made brief reply, and
she thought his words were stern.

Then, as she would not be pacified, he lifted her like a child and held
her so that she could look down upon Isabel, lying inert and senseless
against the doctor's knee.

"Oh, is she dead?" whispered Dinah, awe-struck.

"I don't know," he made answer, and by the tightening of his arms she
knew that her safety meant more to him at the moment than that of Isabel
or anyone else in the world.

But in a second or two she heard Isabel moan, and was reassured.

"She is coming round," the doctor said. "She is not so far gone as the
other lassie."

Dinah wondered hazily what he could mean, wondered if by any chance he
suspected that long and dreary wandering of her spirit up and down the
mountain-side. She nestled her head down against Eustace's shoulder with
a feeling of unutterable thankfulness that she had returned in time.

Her impressions after that were of a very dim and shadowy description.
She supposed the brandy had made her sleepy. Very soon she drifted off
into a state of semi-consciousness in which she realized nothing but the
strong holding of his arms. She even vaguely wondered after a time
whether this also were not a dream, for other fantasies began to crowd
about her. She rocked on a sea of strange happenings on which she found
it impossible to focus her mind. It seemed to have broken adrift as it
were--a rudderless boat in a gale. But still that sense of security never
wholly left her. Dreaming or waking, the force of his personality
remained with her.

It must have been hours later, she reflected afterwards, that she heard
the Colonel's voice exclaim hoarsely over her head, "In heaven's name,
say she isn't dead!"

And, "Of course she isn't," came Eustace's curt response. "Should I be
carrying her if she were?"

She tried to open her eyes, but could not. They seemed to be weighted
down. But she did very feebly close her numbed hands about Eustace's
coat. Emphatically she did not want to be handed over like a bale of
goods to the Colonel.

He clasped her to him reassuringly, and presently she knew that he bore
her upstairs, holding her comfortably close all the way.

"Don't go away from me!" she begged him weakly.

"Not so long as you want me, little sweetheart," he made answer. But her
woman's heart told her that a parting was imminent notwithstanding.

In all her life she had never had so much attention before. She seemed to
have enter