had killed you. I'd never
killed anybody before, though stepmother said I'd tried. I mean I--I
suppose I scared you some way, I don't see how, for the minute I was
good to you and sorry, you ran away."

Montgomery moved uneasily. He began to remember events distinctly; quite
too distinctly, in fact. He had run away from that horrid girl, and he
had forgotten the ravine beyond "deserted cottage." He had fallen down
it and hit his head. He could recall the dreadful sensation of pitching
forward into a seemingly bottomless pit, and shivered afresh at the
memory.

Feeling him shiver thus, Katharine drew her white skirts around his
shoulders, and cossetted him as if he had been a baby. He tried to
wriggle away from her on to the ground beyond, but this she sturdily
prevented, and the late-rising moon cast its light just then upon a
face, oddly set and determined for that of so young a girl.

Finding himself helpless in that strange weakness, Monty ceased to
wriggle, and demanded: "How y-y-y-you get here, a-a-a-nyway?"

"Oh! I just followed. When you ran away I ran after."

"A-a-a-aunt Eu-Eu-nice let you?"

"I didn't stop to ask her permission. I saw I'd hurt your feelings, and
I couldn't let you go without telling you I was sorry. But, you see, I
never before knew anybody who stammered, and I didn't think how rude I
was to mention it. Not till Aunt Eunice pointed it out. I do beg your
pardon, sincerely. Will you forgive me?"

It was not in the spirit of any Sturtevant, past or present, to decline
an apology so sweetly and earnestly offered. Besides, that was as it
should be. Humility was the correct attitude for insignificant girls
toward such superior creatures as boys, and Monty waxed magnanimous,
replying:

"Oh, y-y-es! I'll f-f-forgive you. But I don't see. G-g-gir-ls can't run
like boys."

"Can't they, indeed? Well, you ran like a hare, and I just as fast.
There was mighty little space between us, honey, and you may believe it.
How else should I have known the way? I had to keep you in sight, of
course. It was so fearfully dark in that forest that I nearly lost you
once, but I could hear if I couldn't see; and it wasn't so bad when we
got outside again. Yet whatever should make you, a boy--a boy!--go and
hurl yourself over a precipice, when you knew all the time it was there,
while I, a girl--a girl, if you please! who didn't know a thing about
it--stopped short on the brink, amazes me. Explain it, won't you