He bent and whispered: “You are risking your own life for me, Helen! Life for life—death for death!”
It was too much even for his great strength, and when he recovered himself he was sitting on the sand of the little cave. How long she had clung to his arm he did not know, but it had ceased to pain him and her own handkerchief was tied around it.
He staggered out, a terrible pallor on his face, as he said: “Not this way—not to go this way. Oh, God, your blow—I care not for death, but, oh, not this death?”
“Clay,” he said after a while—“Take her—take her to your mother and sister to-night. I must bid you both good-night, ay, and good-bye. See, you walk only across the field there—that is Westmoreland.”
He turned, but he felt some one clinging to his hand, in the dark. He looked down at her, at the white, drawn face, beautiful with a terrible pain: “Take me—take me,” she begged—“with you—to the end of the world—oh, I love you and I care not who knows.”
“Child—child”—he whispered sadly—“You know not what you say. I am dying. I shall be mad—unless—unless what you have done—”
“Take me,” she pleaded—“my lion. I am yours.”
He stooped and kissed her and then walked quickly away.