the blue night, was pressed close to him. Her hand touched his knee, the strands of her hair, escaping the shawl, blew close to his face, he could feel the beating of her heart. An ecstasy seized him at the sense of her closeness. Whatever was to come of that night, at least this he had—his perfect hour. The elder Crispin and his madness, the younger and his strangeness, the dim faded house, the jewels and the torn "Orvieto," the mad talk, all these vanished into unreality, and, curiously, this ride was joined directly to the dance around the town as though no other events had intervened.
Then he had won his freedom, this sanctified it. Then he had felt his common humanity with all, life, now he knew his own passionate share of it.
He wanted nothing for himself but this, that, like Browning's strong peasant, he might serve his duchess, at the last receiving his white rose and watching her vanish into her own magical kingdom. A romantic, idealistic American, as has been already declared in this history; but ten hours ago both romance and idealism were theoretic, now they were pulsing, living things.
"Hesther's the one for my money," Dunbar said, some of his happiness at their safety ringing through his voice. "You should have seen her climb out of that window. She landed on the roof of that tool-house so lightly that not a mouse could have heard her. And then she swung down the pipe like
