"It will give you strength and courage," he urged. "Poor little girl! Poor little girl!"
She looked up into his face, a new light coming into her eyes.
"Don't talk now," he said softly. "Take your time. Hold to my arm, please. There! In a little while you'll be able to tell me all about it--and then we'll set about to find a way to escape these devils. We'll laugh at 'em, after all."
For five or ten minutes he led her back and forth across the room, very tenderly. At first she was faint and uncertain; then, as her strength and wits came back to her, courage took the place of despair. She smiled wanly and asked him to sit down with her.
"A way to escape, you said," she murmured, as he dropped to her side. "Where are we? What is it all about?"
"Not so loud," he cautioned. "I'll be perfectly candid with you. You'll have to be very, very brave. But wait. Perhaps it will be easier for you to tell me what has happened to you, so far as you know. I can throw light on the whole situation, I think. Tell me, please, in your own way and time. We're in a sorry mess, and it looks black, but, this much I can tell you: you are to be set free in a few days, unharmed. You may rest easy. That much is assured."
"And you?" she whispered, clutching his arm tightly, the swift thrill of relief dying almost as it was born. "What of you?"
"Oh, I'll get out all right," he affirmed with a confidence he did not feel. "I'm going to get you out of this or die in the attempt. Sh! Don't oppose me," he went on whimsically. "I've always wanted to be a hero, and here's my chance. Now tell me what happened to you."
Her piquant, ever-sprightly face had lost the arrogance that had troubled all his dreams of conquest. She was pale and shivering and so sorely distressed that he had it in his heart to clasp her in his arms as one might do in trying to soothe a frightened child. Her face grew cloudy with the effort to concentrate her thoughts; a piteous frown settled upon her brow.
"I'm not sure that I can recall everything. It is all so terrible--so unaccountable. It's like a dream that you try to remember and cannot. Finding you here in this place is really the strangest part of it. I cannot believe that I am awake."
She looked long and anxiously into his face, her eyebrows drawn together in an earnest squint of uncertainty. "Oh, Mr. King, I have had such a dreadful--dreadful time. Am I awake?"