Yet he was handsome--and helpless.
Her eyes filled with tears.

She turned her head away from her brother and went softly to the window, but not before she had touched the pale hand that lay nerveless upon the coverlet.
"It's not feverish," she said to Nic, as if in necessary explanation of the act.
She stood at the window for a moment, looking out, then said: "Come here, Nic, and tell me all about it." He told her all he knew: how he had come to the old house by appointment with Ferrol; had tried to get into the store-room; had found the doors bolted; had heard the noise of a wild animal inside; had run out, tried a window, at last wrenched it open and found Ferrol in a dead faint.

He went to the table and brought back the broken bayonet.
"That's all he had to fight with," he said.

"Fire of a little hell, but he had grit--after all!" "That's all he had to fight with!" she repeated, as she untwisted the handkerchief from the hilt end.

"Why did you say he had true grit--'after all'?
What do you mean by that 'after all' ?" "Well, you don't expect much from a man with only one lung--eh ?" "Courage isn't in the lungs," she answered.