'Will nothing save him?' she said, wringing her hands.
'Yes,' Eric said slowly, looking at her with troubled eyes; 'there is one thing that would save him.'
She looked up at him, and their eyes met, and her heart gave a great bound, and something seemed to surge up in her ears, and swim before her eyes, and choke in her throat. She wasn't quite sure for a minute if anything had happened to her; and when her heart beat again, and the wave went back, and the trees and the college ceased to go round, Eric was looking down at her with his troubled eyes, and his weak lips quivering as he spoke.
'The one thing that would save him would entail sacrifice—the sacrifice of a life—and only a noble woman could make it——'
'You mean,' she said, speaking hoarsely—that lump in her throat hadn't gone yet—'you mean that a woman could save him?'
'Yes,' he said, almost with a groan; 'but it would be at her own cost.'
'Not if she loved him?'
'Yes; all the more if she loved him.'