blind passion and the primitive right of the strongest to win his mate. He gathered all his strength, his good English mettle and nerve, and grappled with a grip of steel.
This way and that, twisting, turning, stumbling on the uneven ground, with set teeth and faces drawn and fierce, they struggled, and all the time the light tweed coat on David's back showed a deeper stain from his heart's blood, and his face grew paler and his breath shorter. Yet a joy leaped within him. It was thus he might save her, either to win her or to die for her, for should Frale kill him, she would turn from him in hopeless horror, and David, even in dying, would save her.
Suddenly the battle was ended. Thryng's foot turned, on a rounded stone, causing him to lose his foothold. At the same instant, with terrible forward impetus, Frale closed with him, bending him backward until his head struck the lichen-covered rock. The purple orchid was bruised beneath him, and its color deepened with his blood. Then Frale rose and looked down upon the pallid, upturned face and inert body, which lay as he had crushed it down. As he stood thus, a white figure, bareheaded and alone, came swiftly through the wall of laurel which hid them and pausing terror-stricken in the open space, looked from one to the other.
For an instant Cassandra waited thus, as if she too were struck dead where she stood. Then she looked no more on the fallen man, but only at Frale, with eyes immovable and yet withdrawn, as if she were searching in her own soul for a thing to do, while her heart stood still and her throat closed. Those