He stumbled, regained his balance, and plunged through a fringe of pines, staggered against one, then another, cursed, and went again forward and out into a clearing. She saw it vaguely before them. At first she doubted, then, as he let his hold on her slip, she gripped his neck with arms that scarcely felt the body they closed around.
"Lawrence," she screamed in a voice that was shrill—"Lawrence, a cabin, a cabin!"
He sank down with her clinging to him still. "I know," he muttered, "I've got to find one." Then he lay quiet.
She freed herself and crept toward the house. She was at the back of it, and she was obliged to crawl slowly on hands and knees around to the front. There was a door, she pushed on it, but it did not open. She grew angry at it, and beat against it with her fists, abusing it for its obstinacy. When at last it opened she laughed wildly.
Before her, his tall body, clad in warm, heavy clothes, stood a man whose dark eyes grew wet with tears of pity the instant they saw her. He lifted her in his arms like a child and carried her inside. She had a fleeting sense of being at home, she thought he was her husband and threw her arms around him passionately, then, remembering Lawrence, she murmured as he laid her down, "Out there—behind the cabin!" and was unconscious.
The man turned and hurried out. In a few minutes he came back, carrying Lawrence, and his face was lined with pity at the state of these two human beings.
He laid them together on a wide berth at the side of the cabin and began to work over them alternately. Swiftly and deftly he heated blankets and prepared food. He wound them in the hot cloth, chafed their hands and arms, and forced brandy down their throats.
Lawrence's eyelids drew back.
"The man is blind," muttered the stranger in Spanish.
Claire was looking at him dazedly and reaching greedily toward the kettle that simmered over a great open fireplace.