Gilda's heart seemed to stop its beating; the human figure out there in the shadows had crept stealthily nearer. The window out of which she leaned was only a few feet from the ground; she stretched out her hand into the night. "There is a projection in the wall just there," she whispered hurriedly, "and the ivy stems will help you.... Come!" The fugitive grasped the hand that was stretched out to him in pitying helpfulness. With the aid of the projection in the wall and of the stems of the century-old ivy, he soon cleared the distance which separated him from the window-sill. The next moment he had jumped into the room. Gilda in this impulsive act of mercy had not paused to consider either the risks or the cost. She had recognised the voice of the man whom she had once loved, that voice called to her out of the depths of boundless misery; it was the call of a man at bay, a human quarry hunted and exhausted, with the hunters close upon his heels. She could not have resisted that call even if she had allowed her reason to fight her instinct then. But now that he stood before her in rough fisherman's clothes, stained and torn, his face covered with blood and grime, his eyes red and swollen, the breath coming in quick, short gasps through his blue, cracked lips, the first sense of fear at what she had done seized hold of her heart. At first he took no notice of her, but threw himself into the nearest chair and passed his hands across his face and brow. "My God," he murmured, "I thought they would have me to-night." She stood in the middle of the room, feeling helpless and bewildered; she was full of pity for the man, for there is nothing more unutterably pathetic than the hunted human creature in its final stage of apathetic exhaustion, but she was just beginning to co-ordinate her thoughts and they for the moment were being invaded by fear. She felt more than she saw, that presently he turned his hollow, purple-rimmed eyes upon her, and that in them there was a glow half of passionate will-power and half of anxious, agonizing doubt. "Of what are you afraid, Gilda?" he asked suddenly, "surely not of me?" "Not of you, my lord," she replied quietly, "only for you." "I am a miserable outlaw now, Gilda," he rejoined bitterly, "four thousand golden guilders await any lout who chooses to sell me for a competence." "I know that, my lord ... and marvel why you are here? I heard that you were safe--in Belgium." He laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "I was safe there," he said, "but I could not rest. I came back a few days ago, thinking I could help my brother to escape. Bah!" he added roughly, "he is a snivelling coward...." "Hush! for pity's sake," she exclaimed, "some one will hear you." "Close that window and lock the door," he murmured hoarsely. "I am spent--and could not resist a child if it chose to drag me at this moment to the Stadtholder's spies."