For a moment I thought you _were_ going to be killed in front of my eyes." "I don't know that it would have mattered, very much if I had been," she responded indifferently.
"It would have mattered to me." His voice roughened again: "Nan--Nan--" He broke off huskily and, casting a swift glance at his face, she realised that the tide which had been gradually rising throughout the foregoing weeks of close companionship had suddenly come to its full and that no puny effort of hers could now arrest and thrust it back.
Roger had risen to his feet.

His face was rather white as he stood looking down at her, and the piercing eyes beneath the oddly sunburnt brows held a new light in them.

They were no longer cold, but burned down upon her with the fierce ardour of passion.
"What is it ?" she whispered.

The words seemed wrung from her against her will.
For a moment he made no answer, and in the pulsing silence which followed her low-breathed question Nan was aware of a swiftly gathering fear.

She would have to make a decision within the next few moments--and she was not ready for it.
"Do you know"-- Roger spoke very slowly--"Do you know what it would have meant to me if you had been killed just now ?" Nan shook her head.
"It would have meant the end of everything." "Oh, I don't see why!" she responded quickly.
"Don't you ?" He stooped over her and took her two slight wrists in his.