She pressed her hands to her temples. “I remember nothing,” she said at last, “except that we climbed a great mountain, and that your arm was about me, aiding me.” I breathed a sigh of relief that her memory stopped there. “Shall I go back and look for them?” I asked. “No, no!” she protested, and caught my hand. “Do not leave me here--at least not yet!” “I shall have to go before long. We must have food.” “I want no food--I feel as though I never shall.” “Nevertheless you must eat. You must be strong and brave. We have a long journey before us.” “A long journey?” “Yes; we shall not be really safe until we are among M. le Comte’s friends in the Bocage.” “Is that far?” she asked. “Not so far but that we shall win through safely,” I assured her. She lay back again upon the moss with a long sigh of utter weariness. “You must sleep,” I added, gently. “Do not fight it off--yield to it. You will need your strength--all of it--for to-night.” “For to-night?” “Yes; we dare not start until darkness comes, and we must get forward as far as we can ere daybreak. You can sleep in perfect security. No one suspects that we are hidden here.” She did not answer, but turned on one side, laid her head upon her arm and closed her eyes. Sleep, I knew, would claim her in a moment. I crept forward to the mouth of the cavern and sitting down behind the screen of vines pulled them aside a little and peered down the valley, in the hope that I might see Pasdeloup and M. le Comte making their way toward us. But there was no one in sight, nor could I hear any sound of conflict in the direction whence we had come. It might be, I told myself, that Pasdeloup by some miracle had again succeeded in saving his master, and that they had fled together in some other direction; but I felt there were limits to the power of even his supreme devotion. Certainly no situation could have been more critical and hopeless than that in which I had left my friend. Whatever the result of that struggle, there was evidently nothing left for me to do save to stand sentinel over my companion and see that no harm came to her. I sat down with my back against the wall of stone and composed myself as comfortably as I could to watch the valley. Indeed my posture was too comfortable. The knowledge that we were safe, the lifting of the cloud of horror, the slackening of the strain under which I had labored, left me strangely weary. My eyelids drooped, and before I realized the danger I was sound asleep. I awoke with a guilty start, but a single glance down into the valley reassured me--no danger threatened us from that direction. How long I had slept I could not guess, but it must have been some hours, for I felt refreshed, invigorated, ready for anything--ready especially to undertake an energetic search for food to appease the gnawing in my stomach.