e done?"

"They're drunk," he explained. "It was only a miserable rabble from
the barroom in the village. But if you'd been here alone--!"

She shook her head.

"I recognized the man who spoke first; his name is Parsons. There
were others, too, who worked on the place here in the summer.... They
have heard?"

He nodded, unable to speak because of something which rose in his
throat choking him. Then he saw a thin trickle of red oozing from
under the fair hair above her temple, and the blood hammered in his
ears.

"You are hurt!" he said thickly. "The devils struck you!"

"It's nothing--a stone, perhaps."

Something in the sorrowful look she gave him broke down the flimsy
barrier between them.

"Lydia--Lydia!" he cried, holding out his arms.

She clung to him like a child. They stood so for a moment, listening
to the sounds from without. There were still occasional shouts and
the altercation of loud, angry voices; but this was momently growing
fainter; presently it died away altogether.

She stirred in his arms and he stooped to look into her face.

"I--Father will be frightened," she murmured, drawing away from him
with a quick decided movement. "You must let me go."

"Not until I have told you, Lydia! I am poor, rough--not worthy to
touch you--but I love you with my whole heart and soul, Lydia. You
must let me take care of you. You need me, dear."

Tears overflowed her eyes, quiet, patient tears; but she answered
steadily.

"Can't you see that I--I am different from other women? I have only
one thing to live for. I must go to him.... You had forgotten--him."

In vain he protested, arguing his case with all lover's skill and
ingenuity. She shook her head.

"Sometime you will forgive me that one moment of weakness," she said
sadly. "I was frightened and--tired."

He followed her upstairs in gloomy silence. The old man, she was
telling him hurriedly, would be terrified. She must reassure him; and
tomorrow they would go away together for a long journey. She could
see now that she had made a cruel mistake in bringing him to
Brookville.

But there was no answer in response to her repeated tapping at his
door; and suddenly the remembrance of that stooping shadow came back
to him.

"Let me go in," he said, pushing her gently aside.

The lights, turned high in the quiet room, revealed only emptiness
and disorder; drawers and wardrobes pulled wide, scattered garments
apparently dropped at random on cha