"Let him go!" she said very urgently. "Let him go—while he can!"
Rivington looked down into her white face. He was white himself—white to the lips.
"I haven't done with him yet," he said, and he spoke between his teeth.
"I know," she said. "I know. But he has had enough. You mustn't kill him."
She was strangely calm, and her calmness took effect. Later, she wondered at that also.
Rivington jerked the exhausted man upright.
"Go back!" he said to Ernestine. "Go back! I won't kill him!"
She took him at his word, and went back. She heard Rivington speak briefly and sternly, and Dinghra mumbled something in reply. She heard the shuffling of feet, and knew that Rivington was helping him to walk.
For a little while she watched the two figures, the one supporting the other, as they moved slowly away. Dinghra's head was sunk upon his breast. He slunk along like a beaten dog. Then the trunk of a tree hid them from her sight.
When that happened, Ernestine suffered herself to collapse upon the moss, with her head upon her arms.