Oh! don't you hear me, Argyl?"
He put his arms about her, and as he knelt lifted her and put his face
to hers. She was not cold; thank Heaven, she was not cold! But she
did not move, she was heavy in his arms, the warmth of her body might
have been from the ebbing tide of life or from the sun's fire. He
could not feel her breathe, could not feel the beating of her heart.
He held her so that he could look into her face, and the cry upon his
lips was frozen into a grief-stricken horror. Her hair unbound,
hanging loose, tangled about her face, dull and soiled with the gray
sand-dust, her lips dry, cracked, unnaturally big, her cheeks pinched
and stamped at the corners of her mouth with the misery through which
she had lived--was this Argyl?
He laid her back upon the sand, his body bent over her to shut out the
sun, and unslung his canteen. He washed her mouth, let the water
trickle over her brow and cheeks, forced a little of the lukewarm
stuff between her teeth. He bathed her head, bathed her throat, and
again forced a few drops into her mouth. And then, when she did not
move, he would not believe that she was dead. She could not be dead.
It was impossible. She would open her eyes in a minute, those great,
frank, fearless, glorious gray eyes, and she would come back to
him--back from the shadow of the stern angel's wing, back to herself
and to him.
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