had been
wiped from their injured noses on that never-to-be-forgotten occasion
Stephen had shaken hands with him, and they had sworn publicly a
life-long friendship.

And here is the end of it! His sworn friend is lying stark and
motionless in his embrace, with a deathly pallor on his face that is
awfully like death, and with a heart, if it still beats, filled with
angry thoughts of him, as he bends, scarcely less bloodless than
himself, above him.

Will _no_ one _ever_ come?

Roger glares despairingly at Dulce, who is still trying to get some
brandy down the wounded man's throat, and even as she does so Stephen's
eyes unclose, and a heavy sobbing sigh escapes him.

Strangely enough, as the two bend over him, and his gaze wanders from
one face to the other, it rests finally, with a great sense of content,
not on Dulce's face but Roger's. Instinctively he turns in his hour of
need from the woman who had wronged him to the man whom _he_ had wronged
in the first instance, and who--though he had suffered many things at
his hands of late--brings to him now a breath from that earlier and
happier life, where love--which has proved so bitter--was unknown.

"Stephen! Dear old fellow, you are not _much_ hurt, are you?" asks
Roger, tenderly. "Where is the pain? Where does it hurt you most?"

"Here!" says Stephen, faintly, trying to lift one of his arms to point
to his left side; but, with a groan, the arm falls helpless, and then
they know, with sickening feeling of horror, that it is broken. Stephen
loses consciousness again for a moment.

"It is broken!" says Roger. "And I am afraid there must be some internal
injury besides. What on earth is to be done, Dulce?" in a frantic tone;
"we shall have him here all night unless we do something. Will you stay
with him while I run and try to find somebody?"

But Stephen's senses having returned to him by this time, he overhears
and understands the last sentence.

"No, don't leave me," he entreats, earnestly, though speaking with great
difficulty. "Roger, are you there? Stay with me."

"There is Dulce," falters Roger.

"No, no; don't leave me here alone," says the wounded man, with foolish
persistency, and Roger, at his wits' end, hardly knows what to do.

"Are you anything easier now?" he asks, raising Stephen's head ever so
gently. Dulce, feeling her presence has been thoroughly ignored, and
fearing lest the very sight of her may irritate her late lover, draws
back a lit