It came to them both in that instant—­the tick-tick-tick of the watch in his pocket!

Without taking her eyes from his face she asked: 

“What time is it.  John?”

“Joanne——­”

“I am not afraid,” she whispered.  “I was afraid this afternoon, but I am not afraid now.  What time is it, John?”

“My God—­they’ll dig us out!” he cried wildly.  “Joanne, you don’t think they won’t dig us out, do you?  Why, that’s impossible!  The slide has covered the wires.  They’ve got to dig us out!  There is no danger—­none at all.  Only it’s chilly, and uncomfortable, and I’m afraid you’ll take cold!”

“What time is it?” she repeated softly.

For a moment he looked steadily at her, and his heart leaped when he saw that she must believe him, for though her face was as white as an ivory cross she was smiling at him—­yes! she was smiling at him in that gray and ghastly death-gloom of the cavern!

He brought out his watch, and in the lantern-glow they looked at it.

“A quarter after three,” he said.  “By four o’clock they will be at work—­Blackton and twenty men.  They will have us out in time for supper.”

“A quarter after three,” repeated Joanne, and the words came steadily from her lips.  “That means——­”

He waited.

“We have forty-five minutes in which to live!” she said.

Before he could speak she had thrust the lantern into his hand, and had seized his other hand in both her own.

“If there are only forty-five minutes let us not lie to one another,” she said, and her voice was very close.  “I know why you are doing it, John Aldous.  It is for me.  You have done a great deal for me in these two days in which one ‘can be born, and live, and die.’  But in these last minutes I do not want you to act what I know cannot be the truth.  You know—­and I know.  The wires are laid to the battery rock.  There is no hope.  At four o’clock—­we both know what will happen.  And I—­am not afraid.”

She heard him choking for speech.  In a moment he said: 

“There are other lanterns—­Joanne.  I saw them when I was looking for the scarf.  I will light them.”

He found two lanterns hanging against the rock wall.  He lighted them, and the half-burned candle.

“It is pleasanter,” she said.

She stood in the glow of them when he turned to her, tall, and straight, and as beautiful as an angel.  Her lips were pale; the last drop of blood had ebbed from her face; but there was something glorious in the poise of her head, and in the wistful gentleness of her mouth and the light in her eyes.  And then, slowly, as he stood looking with a face torn in its agony for her, she held out her arms.

“John—­John Aldous——­”

“Joanne!  Oh, my God!—­Joanne!”

She swayed as he sprang to her, but she was smiling—­smiling in that new and wonderful way as her arms reached out to him, and the words he heard her say came low and sobbing: