At that loving call Jaquelina staggered across the floor to Ronald's bedside. She laid her wan, white face upon his own, and kissed him through a rain of bitter tears. "Oh! my poor, poor murdered love," she sobbed wildly. "If you should die your poor Lina must die too." Ronald's arm stole around the slender form lovingly. "It is not so bad as that, dear," he said. "I shall get well, please God, and we shall be married soon. Nay, why should we not have the holy man come and unite us at this very hour? Would it not be the best, Lina, darling? Then you would belong to me, and be my own patient, loving little nurse. Believe me, I should get well all the faster." But Jaquelina had drawn back from his caress with a sudden cry of pain. He put out his hand with a smile to draw her back, and then he saw that her small, white hands were cut and bruised, and that a linen bandage was swathed about her right arm. "Oh! my poor little Lina!" he cried, "your hands are cruelly bruised and torn! Who has done this wicked, brutal deed?" Her lips quivered as he took her hands gently and pressed them to his lips; the large tears gathered in her eyes and brimmed over on her pale cheeks. "No one has done it, Ronald," she said, falteringly. "I crawled on my hands and knees through a long, dark, perilous cave, and the sharp rocks bruised and wounded me. But I did not care for _that_; I was so glad to get away that I did not feel the pain. Look at this," she said, turning back a corner of the bandage on her arm. Ronald looked and shivered. There was a terrible, jagged wound on the fair, round arm, and the flesh around it was fearfully bruised and discolored. "There were horses tethered in the cave," she whispered. "It was pitch black: I could see nothing. I must have crawled beneath their very feet, and one struck his hoof out in the darkness and kicked this arm. Then, by a merciful providence, I was enabled to turn aside out of the range of their hoofs. Oh, I cannot tell you, Ronald, how terrible it was, creeping through that fearful place." "You were in the very den of the outlaws," he exclaimed. "Yes," she answered, with a shudder. "And you escaped from them, my brave little girl!" he cried. "Oh, thank God, you were saved from the vindictive power of that man! Lina, I cannot rest easy one moment now until I have the right to watch over every moment of your life. I must take you far away from here." She trembled at the passionate dread in his voice, then rallied bravely. "Do not fear for me," she said. "He will not molest me again, Ronald." But Ronald shook his head. "I shall never know one moment's peace until you are my own," he said. "Lina, I shall send for the minister to-night, and you shall be my wife without one moment's delay. You are willing, are you not, my little love?" The girl clasped her small, bruised hands together, and her pale face grew paler still with anguish.