The wine and the music, and the absolute trustfulness with which she seemed, for the moment, to have committed herself to my keeping, fired my blood.

I had thoughts of taking her hand in mine, of bidding her leave the hotel that night, that minute, with me,--of taking her away into the country, into some quiet place where we could be married, and where none of these things which terrified her could throw their shadows across her life! Yet barely had the thought come to me before I realized how impossible it all was.

I, too, was an adventurer! If I were not actually in the power of these men, it was to them that I owed my liberty! My own spirits began to fall.

It was a queer maze this into which I had been drawn.
The music changed its note.

Even as we sat there its languorous, passionate rhythm passed away, to be succeeded by the quicker, cleaner notes of some old martial music.