"Oh! Chunda Lal"—she choked down a sob. "Be quick! be quick! He will kill him! he will kill him!"
"Off you go, doctor!" cried Max. "Come along, Dunbar!"
He began to climb the ironwork of the gate.
"This way!" said Miska, dragging Stuart by the arm. "Oh! I am wild with fear and sorrow and joy!"
"With joy, dear little Miska!" whispered Stuart, as he followed her.
They passed around the bend into the narrower lane which led toward the river and upon which the garden-door opened. Stuart detained her. If the fate of the whole world had hung in the balance—as indeed, perhaps it did—he could not have acted otherwise. He raised her bewitching face and kissed her ardently.
She trembled and clung to him rapturously.
"I live!" she whispered. "Oh! I am mad with happiness! It is Chunda Lal that gives me life—for he tells me the truth. It is not with the living-death that he touches me; it is a trick, it is all a trick to bind me to him! Oh, Chunda Lal! Hurry! he is going to kill him!"
But supreme above all the other truths in the world, the joyous truth that Miska was to live set Stuart's heart on fire.
"Thank God!" he said fervently—"oh, thank God! Miska!"