"Well, of course you are mad, in a sense; any coroner's inquest would say so. But mock you! I love you, Allida."
Her face had now as wild, as frozen a look on it as the one he had seen, not three hours before, after she had slipped the letter into the pillar-box; but it was with another wildness—of wonder rather than of despair.
"But how can you?" she faltered.
"I can tell you how, but you must wait an hour—more than an hour—to hear. You will wait—Allida?"
"It is pity, to save me."
"To save you? Why, I'd hand you over to the nearest policeman if I only wanted to save you. I do want to save you—for myself."
There drifted through her mind a vision of her little room, where, by this time, she might have been lying on the bed, the empty bottle of poison near her. And that vision of death was now far away, across an abyss, and she was in life, and life held her, claimed her.
"But I can't understand. How is it possible?" She closed her eyes. "My letter," she whispered.
Haldicott put his arm around her and led her down the path.
"Ainslie is a dear fellow," he said. "We will write him another letter as soon as we get in."