"Why don't you let me die? I want to die. Why do you hold me back?"
"Why?" said Nick swiftly. "Do you really want me to tell you why?"
But there he checked himself with a sharp, indrawn breath. The next instant he laid her hand gently down.
"You will know some day, Muriel," he said. "But for the present you will have to take my reason on trust. I assure you it is a very good one."
The restraint of his words was marked by a curious vehemence, but this she was too ill at the time to heed. She turned her face away almost fretfully.
"Why should I live?" she moaned. "There is no one wants me now."
"That will never be true while I live," Nick answered steadily, and his tone was the tone of a man who registers a vow.
But again she did not heed him. She had suffered too acutely and too recently to be comforted by promises. Moreover, she did not want consolation. She wanted only to shut her eyes and die. In her weakness she had not fancied that he could deny her this.
And so when presently he roused her by lifting her to resume the journey, she shed piteous tears upon his shoulder, imploring him to leave her where she was. He would not listen to her. He knew that it was highly dangerous to rest so close to habitation, and he would not risk another day in such precarious shelter.
So for hours he carried her with a strength almost superhuman, forcing his physical powers into subjection to his will. Though limping badly, he covered several miles of wild and broken country, deserted for the most part, almost incredibly lonely, till towards sunrise he found a resting-place in a hollow high up the side of a mountain, overlooking a winding, desolate pass.