"It's cold," he said. "Are you warmly dressed?" "Yes. Where is the picture?" She kept on whispering because that way the man was not as apt to realize that it was a girl's voice. "Come with me and I'll give it to you." "I want to see it now," Flip whispered. "You couldn't see it in this light. It's up in my chalet just up the mountain. It's warm there and I'll have some nice hot soup for you." "I've finished dinner," Flip whispered, "and I don't want to go to your chalet. I just want to see the picture." "You still don't remember that I'm your father?" the man asked, and he stepped forward and took her wrist in his hand. "No!" Flip cried, trying to pull away. "No! You promised I could see the picture! Let me go!" "And so you shall see the picture, Alain, if you will come with me." From one of the turrets of the chateau an owl cried, making them both jump, but the man did not loose his hold on her wrist. He took the bony fingers of his other hand and held her chin and turned her face up to the moonlight and said, "You mustn't be afraid of me, Alain, my boy," and then he shouted, "What kind of a trick is this? You're the girl!" Before he knew what she was doing Flip had squirmed out of his grasp and was pelting across the snow, but he was after her and caught her with furious fingers. Flip screamed and fought, biting and clawing like a little wild beast, and the night was full of her screams and the man's snarls and the banging of boards and shutters and the cries of disturbed birds. Neither of them saw when a shutter was blown loose from a turret window and came flying down to strike Flip on the head. She dropped like a wounded bird to the snow and lay there, motionless. She did not see the man staring at her limp body in horror, nor know when he picked her up and went into the chateau with her and dumped her there in the dark, a small inert bundle on the stone floor. CHAPTER SIX _The Prisoner Freed_ Flip was lying at the bottom of the ocean and all the weight of the sea was upon her, pressing her down into the white sands, and bells were ringing down at the bottom of the sea, ringing and ringing, and the tides came and went above her and the waves were wild in the wind and the breakers rolled and she lay with all the waters of the world pushing her down onto the floor of the sea and the bells rang and rang until finally they were dissolved into icy darkness. She opened her eyes and she saw Paul's white face. She turned towards him and whispered weakly, "I didn't get the picture, Paul," and then she moaned because the movement of turning her head seemed to bring the waters of the ocean down on her once more. She tried to push the weight of the waters away from her but her fingers closed on a handful of cobwebs. She felt that she was being lifted and then again she was drowned in darkness.