"I think we've won."
By that he knew they had. A surge of relief swept up through him. It was like a new and strange delirium; it unseated his control. He sank upon his knees, and his lips touched one cool, moist hand. The fingers of her other hand ran lightly through his hair.
"O Arnold Trent, how you fought!" she breathed tremulously. "And all the while you were wondering, wondering why I was there that night—why I—"
"Hush," he remonstrated, lifting his head, again in command of himself. "It isn't finished yet. You must promise not to speak of that—not until I ask you. Now go to sleep. That is the quickest way you can get well."
"I promise," she said weakly, tears trembling in her eyes, "if you will rest, too. Will you? You need to be strong—strong—so you can help me."
She closed her eyes; sighed. Her hand slipped from his clasp.
He spread a blanket on the sand in front of the tent; spread it, and lay down; and almost instantly sleep declared itself the emperor of his being.
3
The convalescence of Dana Charteris was short. A break in the rains had more than a little to do with her recovery, for the sunshine was a golden elixir that aroused the stricken forces of her body, was a warmth that wiped away the fever-stains and ripened a faint color in her cheeks.
Once Trent offered to read to her. She begged him instead to tell her of those tiger-hunts with his father. That seemed to touch a spring that opened secret vaults of his nature. There was color and feeling in his telling. He spoke in the abstract. She could smell the beast, flanks aquiver, and wet, monsoon jungles in his sentences—sentences that abounded with the metaphors that he liked to use.... India lived in her while he talked—India, her wildernesses and her cities, her heart-break and her treachery. Too, he taught her a few Hindustani words and phrases.