Will no one ever come?
Roger glares despairingly at Dulce, who is still trying to get some brandy down the wounded man's throat, and even as she does so Stephen's eyes unclose, and a heavy sobbing sigh escapes him.
Strangely enough, as the two bend over him, and his gaze wanders from one face to the other, it rests finally, with a great sense of content, not on Dulce's face but Roger's. Instinctively he turns in his hour of need from the woman who had wronged him to the man whom he had wronged in the first instance, and who—though he had suffered many things at his hands of late—brings to him now a breath from that earlier and happier life, where love—which has proved so bitter—was unknown.
"Stephen! Dear old fellow, you are not much hurt, are you?" asks Roger, tenderly. "Where is the pain? Where does it hurt you most?"
"Here!" says Stephen, faintly, trying to lift one of his arms to point to his left side; but, with a groan, the arm falls helpless, and then they know, with sickening feeling of horror, that it is broken. Stephen loses consciousness again for a moment.
"It is broken!" says Roger. "And I am afraid there must be some internal injury besides. What on earth is to be done, Dulce?" in a frantic tone; "we shall have him here all night unless we do something. Will you stay with him while I run and try to find somebody?"
But Stephen's senses having returned to him by this time, he overhears and understands the last sentence.
"No, don't leave me," he entreats, earnestly, though speaking with great difficulty. "Roger, are you there? Stay with me."
"There is Dulce," falters Roger.
"No, no; don't leave me here alone," says the wounded man, with foolish persistency, and Roger, at his wits' end, hardly knows what to do.