the wheels of
thought were moving left no vital current for the sense of touch, and
my flesh was numbed.

'Something has happened,' she said. 'And why did you keep whispering
"yes, yes"? Whom were you whispering to?'

The truth was that, in that dreadful trance, my conscience had been
saying to me, 'Have you a right to exercise your power over this girl
by leading her like a lamb to death?' and my love had replied, 'Yes,
ten thousand times yes.'

'Winifred,' I said, 'I would die for you.'

'Yes, Henry,' said she, 'I know it; but what have we to do with death
now?'

'To save you from harm this flesh of mine would rejoice at
crucifixion; to save you from death this soul and body of mine would
rejoice to endure a thousand years of hell-fire.'

She turned pale, amazed at the delirium into which I had passed.

'To save you from harm, dear, I would,' said I, with a quiet
fierceness that scared her, 'immolate the whole human race--mothers,
and fathers, and children; I would make a hecatomb of them all to
save this body of yours, this sweet body, alive.'

But I could not proceed. What I had meant to say was this,--

'And yet, Winnie, I have brought you here to this boulder to die!'

But I could not say it--my tongue rebelled and would not say it.

Winifred was so full of health and enjoyment of life that, courageous
as she was. I felt that the prospect of certain and imminent death
must appal her; and to see the look of terror break over her face
confronting death was what I could not bear. And yet the thing must
be said. But at this very moment, when my perplexity seemed direst, a
blessed thought came to me--a subterfuge holier than truth. I knew
the Cymric superstition about 'the call from the grave,' for had not
she herself just told me of it?

'I will turn Superstition, accursed Superstition itself, to account,'
I muttered. 'I will pretend that I am enmeshed in a web of Fate, and
doomed to die here myself. Then, if I know my Winifred, she will, of
her own free mind, die with me.'

'Winnie,' I said, 'I have to tell you something that I know must
distress you sorely on my account--something that must wring your
heart, dear, and yet it must be told.'

She turned her head sharply round with a look of alarm that almost
silenced me, so pathetic was it. On that courageous face I had not
seen alarm before, and this was alarm for evil coming to me. It shook
my heart--it shook my heart so that I could not speak.