When he saw Myron, lying prostrate and silent, his first sensation was one of relief. He had feared that she had fled into the desolate night; he realized that she had been frightened and had fainted. Raising her in his arms, he called her name softly. Her senses were already reasserting themselves. She soon stirred, looking up at him with eyes of blank terror, which faded slowly into wonderment as she recognized him. She held her hands up to him, and pressed closer to the shelter of his breast. He caught both her hands in one of his, and groped for a chair with the other. In turning, his eyes caught a vision of the open door of the death chamber. He saw dimly the couch, with its rigid burden, and saw those dreadful glaring eyes. For a moment, he caught his breath. Myron, seeing the direction of his gaze, clung shudderingly to him, and hid her face on his arm. An instant more, and Homer perceived the outline behind those gleaming spots.
"It's a brute of a cat," he said; and Myron, understanding all at once the origin of the sound, broke down in sobs of relief. She caught up the lantern, whilst he went in and seized the bristling creature, crouching upon the corpse, and flung it out among its lurking companions.
"How is it you are in the dark?" asked Homer.
"The lamp went out," she answered. "There's some oil in the cupboard."
He held the lantern, whilst she filled and re-lit the lamp. Then he explained his presence.
"How good you are!" said Myron.
"Good?" he said, his eyes fastening upon her forlorn figure bending over the cradle, for My was stirring.
"Good?" Then he burst forth, "What beasts these women are to leave you alone!"
"It was dreadful," she said, trembling. "The darkness, the noises, the loneliness—those eyes, and her!" looking towards the inner room. Then suddenly she caught his sleeve: "Don't leave me till daylight, will you? Oh, don't! I can't stay alone; I am frightened! I—oh, don't leave me, will you?"
"Leave you? Of course not. I wish——," he checked himself abruptly. It was on his tongue to say, "I wish I might never leave you," but a sense of her absolute isolation smote him so keenly that the words stuck in his throat. Had he spoken then, how many things might have been different, for Myron, in her utter loneliness, was ready to cling to any outstretched hand.