Anne did not watch him go.  It was nothing to her at the moment whether he went or stayed.  She knelt beside the huddled, unconscious figure and tried to straighten the crumpled limbs.  The sweater had been literally torn from his back, and the shirt beneath it was in blood-stained tatters.  His face was covered with blood.  Sir Giles had not been particular as to where the whip had fallen.  Great purple welts crossed and re-crossed each other on the livid features.  The bleeding lips were drawn back in a devilish grimace.  He looked as though he had been terribly mauled by some animal.

Anne gripped a handful of snow, hardly knowing what she did, and tried to stanch the blood that ran from an open cut on his temple.  She was not trembling any longer.  The emergency had steadied her.  But the agony of those moments was worse than any she had ever known.

Minutes passed.  She was beginning to despair.  An icy dread was at her heart.  He lay so lifeless, so terribly inert.  She had attempted to lift him, but the dead weight was too much for her.  She could only rest his head against her, and wipe away the blood that trickled persistently from that dreadful, sneering mouth.  Would he ever speak again, she asked herself?  Were the fiery eyes fast shut for ever?  Was he dead—­he whose vitality had always held her like a charm?  Had her friendship done this for him, that friendship he had valued so highly?

She stooped lower over him.  The anguish of the thought was more than she could bear.

“O God,” she prayed suddenly and passionately, “don’t let him die!  Don’t let him die!”

And in that moment Nap’s eyes opened wide and fixed themselves upon her.

He did not attempt to move or speak, but the snarling look went wholly out of his face.  The thin lips met and closed over the battered mouth.  He lay regarding her intently, as if he were examining some curious thing he had never seen before.

And before that gaze Anne’s eyes wavered and sank.  She felt she could never meet his look again.

“Are you better?” she whispered.  “Can I—­will you let me—­help you?”

“No,” he said.  “Just—­leave me!” He spoke quite quietly, but the very sound of his voice sent a perfect storm of emotion through her.

“I can’t!” she said almost fiercely.  “I won’t!  Let me help you!  Let me do what I can!”

He stirred a little, and his brow contracted, but he never took his eyes from her face.

“Don’t be—­upset,” he said with an effort.  “I’m not going—­to die!”

“Tell me what to do,” she urged piteously.  “Can I lift you a little higher?”

“For Heaven’s sake—­no!” he said, and swallowed a shudder.  “My collar-bone’s broken.”

He was silent for a space, but still his dusky eyes watched her perpetually.

At last, “Let me hold your hand,” he said.

She put it into his, and he held it tightly.  The blood was running down his face again, and she wiped it softly away.