Dawn came, and night again, and still the almost breathless girl urged her will against the inevitable. She had not slept, nor had she eaten of the food they brought to her. Two persons, a soldier and a girl, stood back and marvelled at her endurance and devotion; the harassed surgeons, new in experience themselves, found time to minister to the seeming dead man, their interest not only attracted by his remarkable vitality but by the romance attached to his hope of living. That night he moved, and a low moan came from his lips. The Goddess of Good Luck had turned her face from the rest of the world for a brief instant to smile upon this isolated supplicant for favour. Jane's eyes and ears had served her well at last; she caught the change in him and her will grasped the hope with more dogged tenacity than before. The word went out that there was a chance for him. Her vigil ended when Bray came to lead her away--ended because she dropped from exhaustion. The next morning, after a dead sleep of hours, she returned to his side. The surgeon smiled and the nurse clasped her hands with tears in her eyes. Bansemer was breathing thickly and tossing in delirium. It was as if he had been lifted from the grave. Lieutenant Bray was seated in front of the convent late that evening, moodily studying his own emotions. Teresa, still attired as she had been for weeks, hung about the chapel with the persistance of a friendless dog. He watched her and pitied her, even as he pitied himself for the wound he was nursing. What was to become of her? He called her to him. "Senorita, they say he is better. Tell me, does it mean much to you?" "Oh, senor, he has been noble and good and honourable. If he lives I shall always hold these weeks with him in absolute reverence." "Then she does not understand?" "She? What is there for her to understand? She loves him and he loves her. That is enough." "She says she will not marry him. There must be a reason." The girl's face darkened instantly and her breath came quickly. "You--you think that I am the reason? Is it so? Because I am here in these hateful clothes? You would say that to me? How dare you!" She burst out with tears of rage and shame and fled from his sight. Jane came rapidly through the church door, out of the gloom and odour into the warm sunshine and the green glow of the world, her face bright, her eyes gleaming. "He is conscious!" she cried. "He knows me!" CHAPTER XXVI THE SEPARATION OF HEARTS