Edith had already noticed that his coat sleeve was torn, and now, as he took off his coat, she saw, with unutterable horror, his white shirt sleeves red with spots of blood. As he rolled up that sleeve she saw the marks of bruises on his arm; but it was on one place in particular that her eyes were fastened--a place where a red wound, freshly made, showed the source of the blood stains, and told at what a terrible price he had rescued her from the fierce beast. He had conquered, but not easily, for he had carried off this wound, and the wound was, as he knew, and as she knew, the bite of a mad dog! Edith gave a low moan of anguish and despair. She took his arm in her hands. Dudleigh did not withdraw it. Even at that moment of horror it seemed sweet to him to see these signs of feeling on her part; and though he did not know what it was that she had in her mind, he waited, to feel for a moment longer the clasp of those hands. Edith held his arm in her hands, and the terrible wound fascinated her eyes with horror. It seemed to her at that moment that this was the doom of Dudleigh, the stamp of his sure and certain death. It seemed to her that this mark was the announcement to her that henceforth Dudleigh was lost to her; that he must die--die by a death so horrible that its horrors surpassed language and even imagination, and that this unutterable doom had been drawn down upon him for her. It had been terrible. Out of pleasant thoughts and genial conversation and genie smiles and happy interchange of sentiment, out of the joy of a glad day, out of the delight of golden hours and sunlight and beauty and peace--to be plunged suddenly into a woe like this! There came to her a wild and desperate thought. Only one idea was in her mind--to save Dudleigh, to snatch this dear friend from the death to which he had flung himself for her sake. Inspired by this sole idea, there had come a sudden thought. It was the thought of that royal wife's devotion who, when her young husband lay dying from the poisoned dagger of an assassin, drew the poison from the wound, and thus snatched him from the very grasp of death. This it was, then, that was in the mind of Edith, and it was in her agonized heart at that moment to save Dudleigh even as Eleanor had saved Edward. She bent down her head, till her face was close to his arm. Dudleigh looked on as in a dream. He did not know, he could not even conceive, what she had in her heart to do for his sake. It would have seemed incredible, had he not seen it; nor could he have imagined it, had he not been convinced. The discovery flashed suddenly, vividly across his mind. He recognized in that one instant the love, the devotion, stronger than death, which was thus manifesting itself in that slight movement of that adored one by his side. It was a thought of sweetness unutterable, which amidst his agony sent a thrill of rapture through every nerve. It was but for a moment.