"Draw the arm across—so."
"Phew—confound it! I'm sorry; it's nothing."
"I know how it must hurt."
The frank impulse toward sympathy in her voice sent a start of emotion through him. He set his teeth as she bound the broken arm to his side with the red scarf. There was a kind of pleasure in the pain.
"What gentle hands you have."
"Have I? There! How does that feel?"
"Splendid."
"Now I'll help you up."
Whatever a man's pluck may be it cannot raise him above nature, or make him independent of the ills of the flesh. Jasper Benham scrambled to his feet to be smothered by a sudden fog of faintness that blotted out the moonlight and set him groping with his hands.
"I can't help it—but——"