“Yes, yes; can you suppose I would ever permit you to go alone?  Do you give me your promise?”

She still held her head pressed between the palms of her hands, her dishevelled hair hanging far below the waist, her dark eyes, wild and filled with terror, roving about as though seeking to pierce the surrounding darkness.

“Oh, my God!  I don’t know!” she cried in a breathless sob.  “I don’t know!  Why won’t you go?  Why won’t you go, and leave me here with him, until some one else comes?  I cannot understand; my brain is on fire.  But that would be better—­yes, yes!  Do that.  I—­I am not afraid of him.”

He caught her outflung hand firmly within his own grasp.  She shuddered, as if the contact were painful, yet made no effort to escape, her eyes widening as she looked at him.

“No, I will not go one step without you.”  He held her helpless, his face grown stern, seeing in this his only hope of influencing her action.  “Can it be you believe me such a cur?  Beth, we both comprehend the wrong this man has done, the evil of his life the provocation given for such an act as this.  He deserved it all.  This is no time for blame.  If we desired to aid him, our remaining here now would accomplish nothing.  Others will discover the body and give it proper care.  But, oh, God! do you realize what it will inevitably mean for us to be discovered here?—­the disgrace, the stigma, the probability of arrest and conviction, the ruthless exposure of everything?  I plead with you to think of all this, and no longer hesitate.  We have no time for that.  Leave here with me before it becomes too late.  I believe I know a way out, and there is opportunity if we move quickly.  But the slightest delay may close every avenue for escape.  Beth, Beth, blot out all else, and tell me you will go!”

The intense agony apparent in his voice seemed to break her down utterly.  The tears sprang blinding to her dry eyes, her head bent forward.

“And,” she asked, as if the thought had not yet reached her understanding, “you will not go without—­without me?”

“No; whatever the result, no.”

She lifted her face, white, haggard, and looked at him through the mist obscuring her eyes, no longer wide opened in wildness.

“Then I must go; I must go,” she exclaimed, a shudder shaking her from head to foot; “God help me, I must go!”

A moment she gazed blankly back toward the motionless body on the ground, the ghastly countenance upturned to the stars, her own face as white as the dead, one hand pressing back her dark hair.  She reeled from sudden faintness, yet, before he could touch her in support, she had sunk upon her knees, with head bowed low, the long tresses trailing upon the ground.

“Beth!  Beth!” he cried in an agony of fear.

She looked up at him, her expression that of earnest pleading.

“Yes, yes, I will go,” she said, the words trembling; “but—­but let me pray first.”