pecting and unresisting
flesh was more than she could master. Slowly the head was yielding to
those horrible hands, and the newcomer's eyes rested on her own for the
merest instant. It was the look of a courageous man sinking beneath
waves; but the sweat and whipcord veins were eloquent of his frenzied
resistance.

"Someone's coming! Someone's coming!" she suddenly cried, rushing to the
door and flinging it wide open.

Tusk looked up with a snarl.

"Quick! Quick!" she cried again. "Here, this way--quick! He's killing a
man! Oh, thank God!" She sprang back into the room, rapturously clasping
the knife to her breast. "They've come! They've come!"

With an oath Tusk flung his victim heavily to the floor and dashed to a
rear window through which he disappeared. She watched only long enough
to see that his rout was absolute--that her ruse of approaching help had
been successful. Then she turned.

The room seemed dark to her eyes which had just been peering into the
sunset's fading glow, and she walked with feeling steps toward the spot
where she knew the body lay, asking in a whisper: "Are you alive?" The
heavy silence made her shiver. There, at her feet, sprawled the shadowy
bulk, twisted and grotesque, and an uncontrollable feeling of loathing
crept over her.

With startling suddenness a quail, close by the open door, ripped out
his evening call, and she sprang back as though the thing upon the floor
had moved. Yet she continued to stare down at it, her cold hands pressed
against her burning cheeks--fascinated, horrified. A few little minutes
ago he had been a moving, feeling being like herself; and now he had
entered the portals of that mysterious eternity--at this very moment he
was standing before the calm scrutiny of God Himself! How was he
behaving in that great inspection? Trembling with bowed head, like
herself? Or smiling with a courage he had shown during his last earthly
moments while giving his life for her?

So vivid were these thoughts which raced like fury through her brain
that when the body did actually move she gave a piercing shriek of
terror. But she had recovered even before the echo of her voice
resounded through the little room and, instantly alert, brought the
drinking bucket from its shelf to bathe his face.

Kneeling there--or, rather, in an attitude of sitting on her crossed
feet--eagerly watching for another sign of life, the tenderness which
spoke in mute eloquence from every movement