Page 24 (1/1)

I eak fro, and faint from the wound inso with the cold of enerally I must have looked as little like that Bardelys they called the Magnificent as you ht well conceive How, then, if I were to knock, should I prevail in persuading these people--whoever they ht be--of itive rebel, and it was more than probable that I should be kept in durance to be handed over to oons, if later they came to ride that way I was separated fros now stood--unless this were, indeed, Lavedan--itto deplorecuteinning to conte so, when of a sudden a broad shaft of light, co from one of the s on the first floor, fell athwart the courtyard Instinctively I crouched back into the shadow of my friendly buttress, and looked up

That sudden shaft of light resulted from the withdrawal of the curtains that masked aAt this hich opened outward on to a balcony; I now beheld--and to me it was as the vision of Beatrice ure of a woht bathed her, as in her white robe she leaned upon the parapet gazing upward into the empyrean A sweet, delicate face I saw, not endowed, perhaps, with that exquisite balance and proportion of feature wherein they tell us beauty lies, but blessed with a wondrously dainty beauty all its own; a beauty, perhaps, as entle countenance was irlhood, all that is fresh and pure and virginal

I held my breath, I think, as I stood in ravished contemplation of that white vision If this were Lavedan, and that the cold Roxalanne who had sent my bold Chatellerault back to Paris empty-handed then were hed withthe name of Roxalanne de Lavedan I have already shown But here in this saht have loved, for not in ten years--not, indeed, in all ht upona voice