The old man's hands were moving restlessly. Jacqueline bent over him and whispered, and he stirred and cried out petulantly. He missed his roulette-wheel, his constant companion through those years, his coins, and paper. In his way perhaps he was suffering the most of all.

"I go now," Pierre announced. "To-morrow I come for you, take all through tunnel. You stay here till I come; all sleep till morning."

"I will go with you, Pierre," I said, still under my obsession. But he laid his heavy hand upon my arm and pushed me away.

"You no kill Simon," he answered. "Why you no kill him again when you have sword? Only _diable_ can kill him. When time come _diable_ tell old Caribou. You sleep now. I not work for you now. I go for take my woman and gal safe through tunnel to place I know. When my woman and gal safe I come back to _m'sieur_ and _ma'm'selle_."

It was a brave and simple declaration of first principles, and none the less affecting, because it came from the lips of a faithful, ignorant old man. It was just such simple loyalty that natures like Leroux's never knew, frustrating the most cunning plans based on self-interest.

I realized the strength of Pierre's argument. His duty lay first toward his kin; then he would place his life at his master's service.

But he would have to cover many miles before he returned.

He went without a backward glance; but I saw his throat heave, and I knew what the parting meant to him. The feudal loyalty of the past was all his faith.

I flung myself down on my blanket. I was utterly exhausted, and with that dead weariness which precludes sleep. The candle was burning low and was guttering down upon one side, and a pool of hardening grease was spreading over the table-top.

I walked over to the table and blew it out. We must husband it; the darkness in the cave would become unbearable without a candle to light.

I lay down again. The silence was loneliness itself, and not rendered less lonely by the occasional cries of the old man and the drip, drip of water. I could not see anything, and Jacqueline might have been a woman of stone, for she made not the least movement.

But I felt her presence; I seemed to feel her thoughts, to live in her.

At last I spoke to her.

"Jacqueline!"

I heard her start, and knew that she had raised her head and was looking after me. I crawled toward her, dragging my blanket after me.

I felt in the darkness for the place where I knew her hand must be and took it in mine.

"Jacqueline," I said, "you know I did not steal your money, don't you?"

"Forgive me, _monsieur_," I heard her whisper.

"Forgive _me_, Jacqueline, for I have brought heavy trouble upon you.

But with God's aid I am going to save you both--your father and you--and take you away somewhere where all the past can be forgotten."

She sighed heavily, and I felt a tear drop on my hand.

"Jacqueline!" I cried.

"Ah, M. Hewlett"--the weariness of her voice went to my heart--"it might have been different--if----"

"If what, Jacqueline?"

"If there had not been the blood of a dead man between us," she moaned.

"If--you--had not--killed him!"

Her words were a revelation to me, for I learned that she had mercifully been spared the full remembrance of what had happened in the Tenth Street apartment. She thought that it was I who had killed Louis d'Epernay.

And how could I deny this, when to do so would be to bring to her mind the knowledge of her own dreadful guilt?

The dotard stirred and muttered, and she whispered to him and soothed him as though he were a child. Presently he began to breathe heavily, as old men breathe in sleep. But Jacqueline crouched there in the same motionless silence, and I knew that she was awake and suffering.

And then my watch began hammering again, just as the alarm-clock had hammered on that awful night in my apartment when I crouched outside the door, not daring to go in. My mind was working against my will and picturing a thousand possibilities.

What was Leroux doing? He would act with his usual hammer force. All depended on Pierre.

The hours wore away, and we three lay there, two waiting and one dreaming of the old days of youth, no doubt. I tried to light the candle to see the time, but my shaking hand sent it flying across the cave, and when I searched for my matches, I found that the box was empty.

It seemed an eternity since we had come there. It is one thing to wait for dawn and quite another thing to wait where dawn will never come.

It must be day. And still Pierre did not come. As I lay there, listening for his returning footsteps, I heard Jacqueline breathe at last.

She was asleep from weariness after her long night's watch. Somehow the thought that she had passed into the world of dreams comforted me.

For a brief time the dreadful accusation of murder had been lifted from my head, and my numbed mind was free to follow my will and leave its mad career of fancy. I could act now.

Why should I not follow where Pierre had led? If Leroux had captured him within his hut, as seemed only too likely, he would never return, and we should wait in vain. And with each hour of waiting our chances to escape grew less.

I resolved to follow the exit for a little distance to see whither it led, and if I could discover the light of day.

So I took my sword and sallied out through the passage in the cliff.

CHAPTER XX

AT SWORDS' POINTS

I entered the tunnel, sword in hand, keeping both arms stretched out to feel my way. I resolved that I would always keep the left hand in contact with the wall upon that side, so that, in case the tunnel should divide, by reversing the process I could ensure my safe return.

I had only proceeded a few steps when the air grew cold and sweet. And before I had traversed two hundred yards I saw a dim light in the distance. This was no candle light, but that of day. So I had endured all those agonies of mind with the open air but a short distance away!

As I advanced I fancied that I heard the soft pattering of feet behind me.

I halted and listened intently. I crouched against the wall and waited. But I heard nothing now except the distant roaring of the cataracts. How sweet they sounded now!

I listened intently, leaning against the wall and facing backward, holding my sword ready to meet any intruder. But there was no sound from within, except the soughing which one hears in a tunnel; and satisfied at last that I had been the victim of an over-wrought imagination, I pursued my course.

The light grew brighter, but very slowly, until all at once I saw what seemed to be the gleam of an electric arc-light immediately ahead. It dazzled and half blinded me.

I started backward; and then the noble morning star disclosed herself, swinging in the sky like a blazing jewel in a translucent sea.

Before me was a projecting piece of rock, which had shut off the view, and but for that warning star I must have gone to my death. For my foot was slipping on ice--and I was clinging to the cliff-wall upon the other side of the tiny platform, where I had stood with Pierre, and the Old Angel thundered over me.

And, instead of noon, as I had thought it to be, it was only dawn, and the distant sky was banded with faint bars of yellow and gold, and the fresh morning air was in my nostrils.

I picked my way back, inch by inch, across the ice which coated the rocky floor for a few yards within the tunnel, until I stood in safety again.