“Of course, I’ll stay by you, dear. I’ll never go till you turn me away.” He took new grip with his arms, pinning her between his breast and the weed-ragged leg of the pile. “Elsie, I want to tell you something. You know I’ve always liked you as a friend; but now it has come to more than that. Much more. Love, darling. Once my mind was full of another woman, and I thought I could never care for any one else as I cared for her. But that was years since—thousands of years it seems now—and, Elsie, I’ve—I’ve—forgotten her. She is only a name to me; and your sister. Dear, if we get away from this, do you think you could like me, too, a little more than an ordinary friend?”
She put her lips to his ear. “Do you think we shall come out of it alive, Pat? Tell me honestly.”
“I hope so.”
“Honestly, Pat.”
“I’m afraid, darling, it’s a poor chance.”
Her soft, wet cheek nestled against him, and strands of her hair intertwined themselves with his. “Pat,” she said, “you never knew, but I loved you all along from the first.”
Then, for the first time during many years, Patrick Onslow knew what it was to fear death. Before-time life had held many torments for him, and if lead or water or steel chose to show him the Great Secret, he did not very much care. Now it was all different. He lusted to live with a fierceness which almost drove him mad.
“You are trembling,” the girl said anxiously.
“I know I am. You have made me a rank coward, dear.”
She understood him, and kissed his mouth; but no other words passed between them.