“Love you!” he cried.
“And she—at home?”
“That was not love,” he said, wildly. “But now tell me about this place—shall we see the day when it comes?”
“You will,” she said, softly. “I shall—perhaps.”
“Perhaps! No, you shall!” he whispered, as he pressed his arm gently around her, forgetting everything now of the past, save that this woman loved him, and that there was a future before them of hope and joy. “Tell me what I can do—to help you.”
“Hold me like that,” she whispered, with a sigh of content. “It is better so. It could never have been—only my wild dream—a woman’s thirst for the love of one in whom she could believe. A woman’s love!”
Little more than an hour could have passed, during which Humphrey had twice heard sounds of voices, and once a heavy step overhead—this last making him steal his right hand softly toward the sword that lay by his side—when a faint light seemed to gleam on the surface of the water in the centre of the vault; and soon after he found that this served to shed a softened dawn through the place—a dawn which grow stronger, but was never more than a subdued twilight. It was enough, though, to show him the proportions of the place, its quaint carving, and the fact that beside the long shaft which opened out far above his head there was what seemed to be a stone grille, beyond which was the tangled growth of the forest, much of which, in root and long, prickly shoot, penetrated nearly to where they sat.
As the light grew stronger he saw that his companion seemed to have lost the old masculine look given by her attire; for coat and vest had been cast aside, and the loose shirt, open at the neck, had more the aspect of a robe. Her dark hair curled closely about her temples; and as Humphrey Armstrong gazed down at the face, with its parted lips and long lashes lying upon the creamy dark cheeks, his heart throbbed, for he felt that he had won the love of as handsome a woman as any upon whom his eyes had ever lit.
He forgot the wound, the bandaging kerchief seeming in the semi-darkness like some scarf; and as he sat and gazed he bent down lower and softly touched the moist forehead with his lips.
Mary awoke up with a frightened start and gazed at him wildly, but as consciousness came her look softened and she nestled to him.