"Your hand!" she gasped.
He stretched it out feebly, but withdrew it in an agony; for the stones crushed his bowels.
"You are hurt?"
"Killed." He contrived a smile. "Not so wide as a church door," he quoted, looking up at her strangely through the wan light; "but 'twill serve."
"My friend! and I cannot help you!" She plucked vainly at the mass of stones burying his legs.
He gasped on his anguish, and controlled it.
"Let be these silly bricks. . . . They belong to some grocer's kitchen-chimney, belike—but they have killed me, and may as well serve for my tomb. Reach me your hand."
He took it and thrust it gently within the breast of his waistcoat. There, guided by him, her fingers closed on the handle of a tiny stiletto.
"The sheath too . . . it is sewn by a few stitches only." He looked up into her eyes. "You are too beautiful to be wandering these streets alone."
"I understand," she said gravely.