"Where has he gone?" Elaine faintly chattered. "If he should only be waiting to come again—— Such a horrible fright—— I don't know why I didn't faint, or what I did. I'm so weak I can hardly walk."
"Oh, you're as right a trivet!" said Grenville, with a ready comprehension of the need of keeping up her courage. "You can now retire with a comforting sense of having saved the night."
But Elaine's sense of comfort was a woefully negative quantity. She was shaken to the center of her nerves. She dreaded to be left for a moment.
Grenville, however, sent her off to bed in the most peremptory manner. A realizing sense that their trials had only well begun was his one deeply settled conviction.
"Cheer up!" he said to her, finally, "the worst is still to come."
"I'll try," she answered, courageously. "But please don't let it come to-night."
For more than two hours she did not sleep, or even close her eyes. Then she dragged her couch to a space outside her door. Every movement made by Grenville, as he watchfully policed the edge of the terrace, she thus followed for a time, half rising beneath her tiger-skin rug in her dread to hear him go.
When she finally slept she dreamed once more of the murderous eyes, the clenched white teeth, and the flame-shaped blade she had seen at the brink of the cliff. Grenville heard her laboredly call his name as in her dreams she once more underwent her disturbing ordeal, but he did not move from his seat.
At dawn she was slumbering more peacefully, a smile on her lips as she lay there facing his position. What a royal little princess of the island she appeared with her colorful robe lying out upon the rocks, her hair so much more golden than the tawny hide, and the warm, healthy glow restored once more to her cheeks!
Grenville was sure he had never half appreciated the wonder and abundance of her hair, the darker penciling of her arching brows, the delicate beauty of her features.