tide. If so, he'll try the quicksand, and he don't know the lie of it!
Rufus, you wouldn't want--your worst enemy--to die like that!"

She broke off, wildly sobbing, yet still clinging to him in agonised
entreaty. The man's face, with its crude ferocity, the untamed glitter
of its fiery eyes, was still bent to hers, but she no longer shrank from
it. The power that moved her was too immense to be swayed by lesser
things. His attitude no longer affected her, one way or another. It had
ceased to count, so that she only wrenched from him this one great boon.

And Rufus must have realised the fact, for he stood up sharply and
backed against the door, releasing her.

"You don't know what you're saying," he said gruffly.

"I do--I do!" With anguished reiteration she answered him. "I'm not the
sort that offers and then doesn't pay. Oh, don't waste time talking!
Every moment may be his last. Go down--go down to the shore! You're so
strong. Save him--save him!"

She beat her clasped hands against his broad chest, till abruptly he put
up his own again and held them still.

"Columbine!" For the second time he uttered her name, and for the second
time the command in his voice caught and compelled her. "Just you listen
a minute!" he said, and as he spoke his look swept her with a mastery
that dominated even her agony. "If I go and save the cur, you've done
with him for ever--you swear that?"

"Yes!" she cried. "Yes! Only go--only go!"