stonily out before him in a sphinx-like stillness that never varied
while the storm of her anguish spent itself at his side.

Even after her sobs had ceased from sheer exhaustion he made no
movement, no sign that he was so much as thinking of her.

Only when at last she raised herself with difficulty, and put the
heavy hair back from her disfigured face, did he turn slightly and
hold out to her a small tin cup.

"It's only water," he said gently. "Have some."

She took it almost mechanically and drank, then lay back with closed
eyes and burning head, sick and blinded by her paroxysm of weeping.

A little later she felt his hands moving about her again, but she was
too spent to open her eyes. He bathed her face with a care equal to
any woman's, smoothed back her hair, and improvised a pillow for her
head.

And afterwards she knew that he sat down by her, out of sight but
close at hand, a silent presence watching over her, till at last, worn
out with grief and the bitter strain of the past weeks, she sank into
natural, dreamless slumber, and slept for hours.




CHAPTER V