"I--I think that--we may be friends," she murmured.

"Will you give me your hand, Countess Strahni?"

She extended it slowly and he bowed over it, pressing it to his lips.

She found her excuse in a cough, a vestige of her illness which she summoned to her rescue.

"It--it is getting late, Herr Hauptmann," she said. "I must be going in.

The night air----"

"By all means." He accompanied her to the portal of the hall and then she left him.

That night Marishka did not sleep, and the next day, pleading fatigue, remained in her bedroom, trying to muster up the courage to go forth and meet Goritz at this tragic game of his own choosing. That she had stirred some sort of an emotion in the man was not to be doubted. She read it in his eyes, in the touch of his fingers, and in the resonant tones of his voice, but she read too, the sense of his power, the confidence of his egotism to which all things were possible. And much as she wished to believe the testimony of his flashes of tenderness, the hazard of her position stared her in the face. But she knew that with such a man she must play a game of subtlety and courage. And so she resolved to meet him frequently, testing every feminine device to win him to her service which would obliterate all things but her own wishes, and present at last an opportunity for her escape.

In the week that followed she walked out with him across the causeway into the mountain road, visiting Szolnok farm and climbing the hills adjacent to the castle, but she saw no one except the German farmers, and it seemed indeed as though the gorge was taboo to all human beings.

Goritz made love to her, of course, but she laughed him off, gaining a new confidence as the days of their companionship increased. Slowly, with infinite patience, with infinite self-control, she established a relationship which baffled him, a foil for each of his moods, a parry for each attack. With a smile on her lips which masked the lie, she told him that Hugh Renwick had been nothing to her.

And Goritz told her of the women he had met in the performance of his duty from London to Constantinople, women of the secret service of England, France, Russia, who had set their wits to match his. Some of them were ugly and clever, some were stupid and beautiful, but they had all been dangerous. He had passed them by. No woman in the world that he had ever known had had the nobility of spirit, the courage, the self-abnegation of the Countess Strahni.

It was in these moods of adulation and self-revelation that Marishka found him most difficult. But she managed to keep him at arm's length by the mere insistence of her spirituality which accepted his friendship upon its face value, telling him that she forgave the past, and vaguely suggesting hope for the future. With that he had to be content, though at times he was dangerously near rebellion. She promised him many things but denied him her lips, hoping day by day for the rescue which came not, and praying night after night that the God who watched over her would forgive her for her duplicity and for the hatred of him that was in her heart.

But there came a day when the walks beyond the causeway ceased, and from the window of her bedroom she learned the reason. Far, far below her in the valley along the road which wound through the Pass, she saw the figures of marching men. Austrian soldiers! What did their presence mean? They were going toward the other end of the pass--thousands of them. Had the Russians crossed Galicia? That night there were no lights in the side of the castle toward the gorge save the candle in her room, which was screened by heavy hangings. And when at dinner she questioned Goritz he gave her the briefest of replies. The Cossacks were coming?

Perhaps, but they would not take Dukla Pass. He warned her not to show her figure at the castle windows or above the wall of the rampart, and she obeyed.

For several days Goritz disappeared, and she gained a breathing space to think over her position. She ventured out many times into the courtyard in the hope of finding an opportunity to elude her guard, but each time she approached the drawbridge she saw the chauffeur Karl seated in the shadow of the wall, smoking his pipe. And so she knew that any attempt to pass him would be impossible.

At the end of the fourth day, Captain Goritz joined her at the supper table. He had now discarded his Austrian uniform and wore a rough suit of working clothes, similar to the peasant costume which Ena's husband wore. He greeted her gladly, but she asked him no questions as to his absence, upon her guard as she always was against the unknown quality in the man, which held her in constant anxiety. But after he had eaten, the cloud which had hung over him seemed to pass, and he leaned forward, smiling at her across the table.

"You have been obedient?" he asked.

"What else is left for me?" she smiled. "I have wondered where you were."

"Ah," he laughed, "you missed me? That is good. You wondered what would happen to you if I did not come back." He laughed as he lighted his cigarette. "I am not so easily to be lost, I assure you. I have been through Dukla Pass."

"Many soldiers have gone through the pass today--many this morning--many more this afternoon."

"Yes, I saw them."

"And the Russians?"

He was silent for a while, and then spoke very quietly. "They are coming."

She made no sound and seemed to be frozen into immobility by the import of the information.

"The Austrians have fortified the other end of the Pass, but it is said that the Russians are in great numbers, sweeping everything before them----"

"Przemysl--! Lemberg--!"

"Lemberg has fallen. The fate of Przemysl hangs in the balance." He shrugged. "Tomorrow, perhaps, may see the Cossacks at Dukla Pass."

"And then----"

"I do not wish to alarm you," he said gently. "Six hundred years have passed over Schloss Szolnok, and it still stands. I am not going to run away."

"But you can do nothing--against so many."

"They will not bother us, I think. The Austrians, you see, have passed us by. They are taking all their artillery to Javorina and Jagerhorn and mounting them upon the old emplacements of the ruins. The defense will be made there where the gorge is narrower."

"But if they should come--here--the Cossacks--!" she whispered fearfully.

He laughed easily. "Ah, Countess, I am not a half-bad jailer, after all?"

"The Cossacks!" she repeated.

"They shall not come here."

"What can you do?"

"The place is impregnable--sheer cliffs upon all sides--the causeway two hundred meters long. I could pick them off one by one from the top of the keep. With the drawbridge up, we are as safe as though we were in Vienna."

"But their artillery?"

"They will not think us worth their while. In the armory there are six repeating hunting rifles and four shotguns, ammunition plentiful----" He broke off and, rising, came over and stood beside her. "But we will not think of unpleasant possibilities. It has been so long since I have seen you--too long."

She let him take her hand and press it to his lips, but tonight that condescension did not seem to be enough. He fell to one knee beside her and would have put his arm about her waist if she had not risen and struggled away from him.

"You forget, Herr Hauptmann, the dependence of my position here--alone with you. Whatever our personal relations, a delicacy for my feelings must warn you----"

"Marishka!" he broke in. "What does a man who loves as I do, care for the conventions of the sham world you and I have left so far behind. I adore you. And you flout me."

"For shame! Would you care for me if I were a woman without delicacy or dignity? I beg of you----"

But he had held her by the hand and would not release her.

"I adore you--and you flout me--that is all that I know. Your indifference maddens me. Perhaps I am not as other men, and must not be judged by other standards than my own which are sufficient for myself as they should be sufficient for you. You know that I--I worship you--that by staying here I have forgotten my duty to my country at a time when I am most needed. Does that mean nothing to you? Can you be callous to a love like mine which lives only in your happiness and hangs upon your pleasure? I worship you, Marishka. Just one kiss, to tell me that you care for me a little. I will be content----"

She struggled in his grasp, her fear of him lending her more strength.

Her lips--? Hugh's! Never--never--as God witnessed.

"One kiss, Marishka----"

She struggled free and struck him with her clenched fist furiously, full in the face, and then ran to the window, as he released her, breathing hard, trembling, but full of defiance. The suddenness of the affair and its culmination had driven them both dumb, Marishka with terror, Goritz with chagrin at his mistake and anger at her temerity. He touched his face with the fingers of one hand and stared at her with eyes that burned with black fire in the pallor of his face.

"You have struck me," he muttered. And then, with a shrug, "That was not a love tap, Countess Strahni."

She could not speak for very terror of the consequences of the encounter, but stood watching him narrowly, one hand upon the window-ledge beside her.

"Well," he asked presently, "are you dumb?"