Valmond raised himself, a
strange, dull wonder on him, for as the weapon smote this lifeless
creature, he had seen another hurl by and strike the opposite wall. A
moment afterwards the dead man was pulled away by Parpon. Trying to rise
he felt blood trickling down his neck, and he turned sick and blind. As
the world slipped away from him, a soft shoulder caught his head, and out
of a vast distance there came to him the wailing cry: "He is dying! my
love! my love!"
Peril and horror had brought to Elise's breast the one being in the world
for her, the face which was etched like a picture upon her eyes and
heart.
Parpon groaned with a strange horror as he dragged the body from Valmond.
For a moment he knelt gasping beside the shapeless being, his great hands
spasmodically feeling the pulseless breast.
Soon afterwards in the blacksmith's house the two girls nestled in each
other's arms, and Valmond, shaken and weak, returned to the smithy.
In the dull glare of the forge fire knelt Parpon, rocking back and forth
beside the body. Hearing Valmond, he got to his feet.
"You have killed him," he said, pointing.
"No, no, not I," answered Valmond. "Some one threw a hammer."
"There were two hammers."
"It was Elise?" asked Valmond, with a shudder. "No, not Elise; it was
you," said the dwarf, with a strange insistence.
"I tell you no," said Valmond. "It was you, Parpon.
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