Then, suddenly, desperately clutching my hand:
"Mr. Durward, you'll never tell any one, any one never.... Promise!"
"Never a soul," I answered. "It's only because you're cold and hungry and sleepy that you think you're frightened. You're not frightened really. But wouldn't you like me to wake Trenchard and get him to come to you.... He'd be so happy?..."
She started fiercely from me. "Never! Never! Why, what can you think! You must never tell, most of all you must never tell him.... He must never know—nothing—"
The cannon began again. She caught my arm and stood with her body trembling, pressed against mine. I could feel her draw a deep breath. As I looked at her, her face white in the dawn, her large eyes staring like a child's, her body so young and slender, she seemed another creature, utterly, absolutely apart from the woman of this last fortnight.
"Look here!" I said to her sternly. "You mustn't go on like this. You've got work to do to-day. You've simply got to hold yourself in, to tell yourself that nothing can touch you. Why to-night you'll laugh at me if I remind you of this. You'll...."
But there was better tonic than my words, Semyonov's voice came to us—"Hullo, you there! It's five o'clock—we're moving."
She drew herself sharply away from me. She raised her head, smiled at me, then said:
"Thank you, Mr. Durward. It's all well now. There's Dr. Semyonov—let us go back."
She greeted him with a voice that had in it not the slightest tremor.