“Oh!” the woman moaned. “He’s dead!”
Adam shook his head. Pity, fear, and even terror rang in her poignant cry, but not love.
“Ah!... You’ve saved him, then.... He’s injured—there’s a great bruise—he breathes so heavily.”
While Adam sat panting, unable to speak, the woman wiped her husband’s face and worked over him.
“He came back once—and fell into a stupor like this, but not so deep. What can it be?”
“Poison—air,” choked Adam.
“Oh, this terrible Death Valley!” she cried.
Adam’s sight cleared and he saw the woman, clad in a white robe over her gray dress, a garment clean and rich, falling in thick folds—strange to Adam’s sight, recalling the past. The afterglow of sunset shone down into the valley, lighting her face. Once she must have been beautiful. The perfect lines, the noble brow, the curved lips, were there, but her face was thin, strained, tragic. Only the eyes held beauty still.
“You saved him?” she queried, with quick-drawn breath.
“Found him—miles and miles—up the—valley—crawling on—his hands and knees,” panted Adam. “I had—to carry him.”