ear--her dilated eyes,
gazing forth upon the gushing fires, were wild and horror-stricken.
Eustace, standing there at her side, could hardly restrain himself from
throwing his arms around her and pouring out a passionate storm of
comforting, loving words. Yet she belonged to another man--was bound to
him until death should them part. But what if death had already parted
them? What if she were so bound no longer? he thought with a fierce,
wild yearning that had in it something of the murderer's fell purpose,
as he strained his gaze upon the wild signals of savage hostility.

"Don't be frightened, Eanswyth," he said reassuringly, but in a voice
from which even he could not banish every trace of emotion. "You shall
come to no harm to-night, dear, take my word for it. To-morrow, though,
we must take you to some safer place than this is likely to prove for
the next few days."

She made no answer. He had drawn his arm through hers and the strong,
reassuring touch seemed to dispel her fears. It seemed to him that she
leaned upon him, as though for physical support no less than for mental.
Thus they stood, their figures silhouetted in the dull red glow. Thus
they stood, the face of the one stormy with conflicting emotions--that
of the other calm, restful, safe in that firm protecting companionship.
Thus they stood, and to one of these two that isolated position in the
midst of a brooding peril represented the sweetest, most ecstatic moment
that life had ever afforded. And still upon the distant hilltops,
gushing redly upward into the velvety darkness, the war-fires of the
savages gleamed and burned.

"We had better go in now," said Eustace, after a while, when the flaming
beacons had at length burnt low. "You must be tired to death by this
time, and it won't do to sit out here all night. You must have some
rest."

"I will try," she answered. "Do you know, Eustace, there is a something
about you that seems to put everything right. I am not in the least
frightened now."

There was a softness in her tone that bordered upon tenderness--a
softness that was dangerous indeed to a man in his frame of mind.

"Ah! you find that, do you?" he answered, in a strained, harsh,
unnatural voice. Then his utterance seemed choked. Their eyes met in
the starlight--met in a long, clinging gaze--then their lips. Yet, she
belonged to another man, and--a life stood between these two.

Thus to that extent Eustace Milne, the cool