"She is going to be within gunfire in a minute," he declared. "We are trying to escape. That constitutes a crime in the eyes of the Teuton. She will send us a shell, at least."
"Perhaps she will not hit us."
"You have a poorer opinion of German efficiency than I have," he returned dryly. "I am glad it has come in the daytime. If you have valuables in your stateroom—you and your aunt—you had better secure them."
"Oh!"
"We may be in the boats in ten minutes."
She still clung to his arm, looking deep into his eyes as he spoke. There was something in their steady fire that thrilled her. She knew she gazed into the eyes of a man who was perfectly fearless of spirit.
"'The look of eagles,'" was her unspoken thought.
"Do you hear me, Miss Melnotte—Belinda?"
She started and the color swept into her throat and face. His tender tone could not be mistaken. His desire to aid and sustain her savored of a thought she had determined to shut away from her mind and heart.
And yet, in this intimate moment, with death advancing upon them, was it wrong to show him a little, just a breath, of her real concern? Her hand slipped down his coatsleeve with a caressing gesture and lay for a moment trembling in his own. Frank Sanderson thought, as his hand closed over it, that it was like the body of a bird fallen from its nest that he had once picked up by the roadside. He could feel her fluttering heartbeats in the pulse of it.