d up again it seemed to her
as if that first vision which she had had of him with weary head bent,
and wan, haggard face was not reality, only a dream born of her own
anxiety for him, for now the hot, ardent blood coursed just as swiftly
as ever through his veins, as if life--strong, tenacious, pulsating
life--throbbed with unabated vigour in those massive limbs, and behind
that square, clear brow as though the body, but half subdued, had
transferred its vanishing strength to the kind and noble heart that was
beating with the fervour of self-sacrifice.

"Percy," she said gently, "they will only give us a few moments
together. They thought that my tears would break your spirit where their
devilry had failed."

He held her glance with his own, with that close, intent look which
binds soul to soul, and in his deep blue eyes there danced the restless
flames of his own undying mirth:

"La! little woman," he said with enforced lightness, even whilst his
voice quivered with the intensity of passion engendered by her presence,
her nearness, the perfume of her hair, "how little they know you, eh?
Your brave, beautiful, exquisite soul, shining now through your glorious
eyes, would defy the machinations of Satan himself and his horde. Close
your dear eyes, my love. I shall go mad with joy if I drink their beauty
in any longer."

He held her face between his two hands, and indeed it seemed as if he
could not satiate his soul with looking into her eyes. In the midst of
so much sorrow, such misery and such deadly fear, never had Marguerite
felt quite so happy, never had she felt him so completely her own. The
inevitable bodily weakness, which of necessity had invaded even his
splendid physique after a whole week's privations, had made a severe
breach in the invincible barrier of self-control with which the soul of
the inner man was kept perpetually hidden behind a mask of indifference
and of irresponsibility.

And yet the agony of seeing the lines of sorrow so plainly writ on the
beautiful face of the woman he worshipped must have been the keenest
that the bold adventurer had ever experienced in the whole course of his
reckless life. It was he--and he alone--who was making her suffer;
her for whose sake he would gladly have shed every drop of his blood,
endured every torment, every misery and every humiliation; her whom he
worshipped only one degree less than he worshipped his honour and the
cause which he had made his own.