“Have any escaped?” he whispered.
“God knows—Macdonald.”
So cold it was, so cold, and she so helpless; she cast more peat on the fire and prayed that some one might come; that some one, in this valley of the dead, might be living and come.
Through the long, bitter night she knelt so, holding him, till her limbs were stiff with his weight; he spoke no word, only his struggling breath showed that he lived.
With the first breaking of the pale gray dawn, he turned his head toward the open door.
“I hear horses,” he said.
Delia started from a half-swoon.
“I hear none,” she answered.
“They come,” he whispered. “I am dying so slowly—”
“God knows,” she said wildly.