"Perhaps! No, you shall!" he whispered, as he pressed his arm gently around her, forgetting everything now of the past, save that this woman loved him, and that there was a future before them of hope and joy. "Tell me what I can do--to help you." "Hold me like that," she whispered, with a sigh of content. "It is better so. It could never have been--only my wild dream--a woman's thirst for the love of one in whom she could believe. A woman's love!" Little more than an hour could have passed, during which Humphrey had twice heard sounds of voices, and once a heavy step overhead--this last making him steal his right hand softly toward the sword that lay by his side--when a faint light seemed to gleam on the surface of the water in the centre of the vault; and soon after he found that this served to shed a softened dawn through the place--a dawn which grow stronger, but was never more than a subdued twilight. It was enough, though, to show him the proportions of the place, its quaint carving, and the fact that beside the long shaft which opened out far above his head there was what seemed to be a stone grille, beyond which was the tangled growth of the forest, much of which, in root and long, prickly shoot, penetrated nearly to where they sat. As the light grew stronger he saw that his companion seemed to have lost the old masculine look given by her attire; for coat and vest had been cast aside, and the loose shirt, open at the neck, had more the aspect of a robe. Her dark hair curled closely about her temples; and as Humphrey Armstrong gazed down at the face, with its parted lips and long lashes lying upon the creamy dark cheeks, his heart throbbed, for he felt that he had won the love of as handsome a woman as any upon whom his eyes had ever lit. He forgot the wound, the bandaging kerchief seeming in the semi-darkness like some scarf; and as he sat and gazed he bent down lower and softly touched the moist forehead with his lips. Mary awoke up with a frightened start and gazed at him wildly, but as consciousness came her look softened and she nestled to him. "I did not mean to wake you," he said. She started again and looked at him wildly, as if she fancied she had detected a chilliness in his manner; but his eyes undeceived her, and as he raised her hand to his lips, she let it rest there for a few moments, and then stole it round his neck. "Tell me," he said gently, "your wound?" She shook her head softly. "No," she whispered; "let it rest. Talk of yourself. You will wait here two days, and then steal out at night and make your way down to the shore. You know the way!" "If I do not you will guide me," he said. She looked at him keenly to see if he meant what he said, and then, reading the sincerity of his words in his frank eyes, she shook her head again. "No," she whispered. "You asked me of my wound. It is home. Humphrey Armstrong, this is to be my tomb!"