"I remember, you spoke English," he said with only the slightest accent. "Are you better, _madame_?"
She answered his warm smile and said weakly: "Much better, thank you!"
"And your husband?" Claire saw that he was looking beyond her, and she turned to find Lawrence at her side. Instinctively she resented his being there. The warm blood rushed to her face.
"He--oh--he will be all right, I trust!" she stammered falteringly, and her host looked puzzled. Her impulse was to tell him that Lawrence was not her husband, but she thought better of it and said nothing about the relationship.
"He had a long, desperate struggle to bring me here," she said instead. "You see, I broke my ankle and he had to carry me."
"Oh!" The man rose, his face filled with respect as he looked at Lawrence asleep beside her.
"From the coast," she shuddered. "It has been terrible!"
His face expressed utter amazement as he repeated: "From the coast? It is a miracle!"
She made no reply, for Lawrence stirred and tried to sit up.
"You'd better lie still," the stranger said kindly. "You deserve rest, my friend." Then, as to himself, he added: "It is the first miracle in which I can believe."
Claire stared at him, and he laughed softly. "Pardon, _madame_! I am an unhappy seeker after truth," he apologized, throwing a log on the fire.
For Lawrence and Claire the days that followed were uneventful days of recovery from their hardship. Slowly both of them grew stronger and resumed their normal habits of thought and speech. Their host was a gentle nurse, kindly and considerate. Claire assumed her wonted attitude of the cultured woman, a guest in the house of a friend, and the Spaniard met her with the polished courtesy of a cosmopolitan. Lawrence, too, became the usual man that he was, careless of little niceties, indifferent to form, but a charming companion and a delightful guest.
From the first he and Philip became intensely interested in each other. They discovered early that each was a thinker and a searcher in his own way for the one great solution of life.
During the first half-hour Claire had demanded of their rescuer where they were and how soon they could get back to civilization. Philip had laughed gently.