She turned instinctively in answer to that voice.  She held up her hands to the speaker like a child.  “Oh, Bertie,” she cried piteously, “is there nothing to be done?  Nothing?”

“Only that, cherie,” he made answer, very gently.

“Then”—­she was sobbing terribly, but she suffered his hands to raise her—­“don’t let them—­send me away, Bertie.  I can’t go—­while he lives.  It—­it would hurt him more, if I went.”

“No, no, cherie,” he answered her reassuringly.  “You will be brave, yes?  See, I will hold your hand.  We will go just across the road, but not beyond his sight.  He will see you.  He will know that you are near.  There—­there, cherie!  Shut your eyes!  It will be finished soon.”

He put his arm around her, for she stumbled blindly.  They went across the road as he had said, and halted under the trees on the farther side.

There followed a pause—­an interval that was terrible—­during which only the low crying of an animal in pain was audible.

Bertrand stood like a rock, still holding her.  “But you will not look, cherie,” he whispered to her softly.  “It is deliverance—­this death.  Soon—­soon he will not cry any more.”

She pressed her face against his shoulder, wrapped in the close security of his arms, and waited, drawing each breath with difficulty, saying no word.

She did not know what was happening, and she dared not look.  She could only wait in anguish for the whimpering that tore her heart to cease.

“Now, cherie!” whispered Bertrand at last, and she stiffened in his arms, preparing for she knew not what.

His hold tightened.  For that instant he pressed her hard against his heart, so that she heard its quick beating.

The next there came a loud report—­a sound that violently rent her stretched nerves, shattering them as glass is shattered by a stone.  She drooped without sound like a broken flower, and the young Frenchman gathered her up, just as he had done on the occasion of their first meeting at Valpre, and bore her away.

CHAPTER IV

GOOD-BYE TO CHILDHOOD

Out of the dreadful darkness Chris groped her halting way, saw light, and, shuddering, closed her eyes again.  But at once a voice spoke to her, soothingly, tenderly, calling her back.

Reluctantly she responded, reluctantly she returned to full consciousness, and knew that she was lying fully dressed upon a couch in the drawing-room.  But at sight of her husband’s face bending above her she shuddered again—­a painful, convulsive shudder that shook her from head to foot.

He laid a quiet hand on her head, but she shrank away.  “Please, Trevor”—­she faltered—­“please, I want to be alone.”

“Yes, dear,” he made gentle reply.  “Just drink this first, and I will leave you.”

But she withdrew herself almost violently; she buried her face deep in the cushion.  “I can’t!  I can’t!  Please don’t ask me to.  I am quite all right.  I only want—­to be alone.”