hat she should cling
convulsively to him when the fierce pain tingled unbearably. She had
reached out for the nearest help, and he gave of his strength and
courage abundantly.

Presently the prickling of the flowing blood grew less sharp. She began
to grow drowsy with warmth after the fatigue and pain. The big eyes
shut, fluttered open, smiled at him, and again closed. She had fallen
asleep from sheer exhaustion.

He looked down with an odd queer feeling at the small aristocratic face
relaxed upon his ann. The long lashes had drooped to the cheeks and
shuttered the eyes that had met his with such confident appeal, but
they did not hide the dark rings underneath, born of the hardships she
had endured. As he walked the floor with her, he lived once more the
terrible struggle through which they had passed. He saw Death
stretching out icy hands for her, and as his arms unconsciously
tightened about the soft rounded body, his square jaw set and the
fighting spark leaped to his eyes.

"No, by Heaven," he gave back aloud his defiance.

Troubled dreams pursued her in her sleep. She clung close to him, her
arm creeping round his neck for safety. He was a man not given to fine
scruples, but all the best in him responded to her unconscious trust.

It was so she found herself when she awakened, stiff from her cramped
position. She slipped at once to the floor and sat there drying her
lace skirts, the sweet piquancy of her childish face set out by the
leaping fire-glow that lit and shadowed her delicate coloring. Outside
in the gray darkness raged the death from which he had snatched her by
a miracle. Beyond--a million miles away--the world whose claim had
loosened on them was going through its routine of lies and love, of
hypocrisies and heroisms. But here were just they two, flung back to
the primordial type by the fierce battle for existence that had
encompassed them--Adam and Eve in the garden, one to one, all else
forgot, all other ties and obligations for the moment obliterated. Had
they not struggled, heart beating against heart, with the breath of
death icing them, and come out alive? Was their world not contracted to
a space ten feet by twelve, shut in from every other planet by an
illimitable stretch of storm?

"Where should I have been if you had not found me?" she murmured, her
haunting eyes fixed on the flames.

"But I should have found you--no matter where you had been, I should
have found you."

The words s