It was some little time later when Seaforth came very softly into the room, and stopped with a little gasp.  He could just see his comrade’s face, and it was still and serene, but there was a gleam of red-gold hair beside it on the coverlet, and now a shapely arm was flung protectingly about the sick man’s shoulder.  The girl was also very still, and a little flush of colour crept into Seaforth’s face as he stooped above her and saw the clasped hands.

“Thank God!” he said.

Then he moved backwards on tiptoe towards Deringham’s room, but apparently changed his intention, and presently knocked at the doctor’s door.

“Time’s up, and I thought I’d better rouse you,” he said.  “Shall I go in, and look at your patient?”

The doctor rose up fully dressed, and Seaforth, who watched him enter the other room, nodded to himself, while the man he had left stooped above the sleeping pair and smiled with a great contentment.  He had done what he could, but he knew that a greater power than any he wielded had driven back the dark angel which had stooped above the sick man’s bed.

The sun was in the heavens when, finding other procedure unavailing, he gently touched the girl, and Alice Deringham rose silently and turned to him some moments later almost proudly with a soft glow in her cheeks, and a question in her eyes.

“Yes,” said the doctor, smiling.  “I fancy we have seen the worst.”

Then the girl’s strength went from her, and she caught at the rail of the bed, shivering, until the man touched her arm and led her from the room.  “You have done a great deal, I think, and must sleep,” he said.

It was afternoon when Alice Deringham resumed her watch, and she met Seaforth on her way to the sick man’s room.

“I want to thank you, Miss Deringham.  He is my partner, and the only friend I have,” he said, with a slight huskiness.

The girl regarded him steadily.  “You mean it?”

Seaforth winced a little.  “Yes,” he said.

Alice Deringham still fixed her eyes upon him.  “And yet you distrusted me once?”

Seaforth’s face was haggard, but it was less pale than it had been when he bent his head.  “I can only throw myself on your mercy.  I was more of a fool than usual then.”

Alice Deringham laughed softly but graciously.  “I could not blame you—­and you may have been right,” she said.

Then she passed into the room, and saw the light creep into Alton’s eyes, which had apparently been fixed upon the door.  Her blood tingled and her neck grew hot, for it was evident that while his mind was clear at last he remembered a little.

“The river is farther away now, but I want you still,” he said.

CHAPTER XXIV

HALLAM TRIES AGAIN