Inwardly cursing his own folly, Anstice sat down again beside her and took her hand in his as a brother might have done.
"Well, what is ... was...." He, too, bungled over the tense, but she pretended not to notice his confusion. "What are you going to be--or do? I hope your dreams are as wild as mine!"
"Not quite!" Her tone robbed the words of all offence. "Mine are very humble dreams, I'm afraid! You see"--for a second her voice shook, but she steadied it and continued to speak--"there's a man in Egypt whom I am--was--oh, what can I say?--whom I was to marry--some day."
"Really? You're engaged?" A fresh pang of pity shot through his heart.
"Yes. He's an engineer--in the Irrigation Department--and the best man in all the world!" For a moment love triumphed over death, and its glory illuminated the gloom of that fatal place of imprisonment with a hint of immortality. "That's my ambition, Dr. Anstice--to love him and marry him, and be a true and faithful wife--and perhaps"--her voice sank a note--"perhaps in time to bear his children. That"--said Hilda Ryder, and now her eyes were full of dreams--"would be to me the most glorious destiny in the world!"
Her soft voice trembled into silence, and for the space of twenty heart-beats the two sat motionless, only their hands seeking the mutual comfort which their warm contact might well bring.
Then, with a sudden movement, Hilda Ryder sprang to her feet and crossed the mud floor to the aperture in the wall.
"Dr. Anstice, the sun is rising. I suppose--now--we have only a few minutes more to live."
He followed her across the floor and together they watched the dawning of the day which was to be the herald of death. With the inexorable swiftness of the East the sun was rushing into the sky in all his glory of scarlet and pearl, and in spite of the significance of his triumphal rising the two who watched him caught their breath at the rosy magnificence of his entry.
But Hilda's words must not go unanswered; and with a resolute squaring of his shoulders Anstice turned from the gorgeous world outside to the dimness of the hut.
"Yes," he said, rather slowly and deliberately. "I am afraid we have only a few minutes left--now."
Curiously, she cavilled at his choice of words.
"Why do you say--afraid?" He could not understand her tone. "You are not afraid to die--it's I who am such a pitiful coward that I daren't face death--out there in the sunlight."