He found a little voice for her. He would have, I think, from the grave.
“Are you come to save me, Betty?”
“Yes.”
“My hands are tied behind. They are so cut and bound I have lost all feeling in them; and if I shouldn’t be able to rise, Betty?”
She held his head to her convulsively. She cried silently, as a woman can if she will.
“We must not be a moment,” she whispered. “I hear them talking. We must move like mice. There is a horror outside; but what of it, if it let me pass to you.”
She put her hand again on his mouth, tacitly bidding him to the most tense silence. With her heart torn with pity, she bent and examined the knots. They were cruelly drawn, but love and good white teeth will work sufficient miracles. She had cracked harder nuts in her time. He felt her at work like a rat, vicious and determined. Once he felt lips light like down on the bruised members, and he thought. Though they were mortified and dead they should quicken at that.
All of a sudden his hands were free. He would have endeavoured to rise, but with a quick gesture she kept him down. She came to the front, and swiftly with her strong young arms pulled the boots from his numbed feet.
“Now!” she signified.
He was up in a moment. Broken as he was, the stimulus given his spirit by the devotion of this true soul was divine. Supporting him with all her love, she helped him step by step across the floor. Then for the first time he noticed that the girl was in her stockinged feet, and that the casement stood wide to the freezing night.