"Yes! Yes!" Alice fondled his hand. "The descent was very dangerous."
"It is not that I was thinking about. That was nothing. But my doubts, my hesitation: my desire to save my own life at the cost of his. I wonder my hair has not turned grey. And to think that all the time things were coming to a point which would proclaim my innocence. Had I let your father die I should have committed a purposeless crime. But thanks be to Christ the All-Loving and All-Powerful, I did as I would be done by, and gave my enemy his life. What a moment of anguish it was: what a bitter, bitter moment," and the young man wiped the perspiration from his brow.
Alice drew his head down on her breast and murmured over him as a mother murmurs over a child. And Montrose really was a child at the moment as what he had passed through shook him still to the core of his being. "It's all right now, dear; it's all right now," she urged gently. "You have conquered your greatest enemy."
"Your father?"
"No, dear, yourself. And perhaps my father also. He does not seem to be so bitter against you as he was. Twice he smiled when your name was mentioned."
"Then he has recovered?"
"He will never recover," said the girl sadly. "The doctor says that his spine is injured."
"Poor man!" cried Douglas generously, "can I not see him?"
"Not at present. The doctor says he is to be kept quiet just now." Alice burst into distressful tears. "Heaven only knows that I have little reason to love my father; but it is heart-rending to see him lying there, broken down and helpless, with no future save a painful death."
This time it was her lover's turn to soothe and console. Drawing the sobbing girl closer to his heart, he said what he could. "Death is the gate of Life, we are told, dear."