group of
men with the weapon, and commanded, "You men come, too." She marched
them to the spot where Drury was concealed, and pointed to him and
snarled, "Get him out!"

The men tested their strength here and there without promise of success.
One group started a heap of wheels to slewing downward and Crosson
shouted to them to stop. An inch more, and they would have buried Drury
from sight or hope.

One man wormed through somehow and caught Drury by the hand, but the
first tug brought from him such a wail of anguish that the man fell
back. He could not budge the body clamped with steel. He could only
wrench it. So he came away.

"There's nothing for me to do, Reny," the doctor faltered, and, choked
with pity for her and her lover and the helplessness of mankind, he
turned away, and she let him go. The gun fell to the ground.

The other men left the place. One of them said that the wrecking-crew
would be along with a derrick in a few hours.

"A few hours!" Irene whimpered.

She leaned against the lattice that kept her from the bridegroom and
tried to tell him to be brave. But he had heard his sentence, and with
his last hope went what little courage he had ever had.

He began to plead and protest and weep. He gave voice to all the voices
of pain, the myriad voices from every tormented particle of him.

Irene knelt down and twisted through the crevice to where she could hold
his hand. But he snatched it away, babbling: "Don't touch me! Don't
touch me!"

Crosson stayed near, dreading lest Irene's skirts should catch fire.
Twice he beat them out with his hands. She had not noticed that they
were aflame. She was murmuring love-words of odious vanity to one who
almost forgot her existence, centered in the glowing sphere of his own
hell.

Drury rolled and panted and gibbered, cursed even, with lips more used
to gentle words and prayers. He prayed, too, but with sacrilege:

"O Lord, spare me this. O God, have a little mercy. Send rain, send
help, lift this mountain from me just till I can breathe. O God, if You
have any mercy in Your heart--but no, no--no, no, You let Your own Son
hang on the cross, didn't You? He asked You why You had deserted Him,
and You didn't answer, did You?"

Crosson looked up to see a thunderbolt split the dark sky, but the stars
were agleam now, twinkling about the moon's serenity.

Irene put her fingers across Drury's lips to hush his blasphemy. She
tore her face with her nails, and t