He lifted her up again in his arms, and seeing a yellow glow beating along the passage that led from the hall into the kitchen, he made for it and found a huge fire blazing on the hearth, the light from it making the place far brighter than in the day. There was a rough sort of couch under the window, and John Gore laid Barbara upon it, and drew the thing up before the fire so that the warmth should hearten the life in her. And then, for the first time, he took notice of the swelter he himself was in, his shirt hanging open and showing his chest, blotches of crimson staining it, his very stockings soaked from the blood of the two dead creatures upon the stairs. A man in such a war tackle was not a savory thing to meet the eyes of a frightened girl.
John Gore bent over her a moment and saw a faint pink flush creeping into her cheeks, while her breath came and went steadily with a quiet sighing. There was an oak chest in the kitchen, and John Gore found some clothes in it: a rough shirt that had belonged to the dead man and some woollen hose. He went out into the yard where the dog was rattling his chain and making a great whimpering, as though calling for his supper, and, knowing that there was a pump by the stable, he stripped himself to the waist, washed, and put on clean gear. Then he unbarred the gate, and brought in his coat and riding-boots from under the thorn-tree, so that he should seem something of a gentleman, and not a ragged scoundrel hardly fit to touch a woman’s hand.
Barbara was still lying like one asleep before the fire when he returned, for she had been so near to death that life seemed to steal back softly and slowly as though still afraid. John Gore had never looked thus at his love before, as a man might look at a sleeping child or at some fair valley under a golden dawn. He saw the faint flush upon her cheeks, the shadowy sweep of the long lashes, the little dark curls of hair falling with such a sheen of sweetness over her forehead, the line of the red mouth, the soft warmth of her skin. She looked thin, poor child, frail and tragical, and yet the suffering that she had borne had shed a glamour over her that made her more lovable and more womanly than of old. His heart went out to her with all the awe of a man’s desire as he stood and watched the coming of life—and love.