y fan. Try that. Hard! Push
it well down. Oh, don't, don't give up!"

For after one desperate trial Cassandra had sent the fan spinning into
space over the edge of the cliff. For a moment in her desperation she
looked inclined to follow herself, and Dane quickly moved his position
so as to stand between her and danger.

How many moments had elapsed since they had been happily seated on the
grass? So few,--so pitifully few, yet enough to wreck the exquisite
machine of life! Not alone to Cassandra herself, but also to the
anguished onlookers, came now the realisation that this accident was no
trifling happening of a moment, but a grim battle between life and
death. The bone was a long one, lodged in such a manner that to attempt
to move it by the usual means was but to accelerate the process of
suffocation.

Cassandra was being suffocated; moment by moment the inhalations of
breath became more difficult, her strength was weakening beneath the
strain, but still she struggled and fought, and raised wild arms to the
sky, while moment by moment, youth, beauty, and charm fell away from the
blackening face, leaving behind nothing but a mask of torture and
despair.

Both the women were weeping, but they were unconscious of their tears.
At that moment existence meant nothing more than an anguished
realisation of helplessness. Theirs was the most lacerating trial of
life,--the torture of looking on helplessly, and watching a
fellow-creature done to death.

Then suddenly the scene changed. Cassandra's limbs gave way, and she
fell to the ground, and as she fell Peignton fell after her, and knelt
by her side. To the onlookers the man's face was as unrecognisable as
that of the woman; in both was the same terror, the same despair, almost
it appeared, the same suffering. It was a voice which they had never
heard before, which spoke now, uttering wild appealing words:

"Cassandra--Darling! Oh, my precious, what can I do for you?... God
show me what to do! Oh, my God, to standby and see this... I'd give my
soul... It can't be.--It can't. It's not possible!... Cassandra,
_try_, try! For my sake, for my sake, darling... How am I to live..."

The wild words surged on. Did anyone hear? or hearing understand? Even
to Teresa herself they seemed for the moment to voice nothing but the
cry of her own heart. The shadow of death had obliterated the things of
life; nothing counted, nothing mattered, but Cassandra, an