Swiftly he carried her up the slight incline and laid her on the grass, took off his coat, ripped out his shirt sleeve, and tearing it into strips, bound up the bleeding arm.

Then sitting down beside her he leant over sideways and picked her up bodily, clear from the ground into his arms; no mean feat with a toilet jug full of water, let alone with a hefty maiden weighted with grief.

He held her in that heavenly, comforting clasp known and practised by stout old nurses and some mothers, within which you feel that you can defy anything, even to the onslaughts of peevish Fortune.

His left arm was under and round her shoulders, his left hand gently pressed her head against his breast, his right arm was round her just above the knees, and he rocked her gently.

Oh! the heavenly, comforting bliss!

History was repeating itself, for Leonie, with great dry sobs shaking her from head to feet, was snuffling into Jan Cuxson’s collar as she had snuffled into his father’s years ago.

“Beloved!”

Sobs.

“Beloved! there is nothing to cry about—­nothing!  As I am holding you now, so shall I always hold you, and no harm can come to you from ocean, tempest or life. Nothing can hurt you because I love you!”

Sobs.

“Leonie!”

She lay absolutely still, unconsciously counting the beats of his heart which was thudding heavily against her right shoulder, and waiting for the moment when she would find the strength at last to turn down her “empty glass.”

“Leonie! you’ve got to listen to me now, and I am not going to ask you to decide because Fate has decided for you.  And oh! beloved, beloved, thank heaven that there is still time, that you are still free, that heaven instead of hell is waiting for you.  Yes! dear heart.  Fate has decided!”

He stroked her hair as he looked down into the little face crushed against his shoulder, and shifted her a wee bit that she might rest more comfortably.  Leonie closed her eyes and trembled from head to foot as Fate pinched the decision between claw-like thumb and finger so that it was stillborn.

“Dear,” continued Jan Cuxson as he gently patted her shoulder with his left hand, “dear, oh! my dear, just as I hold you now, so I shall always hold you.  I am going to keep you, marry you, and take you right away to India next week; I’ll telegraph that my things are not to be put on board to-morrow.  You must have a nervous breakdown to-day, you darling, just to think of that,” and his laugh rang out against the sullen stillness of the dawn, “then we will slip away, and get married, and—­oh!  Leonie, I love you.”

Leonie said no word, but from her head to her feet swept a thrill which the man felt from his feet to his head.

He laughed again, laughed as a god might laugh with the world in his hand, and crushed her fiercely to him.