She tried to picture to herself what it would have meant to her had that shot in the jungle slain him instead of Captain Ermsted.

But the bare thought was beyond endurance.

Once she could have borne it, but not now--not now! Once she could have denied her love and fared forth alone into the desert.

But he had captured her, and now she was irrevocably his.

Her spirit pined almost unconsciously whenever he was absent from her.