ys been life itself, with
her gay smiles, and light tones, and quick movements. Now, she and they
were blotted out for all time. She had died against his breast, and for
him. That was the horrible thought; it came into his brain after all the
others, suddenly, and seemed as if it must burst it. And why, why should
she have done it? Her last words rang in his ears, "mere devilry." So
she had always been; reckless, open-handed, generous, she had often
risked her life for another, and now she had given it for him. And in
her last words she had tried to minimise her own act, tried to relieve
him of the burden of a hopeless gratitude. But for all that he would
have to bear it, and it seemed crushing him now. That she should have
given her life, so young, less than half his own, so full of value and
promise, for his! It seemed as if a reproach must follow him to the end
of his days.

He walked as in a dream. He had no sense of the distance they were
going, hardly any of the direction, except that he was following
mechanically Stephen's slow, uneven, halting footsteps, and watching
that little head that lay on his shoulder. Once when Stephen paused, he
stretched out his arms and offered to take the burden from him, but
Stephen repulsed him fiercely, and then the two went on slowly as
before, how long he did not know, it seemed a long time. Suddenly, in
the middle of the narrow pathway before him, Talbot saw Stephen stagger,
fall to his knees, and then sink heavily sideways in the snow, his arms
still tightly locked round the rigid body of the girl. Talbot hurried
forward and bent over him, feeling hastily in his own pockets for his
flask. Stephen's eyes were wide open and gazed up at him with a
hopeless, despairing determination that went to Talbot's heart and
chilled it.

"I can't go any farther, not another step," he muttered.

Talbot had been searching hurriedly through all his pockets for the
flask he always carried.

"Good God!" he exclaimed, "I haven't got it; I must have dropped it
coming up here, or they stole it in that hell down town."

Stephen feebly put up his hand.

"Don't trouble, I don't want it. I am just going to lie here and wait
with her. Was she not lovely?" he muttered to himself, raising himself
on his knees and laying the body before him on the snow.

The sky above them arched in pitchy blackness, but the starlight was so
keen and brilliant that it lighted up the white silence round them.
Stephe