"The beginning of our world, yours and mine," he said confidently.
She straightened, drew away from him and put a hand before her eyes again. "Even yet I cannot believe." She looked up at him with a wide gaze that still held in it something of the reflection of the long days of helplessness and misery--something more deeply spiritual than he had ever seen. "Hugh, dear," she went on softly, "you will think it strange, but I--I have heard you calling to me--speaking to me, like a living presence here in this room. Not as you are now, belovèd, but paler.... I thought that you were dead.... And so when you came--at the door--I thought--I must have dreamed----"
"Yes--terribly frightened, Hugh," she confessed, "by _him_--and by the firing. It seemed at times as though the castle were rocking under me. Listen!"
A terrific cannonading began again--louder, more continuous than any that had gone before.
"Yes--they are fighting for the end of the Pass," he muttered; "the Russians----"
"God knows. I pray----" he paused and scanned her face anxiously.
She started away from him, her eyes widely inquiring.
"It's simple enough. Because if I am taken by the Austrians I shall be shot as a spy."
"No, not really," he said soberly. "But I'm an Englishman, an enemy of Austria armed and in disguise. That is enough----"
"They--my people would shoot you!" She whispered, horror-stricken.
"I have no illusions about my fate--if taken----"
"Unfortunately that does not change matters."
He put her gently aside and went for a while and listened at the doors, and then came back to her.
"Silence. But we will wait a little longer," he whispered.
Marishka caught him by the shoulders and looked up into his eyes.
"Hugh, what you have said frightens me. You mean that you--that we are enemies--you and I--because our nations are at war----!"
She drew away and held him at arm's length while she scrutinized him in the light of the guttering candle.
"You--my enemy, Hugh? I--yours?" A wan smile came proudly to her lips. "If I am your enemy, belovèd, then love and loyalty have perished from the earth. And you, who have risen from the grave to come to me----!"
"Sh----, dear," he whispered. "You must know the truth. Whatever happens--here in the castle, the Austrian troops are all around us. Herr Windt, too. There is no escape for me unless the Russians come through. That is why I hope----"