But her fate spoke eloquently of our own danger, and I roused him to action. Together we picked up the form of our dead comrade and carried it to the rear. I hesitated to pull forth the barbed head of the spear, and instead broke off the shaft, leaving the point buried in the soft throat, from which a crimson line extended over the white shoulder.
A short distance ahead we came to a projecting boulder, and behind that we gently laid her on the hard rock. Neither of us had spoken a word. Harry's lips were locked tightly together; a lump rose in my throat, choking all utterance and filling my eyes with tears.
Harry knelt beside the white form and, gathering it gently in his arms, held it against his breast. I stood at his side, gazing down at him in mute sympathy and sorrow.
For a long minute there was silence—a most intense silence throughout the cavern, during which the painful throbbing of my heart was plainly audible; then Harry murmured, in a voice of the utmost tenderness: "Desiree!" And again, "Desiree! Desiree!" until I half expected the very strength and sweetness of his emotion to bring our comrade back to life.
Suddenly, with a quick, impulsive movement, he raised his head to glance at me.
"She loved you," he said; and though there was neither jealousy nor anger in his voice, somehow I could not meet his gaze.
"She loved you," he repeated in a tone half of wonder. "And you—you—"
I answered his eyes.
"She was yours," I said, with a touch of bitterness that persuaded him of the truth. "All her beauty, all her loveliness, all her charm, to be buried—Ah! God help us—"
My voice broke, and I knelt on the ground beside Harry and pressed my lips to the white forehead and golden hair of what had been Le Mire.