It was then that a female figure started up from a couch just beside him, stifling a cry. The light from the lantern above fell full upon her face, and her eyes were staring at him in terror. It was Marishka. He whispered her name, but still she stared at him wildly, and it was not until then that he remembered his disguise. He took off his fez, and spoke to her again.
He saw her stare and then take a pace toward him as he clambered into the room, and in a moment she was in his arms.
"Hugh--belovèd!" she murmured brokenly, as she leaned heavily against him. "I have been so frightened----"
"Marishka! Your hands are ice cold. They have kept you here--against your will?"
"Don't fear," he smiled. "I've as many lives as a cat. Didn't you hear me scratching my way up the wall? Sh----"
He left her for a moment, and peered out into the darkness of the garden. All was silent as before, and so he returned and took her in his arms again.
"Need you ask? Oh, Hugh, I've wanted you so!"
"Thank God for that." Their lips met and she clung to him, all the pitiful longings of her days and nights of misery in her caress, the dependence of helpless womanhood, but greater than that, the fear for his safety, which took precedence over her own.
He kissed her tenderly, the joy of possession the greater for the dangers that they ran.
"You're trembling, Marishka. Don't worry."
"If anything should happen now--that I have you again."
"Dearest! I, too, have suffered with you--but I haven't despaired. I would never have given you up, you know," he said with a smile.
"I've never wanted you to give me up, Hugh. I've tested you cruelly--because--because--my pride was hurt----"
"It had to be, Marishka. But you've survived it----"
"My love is greater--greater than anything in the world to me," she murmured. "Danger has proved it--and yours----"
"It needed nothing. I love you--now and always."
He kissed her again and again, and for a long moment they clasped each other in silence, their lips together, questioning, replying in broken syllables. To the woman, nothing else mattered. If death came now, she knew that it would be sweet. And it was Renwick who found his reason first. Her hands still in his, he led her to the window, where he scanned the garden anxiously. But there was still no sign of anything suspicious, nor, in the house, any sound. But Renwick now questioned her quickly.