Suddenly Zoraida had become as docile as a little frightened child. She shivered from head to foot. She put her two hands to her throat where just now the point of the knife had been. "Quick!" said Kendric. She rose in haste. A vertigo was upon her like that dizzy weakness of one very sick, seeking prematurely to rise from bed. She had experienced a shock from which she could rally only gradually; she looked broken. Her eyes appeared to see nothing about her but stared off into the distance through a veil of abstraction. "We will have to go," she said tonelessly. "There is no other way." They passed by the inert figure on the floor and out, Kendric with his left hand always on her arm. Again the knife was hidden under his coat, but his fingers did not release it. "Quick," he said again. So Zoraida, obedient in this strange new mood governing her, making no effort to shake off his hand having no thought to gainsay him, hastened. In perhaps five minutes they were unlocking the last door, and Kendric heard beyond the whining of the puma. Kendric had had time for thought during this brief interval which had seemed much longer; for the present both his safety and Betty's would undoubtedly depend upon his keeping Zoraida with him. So now, as he flung open the door, he carried Zoraida along into the room. At first he did not see the cat lying close to the cage; he saw only Betty. A little color had come back into her cheeks; he saw the look in her eyes before it changed and knew that to Betty had come the time when hope is given up and when death is faced. She had passed beyond tears and pleading and crying out. It was given Kendric then to learn that when the crisis had come it found in the girl's heart a courage to sustain her. Her face was set, her attitude was no longer cringing. In such tender breasts as Betty's have beat the steady hearts of martyrs. When she saw Jim Kendric and Zoraida standing before her she stared incredulously. She was in a daze. Her first wild thought, reflecting itself unmistakably in her wide eyes, was that they had come to taunt her, he and she side by side. Then her faltering gaze left Zoraida and ignored her and went, full of earnest questioning, to Jim's face. Suddenly, at what she saw there, the red blood of joyousness ran into Betty's cheeks. At moments like this it is with few words or none at all that perfect understanding comes. In a flash his look had told her all that it would require many fumbling spoken words to repeat one-half so eloquently. The puma had sprung to its feet but stood its ground. The murderous eyes were everywhere at once, on Betty, on Jim, on Zoraida, most of all on Betty; the quivering nostrils widened and sniffed; the tawny throat shook with a series of low growls. Jim's foot stirred; the cat's teeth came together with a snap.