With a cry of relief and worry blended, she immediately understood. It was Grenville's labored panting she had heard, where he would not call for assistance for fear she should be alarmed. She caught up the torch she had kept so faithfully alight for his guidance, and ran hastily down to give him welcome.
He was leaning against the wall once more, his mouth a little open for the air his lungs demanded, his face drawn and white with his utter weakness and exhaustion. In one keen glance Elaine comprehended his condition.
"Sidney!" she cried. "Oh! but why did you go? Why would you work so hard to-night?"
He could conjure no smile to his lips. "I love you, Elaine," he answered. "It kills me to see you suffer."
"Oh please—please don't," she begged him. Her eyes were brimming with tears.
He sank on the floor of the passage as he tried once more to raise the jugs. And yet, when Elaine pounced eagerly upon the bottle full of water, and pressed it to his lips, his stubborn resistance was once more reasserted. He accepted a few sips only, then thrust it firmly away.
"That last little pull was steeper than I thought," he admitted, as he forced himself to rise and set his jugs more carefully in the rocks against the wall. "If you will oblige me by taking a drink of water——"
"Not now," Elaine interrupted, as self-denying as before. "I am not the least bit thirsty. If you'll only rest—if you'll go to sleep——"
"I shall go to no rest till you have taken a cup of water."
She knew he would not. She drank from the bottle, perhaps three ordinary swallows of the liquid, like nectar to her palate.