fort to preserve outward composure for his sake,
perceived that her behaviour had secured, at any rate, a short period of
safety. Perhaps because of the similarity of their miserable origin in
the dregs of mankind, she had understood Ricardo perfectly. He would
keep quiet for a time now. In this momentarily soothing certitude her
bodily fatigue asserted itself, the more overpoweringly since its cause
was not so much the demand on her strength as the awful suddenness of
the stress she had had to meet. She would have tried to overcome it
from the mere instinct of resistance, if it had not been for Heyst's
alternate pleadings and commands. Before this eminently masculine
fussing she felt the woman's need to give way, the sweetness of
surrender.

"I will do anything you like," she said.

Getting up, she was surprised by a wave of languid weakness that came
over her, embracing and enveloping her like warm water, with a noise in
her ears as of a breaking sea.

"You must help me along," she added quickly.

While he put his arm round her waist--not by any means an uncommon thing
for him to do--she found a special satisfaction in the feeling of being
thus sustained. She abandoned all her weight to that encircling and
protecting pressure, while a thrill went through her at the sudden
thought that it was she who would have to protect him, to be the
defender of a man who was strong enough to lift her bodily, as he was
doing even then in his two arms. For Heyst had done this as soon as they
had crept through the doorway of the room. He thought it was quicker
and simpler to carry her the last step or two. He had grown really too
anxious to be aware of the effort. He lifted her high and deposited her
on the bed, as one lays a child on its side in a cot. Then he sat down
on the edge, masking his concern with a smile which obtained no response
from the dreamy immobility of her eyes. But she sought his hand, seized
it eagerly; and while she was pressing it with all the force of
which she was capable, the sleep she needed overtook her suddenly,
overwhelmingly, as it overtakes a child in a cot, with her lips parted
for a safe, endearing word which she had thought of but had no time to
utter.

The usual flaming silence brooded over Samburan.

"What in the world is this new mystery?" murmured Heyst to himself,
contemplating her deep slumber.

It was so deep, this enchanted sleep, that when some time afterwards he
gently tried to ope