I didn't scream. I didn't want to. I walked quite quietly across the room to one of the heavily curtained windows at the back, and pulled the hangings aside. In front of me, not three feet from the window was the blank face of the convent wall rising straight up, higher than I could see. I looked downward. The stone pavement, which I could just make out in the gloom, must have been ten feet below. Nevertheless I had a wild thought that, if the worst came, I could at least fling myself down the narrow cleft; and in that mind I took hold of the window-frame. I had no hope that I could move it, even after I had stirred the heavy locks; but, with the pressure of all my weight against it, slowly the two sides of the casement opened out. As the dusty panes of glass swung away from before me my eye caught a singular irregularity in the surface of the wall. About on a level with the window-sill was a niche in the masonry, perhaps three feet square, and looking to be the depth of the wall itself. The back of it seemed to be made of a dark substance--darker than the bricks--through which shone twinkling glimpses of daylight. I climbed upon the window-sill, and, taking hold of the upper edge of one of the casements, swung myself by this. I felt myself hovering an instant in mid-air. Then my feet had found the niche. I crouched, and, groping forward with one hand, grasped a stout tangle of vines. Releasing the casement I half-dragged, half-swung myself into the opening in the wall. I clung there a moment trembling, catching my breath, before I realized that the dark mass at the back of the niche was merely ivy, some of which I had grasped, tearing quite a little opening, and through this I could see a blessed glimpse of blue sky. Putting my eyes close to this peep-hole I looked downward and saw below me the grass plots of the convent garden. A great tangle of bushes was at the foot of the wall, but in spite of that it looked a dreadful drop. I glanced over my shoulder into the room behind me, and thought I saw a shadow moving down the floor. I do not know how I turned myself in the cramped space where I knelt. All I could remember afterward was the feel of the edge of the rough masonry under my fingers; the tearing of the ivy as my body crushed through it; the straining of my arms as I swung downward. I gave one horrified glance into the depths of the garden; then closed my eyes and let go. CHAPTER VII THE REFUGE I could not tell how long a time had passed, but gradually out of complete consciousness, grew up the sense of a wretched throbbing. I thought it was my head. I opened my eyes and found I was looking straight up into the sky. I lay staring at it, it was so wonderfully soft and blue. Presently the wind swayed a green branch into my line of vision; at sight of that the query of where I was came into my mind.