"I would not wish a better death," said Ian.
"How can you talk so coolly about it!" she cried.
"Well," he returned, "what better way of going out of the world is there than by the door of help? No man cares much about what the idiots of the world call life! What is it whether we live in this room or another? The same who sent us here, sends for us out of here!"
"Most men care very much! You are wrong there!"
"I don't call those who do, men! They are only children! I know many men who would no more cleave to this life than a butterfly would fold his wings and creep into his deserted chrysalis-case. I do care to live—tremendously, but I don't mind where. He who made this room so well worth living in, may surely be trusted with the next!"
"I can't quite follow you," stammered Christina. "I am sorry.
Perhaps it is the cold. I can't feel my hands, I am so cold."
"Leave the wall, and put your arms round my neck. The change will rest me, and the water is already falling! It will go as rapidly as it came!"
"How do you know that?"
"It has sunk nearly a foot in the last fifteen minutes: I have been carefully watching it, you may be sure! It must have been a waterspout, and however much that may bring, it pours it out all at once."
"Oh!" said Christina, with a tremulous joyfulness; "I thought it would go on ever so long!"