"But my flight might soon be intercepted. A few miles to the north of the convent, on the Bosnian frontier, is a fortress garrisoned by Austrian troops. I remembered that once when a poor nun longing for her freedom again, had run away, the Abbess had obtained aid from this fortress. The commandant sent out a troop, which, scouring the country around, returned with the fugitive after a three days' search. Devoted to the cardinal's interests, Abbess Teresa would certainly make a similar requisition in my case. "Still I had the advantage of several hours' start, and, trusting to heaven for aid, I fled onward through the darkness. Zara, sixty miles to the northwest, was the haven of my desires. For two days I journeyed on foot, sleeping the first night in the woods. "At the end of the second day--but you know the rest. "O Paul," she murmured, with a soft pressure of her arms, "whom have I in the world but you? And to think that I at first repulsed you when you met me that night in the wood!" And here Barbara, having finished her story, looked up at Paul. "Why so grave?" she asked, with a smile that masked a certain misgiving on her part. "In the very act of asking you to be my wife, Barbara, I feel compelled to pause. Your story is so suggestive. Supposing you should prove to be a rich heiress, or a peeress, or," he continued, his mind reverting to the portrait of the lady with the diadem, "shall we ascend higher, and say a princess?--you will make a mesalliance by marrying one who has nothing but a cloak and a sword." "Dreams, Paul, dreams." "Nay, the interest taken in you by the cardinal proves that you are a person either of rank or wealth, or possibly both." "I place no faith in the cardinal's story. Doubtless, there does exist somewhere a rich Polish noble, whose infant daughter was lost or stolen away eighteen or nineteen years ago, but I do not believe that I am she, though Ravenna would have me play the rôle of the missing heiress. But even if I were an empress--" Here Barbara paused in her utterance. "Yes; if you were an empress--?" "Cannot you guess the rest?" "You would be my wife. Is that so, Barbara?" "Yes, Paul," she replied, simply. "None but you." Paul raised her beautiful face upward to his own, and looked down into the light of her dark eyes. "Barbara, I have loved you from the first moment of seeing you." Barbara could not truthfully say that her love had begun so early. The knowledge of it had come upon her perhaps a month ago. "I wish I had known it. A month ago!" he added ruefully. "Just think of the kisses I have missed!" "Nothing prevents you, Paul, from repairing lost opportunities." Who could have resisted the witchery of those lips raised so temptingly at that moment? Not Paul, certainly. * * * * * The dusk of twilight was stealing over the island. The stars were beginning to glimmer through the violet air above.