"And you—" she said in a whisper.
"What does it matter if I lose my life to-day instead of a few weeks hence? I grieve for this," with a glance at his foot, "because it keeps me from being with you, from guarding you into perfect safety. Otherwise it does not matter. You lose time, madam."
She stood with heaving bosom and foot tapping the ground, an expression that he could not read in her wonderful eyes. "I am not going," she said at last.
CHAPTER XXXV
THE BOAT THAT WAS NOT
"You will not go!" cried Landless.
"No, I will not!" she answered passionately. "Why should you think such a thing of me? See! we have been together, you and I, for long weeks! You have been my faithful guide, my faithful protector. Over and over again you have saved my life. And now, now when you are the helpless one, when it is through me that you lie there helpless, when it is through me that you are in this dreadful forest at all, you tell me to go! to leave you to the fate I have brought upon you! to save myself! I will not save myself! But the other day it was dishonor in you to leave me below the falls—almost in safety. Mine the dishonor if I do what you bid me do!"
"Madam, madam, it is not with women as with men!"
"I care not for women! I care for myself. Never, never, will I leave, helpless and wounded, the man who dies for me!"
"Upon my knees I implore you!" Landless cried in desperation. "You cannot save me, you cannot help me. It is you that would make the bitterness of my fate. Let me die believing that you have escaped these fiends, and then, do what they will to me, I shall die happy, blessing with my last breath the generous woman who lets me give—how proudly and gladly she will never know—my worthless life in exchange for hers, so young, bright, innocent. Go, go, before it is too late!"