she leaned there! In the subsidence of any great emotion—and Paula had felt every word she uttered—there is more or less of shock and tumult. She did not think, she only felt. Suddenly a hand was laid on her arm and a low voice whispered in her ear,
“Did you write that poem yourself?”
Turning, she encountered the shadowy form of a woman leaning close at her side and appearing in the dim light that shone on her from the lamps beyond, an eager image of expectancy.
“Yes,” returned Paula, “why do you ask?”
The woman, whoever she was, did not answer. “And you believe in such devotion as that!” she murmured. “You can understand a man, aye, or a woman either, risking happiness and fame, life and death, for the sake of a trust! Such things are not folly to you! You could see a heart spill itself drop by drop through a longer vigil than the eight months watching on the ramparts, and not sneer at a