ick, Wetherby! The brandy!" Ah, well she knew those brief, peremptory
tones! "My God! We're only just in time!"

Fast pressed against a man's heart, a faint warmth went through her. She
knew an instant of perfect serenity; but the next she uttered a piteous
cry of pain. For fire--liquid, agonizing--was on her bloodless lips and
in her mouth. It burned its ruthless way down her throat, setting her
whole body tingling, waking afresh in her the power to suffer.

She turned, weakly gasping, and hid her face upon the breast that
supported her.

Instantly she felt herself clasped more closely. "It's all right, little
darling, all right!" he whispered to her with an almost fierce
tenderness. "Take it like a good child! It'll pull you through."

With steady insistence he turned her face back again, chafing her icy
cheek hard. And in a moment or two another burning dose was on its way.

It made her choke and gurgle, but it did its work. The frozen heart in
her began to beat again with great jerks and bounds, sending quivering
shocks throughout her body.

She tried to speak to him, to whisper his name; but she could only gasp
and gasp against his breast, and presently from very weakness she began
to cry.

He gathered her closer still, murmuring fond words, while he rubbed her
face and hands, imparting the warmth of his own body to hers. His
presence was like a fiery essence encompassing her. Lying there against
his heart, she felt the tide of life turn in her veins and steadily flow
again. Like a child, she clung to him, and after a while, with an impulse
sublimely natural, she lifted her lips to his.

He pressed his lips upon them closely, lingeringly. "Better now,
sweetheart?" he whispered.

And she, clinging to him, found voice to answer, "Nothing matters now you
have come."

The consciousness of his protecting care filled her with a rapture almost
too great to be borne. She throbbed in his arms, pressing closer, ever
closer. And the grim Shadow of Death receded from the threshold. She knew
that she was safe.

It was soon after this that the thought of Isabel came to her, and
tremulously she begged him to go to her. But he would not suffer her out
of his arms.

"The others can see to her," he said. "You are my care."

She thrilled at the words, but she would not be satisfied. "She has been
so good to me," she told him pleadingly "See, I am wearing her coat."

"But for her you would never have come to this," he