“You must drink this,” she said.

Alton made a gesture of understanding, and drained the glass, then let his head fall back, and feebly stretched out his hand until it touched her fingers.  The girl did not move, and his grasp tightened suddenly.

“Hold me fast.  I am slipping—­slipping down,” he said.

Alice Deringham returned the pressure of the clinging fingers, and as she saw a curious unreasoning confidence creep into the haggard face her eyes once more shone through a gathering mistiness.  “I will hold you fast,” she said.

“Yes,” said the sick man in a strained voice.  “You will not let go.  It’s five hundred feet to the river—­in the dark below.  I’m slipping, slipping—­no holding in the snow.”

He ceased and looked up at her suddenly as though the fear had left him, and the girl said very softly, “Don’t you know me?”

“Yes,” said the man.  “Of course.  I was sliding back into the gully, but I knew you would help me.”

He stopped again, and the strained expression suddenly sank out of his eyes, while the girl flushed to the temples when they met her own.

“Now,” he said very softly, “I shall get better.  Nothing can stop me.  You will hold me fast, and not let go.”

He drew her towards him, and Alice Deringham, seeing that the brief flash of reason was fading again, yielded to the feeble pressure, and sank to her knees holding fast the hot fingers that drew her hand to his breast.  Then moved by an impulse swift and uncontrollable she bent a little farther and kissed him on the cheek.  Alton said nothing, but opened his eyes and smiled at her, and then lay still.

For a space of minutes the girl dare scarcely breathe.  Everything, she had been told, depended upon the sick man sleeping, and now he was very quiet.  Then she raised her head and glanced at him.  He had not moved at all, and his face was tranquil, but the hot fingers still clung to her hand.  It was borne in upon her that she could in verity draw him back from the darkness he was slipping into, and with a great fear and compassion she held the hot fingers fast.  There was no longer any snapping in the stove.  The roar of the pines grew louder and the room grew cold, but while the minutes slipped by Alton slept peacefully, with the hand of the woman he had dispossessed in his, and she forgetting her fatigue watched him with eyes that filled with tenderness.

Still, she was not more than a woman, and at last the eyes grew hazy, while every joint ached.  There was a horrible cramp in her shoulder, and to lessen it she moved a trifle so that her arm rested on the pillow.  That was easier, and while she struggled with her weariness her head followed it, until it sank down close by Alton’s shoulder.  Then for five minutes she fought with her weakness, and was vanquished, for her head settled lower into its resting place, and her eyes closed.