to cry.

He gathered her closer still, murmuring fond words, while he rubbed her
face and hands, imparting the warmth of his own body to hers. His
presence was like a fiery essence encompassing her. Lying there against
his heart, she felt the tide of life turn in her veins and steadily flow
again. Like a child, she clung to him, and after a while, with an impulse
sublimely natural, she lifted her lips to his.

He pressed his lips upon them closely, lingeringly. "Better now,
sweetheart?" he whispered.

And she, clinging to him, found voice to answer, "Nothing matters now you
have come."

The consciousness of his protecting care filled her with a rapture almost
too great to be borne. She throbbed in his arms, pressing closer, ever
closer. And the grim Shadow of Death receded from the threshold. She knew
that she was safe.

It was soon after this that the thought of Isabel came to her, and
tremulously she begged him to go to her. But he would not suffer her out
of his arms.

"The others can see to her," he said. "You are my care."

She thrilled at the words, but she would not be satisfied. "She has been
so good to me," she told him pleadingly "See, I am wearing her coat."

"But for her you would never have come to this," he made brief reply, and