Yet, in spite of that agony, in spite of the heartrending pathos of her
pale wan face, and through the anguish of seeing her tears, the ruling
passion--strong in death--the spirit of adventure, the mad, wild,
devil-may-care irresponsibility was never wholly absent.

"Dear heart," he said with a quaint sigh, whilst he buried his face in
the soft masses of her hair, "until you came I was so d--d fatigued."

He was laughing, and the old look of boyish love of mischief illumined
his haggard face.

"Is it not lucky, dear heart," he said a moment or two later, "that
those brutes do not leave me unshaved? I could not have faced you with a
week's growth of beard round my chin. By dint of promises and bribery
I have persuaded one of that rabble to come and shave me every morning.
They will not allow me to handle a razor my-self. They are afraid I
should cut my throat--or one of theirs. But mostly I am too d--d sleepy
to think of such a thing."

"Percy!" she exclaimed with tender and passionate reproach.

"I know--I know, dear," he murmured, "what a brute I am! Ah, God did
a cruel thing the day that He threw me in your path. To think that
once--not so very long ago--we were drifting apart, you and I. You would
have suffered less, dear heart, if we had continued to drift."

Then as he saw that his bantering tone pained her, he covered her hands
with kisses, entreating her forgiveness.

"Dear heart," he said merrily, "I deserve that you should leave me to
rot in this abominable cage. They haven't got me yet, little woman, you
know; I am not yet dead--only d--d sleepy at times. But I'll cheat them
even now, never fear."

"How, Percy--how?" she moaned, for her heart was aching with intolerable
pain; she knew better than he did the precautions which were being taken
against his escape, and she saw more clearly than he realised it himself
the terrible barrier set up against that escape by ever encroaching
physical weakness.

"Well, dear," he said simply, "to tell you the truth I have not yet
thought of that all-important 'how.' I had to wait, you see, until you
came. I was so sure that you would come! I have succeeded in putting on
paper all my instructions for Ffoulkes and the others. I will give them
to you anon. I knew that you would come, and that I could give them to
you; until then I had but to think of one thing, and that was of keeping
body and soul together. My chance of seeing you was to let them have
their will wit