With quick instinct she caught them up.

Hope, success, salvation, lay in those miserable relics.

She pressed the food into his mouth; she moistened his parched lips, his dry brow, with the water.

During one moment of horrible suspense she saw him still insensible; then the vital functions revived; his eyes opened again and fixed famine-struck on the wretched nourishment before him.

He devoured it ravenously; he drained the cup of water to its last drop; he sank back again on the couch.