Again Gyll laughed. “But our hands are tied.” Towaye shrugged his shoulders, and, squatting on the ground, held his wrists together, then raised the dark fingers to his lips. “This way,” he said, “prisoners eat.” And now, turning away, he busied himself in preparing his own meal of venison. Gyll, with a wry face, stood upon her feet, and, reaching to the low roof, plucked a bunch of grapes—necessarily with both hands at once—which she offered to Eleanor. Then, having provided herself with another cluster, she sat down again and bit off the grapes one by one, with evident relish. Eleanor, however, only looked out listlessly to the crackling fire, her hands clasped, her fingers intertwined with feverish strength. Tears fell slowly on the forgotten fruit in her lap, causing it to shine like a cluster of inestimable rubies in the firelight. Her face, even now like a child’s, but very spiritual for all its witchery, was more sad than fearful, more given over to an expression of deep distress and hopelessness than to terror and apprehension. Her hazel eyes, moist and lustrous, seemed to have gained a new depth, which for the first time reached to her very soul. Their look was a prayer. “My little one, my little Virginia,” again and again she repeated inwardly, half to herself and half to a Higher Power—“My little Virginia.” Like the dull surge of heavy, monotonous surf, her thoughts beat upon her brain, now in comprehending supplication, now in mere unconscious repetition, until suddenly the despair of her eyes became less passive and more intense. Another name sprang into the ceaseless, unutterable murmur and all but escaped her pale lips—“John Vytal.” Gyll Croyden lay, with elbows on the ground and chin in hand, watching her. The two faces presented a striking contrast, Eleanor’s as we have seen it, Gyll’s an almost indescribable paradox, so suggestive was it of contradictory emotions. The whole expression showed, first, that she had utterly forgotten her plight and surroundings. Eleanor’s face absorbed her thoughts, thoughts which were, apparently, at odds. In her unaccustomed silence there was consideration of her companion’s feelings; in her eyes an unmistakable admiration and kind of wonder; while about the corners of her mouth a look of ironical amusement played unforbidden. Adding an expression more serious—if the word is permissible in connection with so gay a face—her brows were contracted defiantly. And, stranger than all, a keen observer would have noted an unwonted sadness, very subtle, that lay neither in this feature nor in that, but rather, as it were, behind them all.