Despairingly she gazed round the room. There seemed nothing in any shape or form which could possibly assist her. Obviously there was but one thing to do--to continue twisting her wrists as much as possible in the hope of finally loosening the handkerchief. Perhaps half an hour passed, but it became more apparent that she was no freer than she had been at first. She angrily chided herself on her woman's weakness, confident that a man could have wrenched his hands apart from sheer strength. She could feel her wrists bleeding again, the skin bruised by the rasping of the material. She did not know how much blood was escaping, but there was enough to make her hands sticky, and she became afraid that if the cloth should become saturated it might shrink. Feverishly she continued struggling, and for some time without any signs of success, but suddenly her thumb slipped through into a fold. She forced it higher and still higher till it hurt, but all at once it was free. The rest was easy. While her index finger struggled to follow suit, she forced the material farther down the hand, till a few seconds later her arms were free, and her mouth too. Then she cried--not from pain or fear, but from pure relief. Only a few seconds before she had believed her task impossible, and then, unexpectedly, she had succeeded. There remained now only the door. Drying her tears she approached it and caught hold of the handle with both hands. Placing her feet against the wall, she pulled, but the door held steadily, and presently she had to stop to regain her breath, but for only two minutes or so, when once again she took up her position. Her hands turned on the handle; she pulled, and the door swung open. Gonnard had thought it locked, but the key had merely turned in the lock; the tumblers had not moved. Elizabeth laughed, a trifle hysterically. She had pulled so hard, when all she need have done was to have walked out.... What did it matter? The way to freedom was before her, and, stopping only to dust herself as far as possible, and wipe away as much of the blood from her wrists as she could, she crept cautiously down the steps and into the street. * * * * * * It would have been difficult to decide which of the three men walking toward the Château Juhusz was the happiest. Apor would have sworn it to be himself. During his brief imprisonment he had not been without hope that the White Knight would rescue him, even if he was more than fully aware of the difficulties which his leader would be bound to encounter. This supreme confidence upheld him, right until the time when he had fallen asleep in his cell. At the Communists' threats, at the brutal jesting of his jailers, he had merely laughed lightly. Somehow or other the White Knight would rescue him! Because of his high spirits the reaction was all the greater when, a few hours later, he awoke to find a leering face bending over him.