checked himself with a sharp, indrawn breath. The next
instant he laid her hand gently down.

"You will know some day, Muriel," he said. "But for the present you
will have to take my reason on trust. I assure you it is a very good
one."

The restraint of his words was marked by a curious vehemence, but this
she was too ill at the time to heed. She turned her face away almost
fretfully.

"Why should I live?" she moaned. "There is no one wants me now."

"That will never be true while I live," Nick answered steadily, and
his tone was the tone of a man who registers a vow.

But again she did not heed him. She had suffered too acutely and
too recently to be comforted by promises. Moreover, she did not want
consolation. She wanted only to shut her eyes and die. In her weakness
she had not fancied that he could deny her this.

And so when presently he roused her by lifting her to resume the
journey, she shed piteous tears upon his shoulder, imploring him to
leave her where she was. He would not listen to her. He knew that it
was highly dangerous to rest so close to habitation, and he would not
risk another day in such precarious shelter.

So for hours he carried her with a strength almost superhuman, forcing
his physical powers into subjection to his will. Though limping badly,
he covered several miles of wild and broken country, deserted for the
most part, almost incredibly lonely, till towards sunrise he found a
resting-place in a hollow high up the side of a mountain, overlooking
a winding, desolate pass.

Muriel was either sleeping or sunk in the stupor of exhaustion. There
was some brandy left in his flask, and he made her take a little. But
it scarcely roused her, and she was too weak to notice that he did not
touch any himself.

All through the scorching day that followed, she dozed and woke in
feverish unrest, sometimes rambling incoherently till he brought her
gravely back, sometimes crying weakly, sometimes making feeble efforts
to pray.

All through the long, burning hours he never stirred away from her. He
sat close to her, often holding her in his arms, for she seemed less
restless so; and perpetually he gazed out with terrible, bloodshot
eyes over the savage mountains, through the long, irregular line of
pass, watching eagle-like, tireless and intent, for the deliverance
which, if it came at all, must come that way. His face was yellow and
sunken, lined in a thousand wrinkles like the face of a monk