The girl did not move, and his grasp tightened suddenly.
"Hold me fast.

I am slipping--slipping down," he said.
Alice Deringham returned the pressure of the clinging fingers, and as she saw a curious unreasoning confidence creep into the haggard face her eyes once more shone through a gathering mistiness.

"I will hold you fast," she said.
"Yes," said the sick man in a strained voice.

"You will not let go.
It's five hundred feet to the river--in the dark below.

I'm slipping, slipping--no holding in the snow." He ceased and looked up at her suddenly as though the fear had left him, and the girl said very softly, "Don't you know me ?" "Yes," said the man.