Presently, however, the humour of the grim situation struck him, and he laughed. There was Thistledown Betty, incapable even of acting up to her own unfaithfulness, snug in her bower, doubtless; and there was the outraged husband, gloating over his mediæval vengeance: Steven wished he could be present at their next conjugal meeting! Sidonia, childlike, echoed his laugh softly beside him in the dark. It struck him serious on the instant. The morrow seemed a terribly long way off.
"Hey, good sir!" said she, "nothing but wait. We shall not die this time, Herr von Kielmansegg; for my poor uncle"—she laughed in scorn and triumph—"he does not know, I warrant, that there is a way out of this old death-trap, since there is a way in. A way other than by the hidden lake and the barque of ancient Charon. But, till the daylight comes, sir——"
"Daylight!" he exclaimed, and knew not whether he were glad or sorry at the whole night’s prospect.
"Till daylight comes, we must take patience here. For one false step would send our bodies to join the bones of the forgotten enemies of Wellenshausen."
"Then, I should say, the best thing we can do is ... to go to sleep."
Again he was mute, pierced to the innermost fibre of his manliness. It was as if her child-heart had been suddenly revealed to him—its trustfulness, its simplicity, its courage.
"If you move a little to the right, carefully," she said, after a pause, "you will find it softer, I think. The earth has grown up there, and there are, I remember, ferns. You will really not be too uncomfortable."
The girl was positively doing the honours of the family _oubliette_! There came a tender smile to his lips, and almost a mist of tenderness to his eyes.
"But you," said he, "good fairy, guardian angel, do you never think of yourself?—Will you lean against me?" he went on, timidly.
He gathered her to him. What a slight, warm thing she was! She trembled as he passed his arms round her, and he instantly desisted. "Would you rather not?"
"I don’t know," she whispered. He thought there was a quaver as of tears catching her breath.
All the chivalry in him leaped to her service. He drew back. With some difficulty he unwound his heavy cloak from himself. He was stiff and bruised, and the uncertainty of his balance in the blackness gave him an eerie sensation as of precipices yawning for him on every side.