“Don’t, Alec,” she protested weakly. “Please – don’t – ”
He took no notice of her and she was too exhausted to speak again. They went on for fifty yards and Alec found shelter behind a broken wall of stone.
There he put her down and she then lay back with closed eyes grateful that for the moment she could not feel the force of the gale.
“I am going to leave you here,” Alec said.
With a little cry of horror she opened her eyes and stretched out her hands instinctively towards him.
“Leave me,” she said. “You cannot mean that.”
He knelt down beside her, taking her hands tenderly and putting them into her long sleeves, wrapping the hem of her robe around her legs tightly.
“Only for a little while,” he said soothingly. “I am going back to the village we passed a little while ago. If i
