villa stood. The sun was scorching, the ascent on the slope that faced the sea perilous to life and limb; there was no more than a perpendicular granite slab towering many feet above the water, covered with foliage and rock-flowers. But he was a trained moontaineer; he knew the ice-slope of the Alps as well as he knew the Border-land; he was up it with the swiftness of thought, swinging himself in mid-air from the tough coils of the tangled creepers till he reached the summit, and forced his way, without pause or ceremonial, into the court of the forsaken dwelling.
"No one passes!"
A soldier on guard stood within the arched entrance. Then he knew that it was true, and that she was lost to him, lost to the fangs of the Church, to the dungeons of the Bourbons.
"By whose order are you here?"
The words were hoarse and faint; he felt his lips parched with a dry white heat.
"The order of the King."
"The King's! Stand off!" cried Erceldoune, as though the very name of her tyrant maddened him. "What right have you, for all the despots who curse Europe, to invade her privacy, to violate her home?"
