He slipped back onto the floor, with his head in her lap and her two hands gathered in his one. They were both silent. The little fire was going out and the room was almost dark. And in that happy depth of life where she had led him he was at first unaware of any change. Then he knew that the hands he held had become tense, that rigidity was creeping over her whole body, and looking up, he could just make out through the dusk, the alert head, the parted lips of one who is waiting for a sound. "Bryce," she said, "you were mistaken. That detective has not gone!"
"What do you hear?"
"I don't hear. I simply know." Their senses strained into the silence. "If he went away, it was only to bring some one back. He went to get Ten Euyck!"
"Christina! Tell me what you're really afraid of!"
"Oh! Oh!" she breathed.
"Christina, what was it you couldn't go through with?"
"Death!" she said. "Not that way! I can't!" She rocked herself softly to and fro. "If I could die now!" she whispered.
"You shan't die. And you shan't go crazy, either. You're driving yourself mad, keeping silence." He drew her to her feet, and she stood, shaking, in his arms. "Christina, what's your trouble?"
"Nancy,—that murder—my opening—my danger—aren't they enough?"
"For everything but your conviction that it is you who are pursued, and you who will be punished. Some horrible accident, dear heart, has shown you something, which you must tell. Tell it to me, and we will find that it is nothing."