the damp
shadow in which we were sitting was blighting,
from the circumstance of the sunlight never
penetrating there; and I dreaded lest, before
night and the time for exertion again came on,
I should feel illness creeping all over me. To
add to our discomfort it had rained the whole
day long, and the stream, fed by a thousand
little mountain brooklets, began to swell into a
torrent, rushing over the stones with a perpetual
and dizzying noise.

Every now and then I was wakened from the
painful doze into which I continually fell, by a
sound of horses' feet over our head: sometimes
lumbering heavily as if dragging a burden,
sometimes rattling and galloping, and with the sharper
cry of men's voices coming cutting through the
roar of the waters. At length day fell. We had
to drop into the stream, which came above our
knees as we waded to the bank. There we
stood, stiff and shivering. Even Amante's
courage seemed to fail.

"We must pass this night in shelter, somehow,"
said she. For indeed the rain was coming
down pitilessly. I said nothing. I thought that
surely the end must be death in some shape; and
I only hoped that to death might not be added
the terror of the cruelty of men. In a minute
or so she had resolved on her course of action.
We went up the stream to the mill. The familiar
sounds, the scent of the wheat, the flour whitening
the walls—all reminded me of home, and
it seemed to me as if I must struggle out of this
nightmare and waken, and find myself once more
a happy girl by the Neckar side. They were
long in unbarring the door at which Amante had
knocked; at length an old feeble voice inquired
who was there, and what was sought? Amante
answered shelter from the storm for two women;
but the old woman replied, with suspicious
hesitation, that she was sure it was a man who was
asking for shelter, and that she could not let us
in. But at length she satisfied herself, and
unbarred the heavy door, and admitted us. She
was not an unkindly woman, but her thoughts
all travelled in one circle, and that was, that her
master, the miller, had told her on no account to
let any man into the place during his absence,
and that she did not know if he would not think
two women as bad; and yet that as we were not
men, no one could say she had disobeyed him,
for it was a shame to let a dog be out such a
night as this. Amante, with ready wit, told her
to let no one know that we had taken shelter
there that night, and that then her master could