"Yes, thank God!"
To his amazement, she begun to bubble and murmur with laughter.
"But Mr. Hall didn't know I was going to meet my chance! Oh, Bert, it's so wonderful! I don't think you quite realise that Otis meant to kill you! He did, really! Don't you want to thank me for saving your life so nicely? Do thank me, just to make it seem real!"
The chest that pillowed her head heaved mightily. He forced an answer, but the effort broke him down.
"How could I thank you for saving mine ... if it was at the expense of yours?" He bent down his cheek upon her hair, and sobbed helplessly.
"I'm not dead, Bert, dear," she whispered.
"No; but you're in awful pain. Do you think I don't know? I can see you are chatting on like this, just to make me think you're not suffering! I can't bear it, Millie—I can't indeed! I am going to carry you a little way. Put your other arm round my neck; I'll raise you as slowly as I can. There! Did that shake you? I'll walk a few steps, and if the discomfort's too great, you must tell me."
It seemed to him that, as he moved along, his soul ran the gamut of all human emotion. Death and Life brushed sable and silver wings over him as he trod, and the glowing rose of Love warmed and lighted all things like the white heat of a furnace. Clear before him lay the picture of the former time when this very thing had happened. His memory of his feelings on that occasion was tinged with pity and contempt. What had he then known, or understood, of Love or Life?
Now at last he knew the value of both. The rapture and the insecurity swayed him to and fro like the motion of a pendulum. He had the gravest apprehensions about Melicent's injuries. The shattered arm was the same that had been dislocated five years before. He feared serious complications.
"Millie, Millie," he murmured, "is it very bad?"