Judith had but just brought her brother into safety, or comparative safety, and now another, Coppinger, had plunged into the burning cottage, rushed to almost certain death. She cried to him as well as she could with her short breath. She could not leave him within. Why had he run there? She saw on her dress the blood that had fallen from him. She went outside the hut and dragged Jamie forth and laid him on the grass. Then, without hesitation, inhaling all the pure air she could, she darted once more into the burning cottage. Her eyes were stung with the smoke, but she pushed on, and found Coppinger under the open window, fallen on the floor, his back and head against the wall, his arms at his side, and the blood streaming over the slate pavement from his right gashed wrist. Accident or instinct—it could not have been judgment—had carried him to the only spot in the room where pure air was to be found, and there it descended like a rushing waterfall, blowing about the prostrate man’s wild long hair.
“Judith!” said he, looking at her, and he raised his left hand. “Judith, this is the end.”
“Oh, Captain Coppinger, do come out. The house is burning. Quick, or it will be too late.”
“It is too late for me,” he said. “I am wounded.” He held up his half-severed hand. “I gave this to you and you rejected it.”
“Come—oh, do come—or you and I will be burnt.” In the inrushing sweep of air both were clear of the smoke and could breathe.
He shook his head. “I am followed. I will not be taken. I am no good now—without my right hand. I will not go to jail.”
She caught his arm, and tearing the kerchief from her neck, bound it round and round where the veins were severed.
“It is in vain,” he said. “I have lost most of my blood. Ju!”—he held her with his left hand—“Ju, if you live, swear to me, swear you will sign the register.”
She was looking into his face—it was ghastly, partly through loss of blood, partly because lighted by the glare of the burning tobacco that dropped from above. Then a sense of vast pity came surging over her along with the thought of how he had loved her. Into her burning eyes tears came.
“Judith!” he said, “I made my confession to you—I told you my sins. Give me also my release. Say you forgive me.”