He heard every word, but he could not open his eyes or move his lips, though slowly and surely his strength was coming back, despite the rapid loss of blood.
The pistol ball was a very large one and it had made a bad, almost fatal wound, having passed through his shoulder and a part of his chest, barely missing the lung. The shock had had a paralyzing effect, causing the insensibility from which he was rallying.
It was a striking picture they made grouped against the dark back-ground of the old wall, with the dim light falling over them. If a broken spear and a cloven helmet had rested hard by, it would have served well for a tableau of medieval days, a lady nursing the head of her fallen knight within the crumbling ruins of some battered castle.
"Why _did_ we ever come here! Oh, love, my own love, open your eyes! Speak to me: say you will not die, you will not die!"
Her words, so insistent, so despairing and so passionate, filled his consciousness with an all-satisfying sense of happiness. He could scarcely understand why she should not be willing to let him lie quietly and listen to her, for he had not recovered himself sufficiently to be able to grasp the reality of her suffering or of his own condition.
"Speak to me, speak to me," she kept reiterating, until at last, like one freeing himself reluctantly from a sweet dream, he moved his lips, making no sound at first, but presently saying:
His voice was so strange and so low that she could not catch his words. She bowed her head so that her face almost touched his.
"What is it--what did you say?" she tenderly asked.
He put up his left hand and swept it over her cheek and down along her shoulder. Then, as his wound began to pain him, he groaned in a suppressed way.
"What ails me? What--ah, the shot--he hit me, I know--I remember now," he said, beginning to gather strength. "Let me sit up."
With a strong effort he raised himself to a sitting posture and smiled feebly.
"I have called and called, but no one will come. What shall we do?" she cried, wringing her hands and gazing helplessly at him. "Oh, why did we ever come here?"
"Be calm, darling," he said, looking fondly at her, the wan smile on his face growing more intense. "I will show you that I am a man worthy of your love." Then he arose and stood up, tall and beautiful in his strength, before her, seeming to defy his wound and its pain, though his face was pale as death.