Again the hurrying feet passed, again the gaunt fugitives went by, yet she heeded them not. Her whole soul was in what she was endeavouring to do--to staunch that gaping wound. Then suddenly one, an old, white-faced, terror-stricken man with long gray hair, stopped, seeing those forms; stopped, peering through the moonbeam that slanted down upon their faces; stopped, then advanced toward them.
"'Tis he," he whispered, bending toward the wounded man. "Martin! Martin! O Martin, my friend!"
"You know him? Your friend? You know him?" she whispered back. "Who are you?"
"His friend, Buscarlet, the inhibited pasteur of Montvert. Driven to the mountains at last, forced to abide with these unhappy outcasts, but, thank God, not yet to draw the sword. No, no, not that! Never, never! Only to pray upon my knees to them by morn and night to shed no blood, to bear, to suffer all. To do that, I followed them here. Only they will not listen. Oh, Baville, Baville, has not your tiger's fury been glutted yet?" And he gazed down upon the almost senseless form of Martin lying there, muttering, "If I could save you!"
Then, a moment later, he spoke again.
"Who," he said very gently now, "are you? Not his wife or sister, I know. But what?"
For a moment she did not answer, looking up at him, instead, with wide, clear eyes so full of sorrow that her glance struck him to the heart.
"I was to have been his, am his, affianced wife. And--and--God help me!--I am Baville's, that tiger's, adopted child!"
"You! His adopted child, and Martin's affianced wife!"
"Even so." And she bent her head and wept.