Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v108.djvu/217

Rh "Do you remember the silent pool in the forest?" she whispered.

Again the Duke's hand went up to his beard. He rose slowly and walked to the window to toss a coin to the youths outside.

"Do you remember how beautiful it was?" said the Duchess.

"I remember," answered Pietro. He saw in his memory the pool, a sapphire set in a forest, and strange weeds, motionless and fantastic, growing up in it—but the Ice Woman had no connection with it in his mind. He remembered only the beauty of the day, the color, impression, and spirit of the place.

Aloyse had risen also, and leaned over his chair, keeping him seated by her hand on his shoulder.

"Help me!" she whispered. "Look as if you cared! I know it is only make-believe, and I—I shall not be angry, Pietro." Upon that she walked away, and, moved out of all resistance, he followed her. She drew a seat up to a window at the end of the room—the window through which he had seen her fly her hawk on its leash so often. He leaned upon her chair and looked out into the night. Down in the orchard the moon convolvulus hung open wide, even as the song had said, and he knew that, after to-day's heat, there would be tears in the heart of the roses, for the still stars were veiled with a gauze of mist. The song of the pages had died away; their feet in the distance brushed the grass as they went away upon some invisible signal. Pietro waited and wondered, and looked down upon the young Duchess—and then his arm about her answered the frightened appeal of her eyes. So they remained for ten heart-beats, and he forgot all but this mystery of the inscrutable. At the soft lifting of a latch he turned, and saw that De Budry had gone out. Instantly the Duchess rose, and her face took on the expression it had worn when she entered his prison at sundown.

"Come," she whispered—"keep your arm about me—in case any are still watching. Come—in my oratory we are safe."

They passed through her little bower, through her bedchambor, gay and bright with flowers. She locked this door and told him to drag a chest against it.

"Now!" she said. From a closet she drew a dress, the same myrtle robes in which he knew her so well.

"You are so tall, so tall," she murmured, "but I have a cloak that will help to hide your height, and a hood "

"What does it mean?" he said, bewildered. "Surely I can escape in man's clothes down a small passage. Where is the door?"

She made no answer, but rummaged anew in the closet, and brought out a great hood.

"Quick!" she whispered.

"Where is the secret door to the underground passage?" repeated the painter, bewildered.

She looked at him for a moment with the old vague smile, and the hood slipped from her hand.

Suspicion, perplexity, made him almost delirious. He sprang forward and took her by the wrist.

"The door here—in your bedchamber—where is it, madam?" he demanded, in an exasperated whisper.

"There is no door here, Pietro," she said, calmly. "Come, help me to put this kirtle over your head."

"You are deceiving me! Is it another trap, a fresh torture?"

"The door of your escape is open," she said, reproachfully. "The litter waits. Obey me, and you are free. Your life is in mv hands, Pietro. Quick!"

"The litter? But it is for you! You said so yourself."

"Yes, I said so; but that is nothing. Quick, take off your shoes—they might make you tread too heavily for a woman."

"You have lied to me?"

"Yes, or you would not have trusted me."

Again he seized her hand, and drew her close to the little lamp in a corner of the room, that he might look into her face.

"Madam—I cannot go and leave you behind. You shall go and I will stay. Do you think that life is so dear to me that I will take it at this price? If I go, I leave you here to cruelty, to the most shameful misconstruction. Your very life—"

"There must always be sacrifice," she murmured, and walked away to lean