He moved away. Several minutes passed. Sonya and Drexel wondered what their assailants were doing. Then a low crackling sound came to their ears. “They’ve fired the house!” cried Drexel. “Yes,” said she. “They have us now. It’s stay here and be roasted, or march down into their arms.” The former alternative seemed not many minutes off. The air began to grow furnace-hot; smoke oozed through the floor. “Shall we go down and surrender?” asked Sonya. “If we do, I’ll be dead the minute we step outside the door. Did you hear Captain Nadson give special orders to kill the foreigner?” “Yes, but why especially kill you?” “He is so ordered by his master, Prince Berloff.” And Drexel repeated what the countess had told him. “And to think,” cried Sonya, “that it is I that put you in the prince’s power--I that brought you to this fate. Oh, if at least I could only save you!” Her eyes sank in frantic thought, and she saw the two dead bodies. She sprang up, rushed into Ivan’s room, and then rushed back again. “You shall not die here!” she cried excitedly. “We have still a chance! Quick! On with that gendarme’s coat and cap!” “But what--” “The gendarmes are away from that side of the house. I’ll slip down the ladder--you come after, and lead me away as your captive. In the darkness it may succeed. At least it’s a chance!” Drexel threw away his pistol, tore the long coat from off the limp gendarme, slipped it on instead of his own and put on the dead man’s cap. “I’m ready--come!” he cried, and made for Ivan’s room. She stopped him with a hand upon his arm. “I deceived you. That chance is no chance at all. The house is surrounded.” “Surrounded!” He rushed into the next room and to the window, she following him. “Yes! But if you knew it, why suggest----” “To get you into that uniform.” “Why?” “Your wits will tell you later. Promise me one thing. If you promise, you will make me meet much easier whatever is to happen.” “Yes, yes, I promise.” “You are not to leave this room for two minutes. And now I’m going down.” She held out both her hands to him, and the fiery light that glowed in through the window showed him a face calm, beautiful--in it a new look that made him catch his breath. They gazed a moment into each other’s eyes. Then she loosed her hands, and before he knew what she intended she had drawn down his head and had kissed him on his forehead. “Sonya!” he cried, “Sonya!” and he caught her wildly to him, and for one heaven-scaling moment all that lay on the yonder side of that moment was forgotten. She gently freed herself, for the flames had leaped through the floor and were now springing toward the ceiling. “I must go,” she said softly. “And is this to be the end of it all?” he cried in agony. “Only this one moment?” “So it seems.” There were tears in her eyes, and in the flame-light they gleamed like stars. They moved into the next room and closed the door, and crossed to the door that opened on the stairway.