Dropping her gun in the grass, she ran forward in dismay, brushed aside the screen of weeds and jungle, and came face to face with Captain Dalton leaning against the trunk of a tree, holding his wrist.
"Oh!—have I hurt you?" she cried in an intensity of alarm rather than of surprise at finding him there, when she believed him at least some hundreds of miles away.
Dalton never looked at her, nor replied, but releasing his wrist, allowed the blood to drip to the ground from a trivial wound. A stray shot from the many in the cartridge had scratched the skin upon a vein, and the occasion was serving him well.
But out of all proportion to the injury was his pallor and the emotion that swept his face and held him quivering and tongue-tied.
"What can I do?" Honor cried in her distress. The sight of blood was enough to rend her tender heart; and to know that it had been shed by an act of hers, shook her to the foundations of her being.
Dalton produced a handkerchief in silence and passing it to her, allowed her to bandage the wound as well as she could. He was concerned only with watching the beautiful, sunburnt fingers that moved tremblingly to aid him, or the sympathetic face that bent over the task.
When the bandage was completed, their eyes met, and the same moment Honor was in his arms, clasped close to his breast while he murmured his adoration.
"I love you!—my God! how I love you! and I want you so! Oh, my precious little girl!—my Honey—my love!"
Honor asked no questions, but welcomed, with a sob of joy, the gift of love that flooded her heart to overflowing. She clung to his neck with loving abandonment and yielded her lips to his generously. With her great nature, she could do nothing by halves, so gave of her love with no grudging hand.
"Since when have you loved me, my Sweet?" he asked in tones that were music to her ears.