The man's eyes opened wider, and though it was evident that there was not complete comprehension in them he sighed as with a great contentment. Then they closed altogether as he turned his head a trifle on the pillow. The girl did not move, but stood stooping a little, and looking down at him with a great compassion, until a man who had been watching her nodded unseen to Seaforth as he also bent over the bed. He waited for almost a minute, and then straightened himself wearily as he spoke in a just audible whisper.

"Quiet at last, and sleep may come! Miss Deringham, I think?" he said.

The girl bent her head, and moved softly with him towards the door.

"He knew me?" she said.

The doctor shook his head. "No--not altogether, I think. Still, he is quiet, and that is everything. Now I may be wanted--presently--and for a little there is nothing I can do, while Mr. Seaforth and I have reached our limits. If Alton opens his eyes, let him see you, and you will give him the draught yonder in an hour from now. It is of vital importance that he should take it. If he does not, tap on the door for me."

Alice Deringham bent her head again, and, when the doctor went out with Seaforth, sat down beside the bed. Her fatigue had gone from her, and though she had never done such things before, she gently drew the coverings higher about the man, and once ventured to raise his head a trifle and smooth down the pillow. Alton opened his eyes, and for a moment they seemed to follow her, but the gleam of understanding went out of them when she sat down again. Then he lay very still, and there was an oppressive quietness through which she could hear the crackle of the stove and the night wind moaning about the ranch. Alton's eyes were shut now, and the girl sat and watched him, too intent almost to wonder at herself. This was the man she had striven to despise, and yet she, who had never concerned herself with woman's work before, forgot her weariness as she waited to minister to him. It was but little help that she could offer--a gentle touch that checked a restless movement, a wrinkle smoothed from the pillow--but it was done with a great tenderness, for fibres in the girl's nature that had lain silent long awoke that night and thrilled.

Now and then Alton moved a little, and once or twice he moaned. The firewood snapped and crackled in the stove, the sigh of the pines came up in fantastic cadence across the clearing, and so while the dark angel stooped above the lonely ranch the night wore on.

There was, however, one man in Somasco ranch who needed sleep that night and found it fly from him. Deringham, who had spoken with the doctor, lay fully dressed in an adjoining room, listening to the ticking of his watch, and for any sound that might rise from beyond the cedar boarding where his daughter kept her vigil. He had gathered that before the morning Alton of Somasco and Carnaby would either have laid aside his activities for ever or be within hope of recovery, and while Deringham dare not ask himself just then whether he desired the death of his kinsman, the suspense was maddening. If the flame of vitality that was flickering so feebly went out Carnaby would be his daughter's, and the burden which almost crushed him lifted. If it burned on there was at the best a long struggle with adversity before him, and at the worst disgrace, and possibly a prison.

A very little thing, he knew, would turn the scale, an effort made in delirium, a draught that struck too shrewdly on the fevered frame, and the issue, of stupendous importance as it was to both of them, lay in his daughter's hands. Seaforth and the doctor slept the sleep of exhaustion, and Deringham could have laughed with bitter mirthlessness at the irony of it all. Until she had quarrelled with her maid, Alice Deringham had apparently been incapable of putting on her own dresses unassisted, and it seemed that the grim, mysterious destiny which treated men as puppets and traversed all their schemes was the one factor to reckon with in that comedy. Deringham, however, found little solace in such reflections, and could not lie still, and rising, strained his ears to listen. There was nothing but the moaning of the wind, the ranch was very still, and the sound of his watch grew maddening. If Alton was sleeping now, Deringham knew it was ticking his last hold on good fame and fortune away. Twice he paced up and down the room with uncovered feet, and then, quivering a little when the floor creaked, opened the door that led into the one adjoining.

"Alice," he said, and, for he had thrown off the mask now, his daughter wondered at his face.

"Hush," she said almost sternly, and then moved very quietly away from the bed. Deringham came in and leaned upon the table beside her.

"The great question is still unanswered?" he said.

His daughter bent her head, and then looked at him steadily. "I think we shall know in an hour or two. Is it important to you?"

Deringham, who was not wholly master of himself, made a little grimace, and the girl glanced away from him with a curious shrinking. Under stress of fatigue and anxiety the veneer had worn off both of them, and in that impressive hour, when the spirit is bound most loosely to the clay, each had seen something not hitherto suspected of the other's inmost self. In the girl's case the sight had been painful, for all that was good in her had risen uppermost just then. In Deringham's there was very little but veneer, and craven fear and avarice looked out through his eyes.

"Yes," he said in a voice that was the harsher for its lowness; "and to you. I did not tell you, but if that man dies you will be the mistress of Carnaby."

Alice Deringham made a little half-contemptuous gesture of impatience, but the colour showed in her cheek. "You are over-tired, father, or you would not have thought of that--just now."

Deringham glanced at her curiously with an unpleasant smile. "You apparently did not comprehend me," he said. "Would you be astonished to hear that Alton, who seems to have anticipated disaster, left you Carnaby by will?"

The girl rose and met the man's gaze directly, though the colour had crept beyond her cheeks now. "No," she said very quietly; "though I never thought of this. I know him better than ever you could do. But it is time I gave him the medicine, and you must go."

Deringham did not move, but watched his daughter as she took up the glass and phial. "It is important that he should have the draught?" he said.

"Yes," she said in a voice that thrilled a little as she stood very straight before him. "I think it would make all the difference between--a girl without a dowry, and the mistress of Carnaby."

Then she pointed as it were commandingly towards the door, and Deringham went out with a white face, as though she had struck him upon it, while Alice Deringham shivered and sank down limply into the chair.

She sat still for a moment with eyes that shone mistily and a great sense of humility, and then, rousing herself with an effort, moved towards the bed and touched the sick man gently. He opened his eyes as she did so, and there was no glitter in them now, but a dawning comprehension. He seemed to smile a little when she raised his head.

"You must drink this," she said.

Alton made a gesture of understanding, and drained the glass, then let his head fall back, and feebly stretched out his hand until it touched her fingers. The girl did not move, and his grasp tightened suddenly.

"Hold me fast. I am slipping--slipping down," he said.

Alice Deringham returned the pressure of the clinging fingers, and as she saw a curious unreasoning confidence creep into the haggard face her eyes once more shone through a gathering mistiness. "I will hold you fast," she said.

"Yes," said the sick man in a strained voice. "You will not let go.

It's five hundred feet to the river--in the dark below. I'm slipping, slipping--no holding in the snow."

He ceased and looked up at her suddenly as though the fear had left him, and the girl said very softly, "Don't you know me?"

"Yes," said the man. "Of course. I was sliding back into the gully, but I knew you would help me."

He stopped again, and the strained expression suddenly sank out of his eyes, while the girl flushed to the temples when they met her own.

"Now," he said very softly, "I shall get better. Nothing can stop me.

You will hold me fast, and not let go."

He drew her towards him, and Alice Deringham, seeing that the brief flash of reason was fading again, yielded to the feeble pressure, and sank to her knees holding fast the hot fingers that drew her hand to his breast. Then moved by an impulse swift and uncontrollable she bent a little farther and kissed him on the cheek. Alton said nothing, but opened his eyes and smiled at her, and then lay still.

For a space of minutes the girl dare scarcely breathe. Everything, she had been told, depended upon the sick man sleeping, and now he was very quiet. Then she raised her head and glanced at him. He had not moved at all, and his face was tranquil, but the hot fingers still clung to her hand. It was borne in upon her that she could in verity draw him back from the darkness he was slipping into, and with a great fear and compassion she held the hot fingers fast. There was no longer any snapping in the stove. The roar of the pines grew louder and the room grew cold, but while the minutes slipped by Alton slept peacefully, with the hand of the woman he had dispossessed in his, and she forgetting her fatigue watched him with eyes that filled with tenderness.

Still, she was not more than a woman, and at last the eyes grew hazy, while every joint ached. There was a horrible cramp in her shoulder, and to lessen it she moved a trifle so that her arm rested on the pillow. That was easier, and while she struggled with her weariness her head followed it, until it sank down close by Alton's shoulder.

Then for five minutes she fought with her weakness, and was vanquished, for her head settled lower into its resting place, and her eyes closed.

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.