He only rocked her gently, pressing her head to his shoulder, while his face, bent above her, quivered all over as the face of a man in torture.
Muriel spoke at last, breaking her stricken silence with a strangely effortless composure.

"Tell me more," she said.
She stirred in his arms as if to free herself from some oppression, and finally drew herself away from him, though not as if she wished to escape his touch.

She still seemed to be hardly aware of him.

He was the medium of her information, that was all.

Nick dropped back into his former attitude, his hands clasped firmly round his knees, his eyes, keen as a bird's and extremely bright, gazing across the ravine.
His lips still quivered a little, but his voice was perfectly even and quiet.
"It happened very soon after the firing began.