"Do you think, in any case, I would have agreed to save my precious skin at the price of leaving you in their power? Why, Hilda, I wonder you thought me worth stirring a finger for, at all." She looked at him, long and earnestly and hopelessly, as though to photograph his image in her brain. How ill he looked, pale and haggard, and hollow cheeked. It was not much of a time for thinking of appearances, but he felt thankful that the advantages of the Mahomedan injunctions of cleanliness had been extended to him--a prisoner. "Sweetheart, God bless you for coming to me at the last," he went on. "It was grand--intrepid. Tell me, Hilda. You have known all the time that I loved you?" "Yes, I knew," she answered chokingly. Then, with forced gaiety, "You did not on the voyage, though." "Was I not a born fool? Oh, my darling, what happiness might have been ours. What might not our lives have been but for this?" A thought of Cynthia Daintree crossed her mind, of Cynthia Daintree amusing herself at Mazaran, while claiming this man's bond. An impulse came upon her to ask about that affair, but she forebore. Nothing of a disturbing nature must come between them now. And time was so short, so precious. Then for a short sacred half hour they talked--and their words, uttered on the brink of the grave of one of them, were so deep, so sacred as not to bear intrusion. And then Shere Dil Khan's voice was heard outside, proclaiming that the time had come for the interview to end. "We have found our happiness only to lose it," whispered Raynier. "But that is better than never having known it. Is it not?" "Yes, yes--a thousand times. God bless you, O my love, my love!" To the end of her life Hilda will never know how she tore herself from the last close embrace. And Heaven was deaf to the cry of her widowed soul, deaf as the polite but impassive Oriental who conducted her forth from that chamber of heartbreak and despair. CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE. DE TALIONE. "There _is_ gratitude left in the world." Herbert Raynier was lying in the damp and pitchy gloom of his dungeon, sleeping as soundly and as peacefully as though he were not to be led forth and beheaded with the rising of the morrow's sun. That last interview had calmed and soothed him, and now his slumbers were bright-- for he was amid beautiful scenes, far away, and Hilda was beside him. Then he started up--and with the first flash of awaking consciousness came the thought that the time had come, and the hand that had dropped on his shoulder in the darkness was that which should lead him forth to his doom. "There _is_ gratitude left in the world." The words were uttered softly, and--in good English. Was he dreaming? But immediately a shaded light rendered things visible. Hands were busy about his shackles, and lo! they fettered his ankles no more.