ked out; the light
was behind him, and, even in that terrible moment, he recognized--Shifty
Dick.

"The flood! the flood! Fly! Get on high ground, for your lives!"

He galloped furiously, and made for Little's house.

CHAPTER XLIV.

Little took a book, and tried to while away the time till Ransome's
return; but he could not command his attention. The conversation about
Grace had excited a topic which excluded every other.

He opened his window, a French casement, and looked out upon the night.

Then he observed that Grace, too, was keeping vigil; for a faint light
shot from her window and sparkled on the branches of the plane-tree in
her little front garden.

"And that," thought Henry, sadly, "is all I can see of her. Close to
her, yet far off--further than ever now."

A deep sadness fell on him, sadness and doubt. Suppose he were to lay a
trap for her to-morrow, and catch her at her own door! What good would
it do? He put himself in her place. That process showed him at once she
would come no more. He should destroy her little bit of patient, quiet
happiness, the one daily sunbeam of her desolate life.

By-and-by, feeling rather drowsy, he lay down in his clothes to wait for
Ransome's return. He put out his light.

From his bed he could see Grace's light kiss the plane-tree.

He lay and fixed his eyes on it, and thought of all that had passed
between them; and, by-and-by, love and grief made his eyes misty, and
that pale light seemed to dance and flicker before him.

About midnight, he was nearly dozing off, when his ear caught a
muttering outside; he listened, and thought he heard some instrument
grating below.

He rose very softly, and crept to the window, and looked keenly through
his casement.

He saw nothing at first; but presently a dark object emerged from behind
the plane-tree I have mentioned, and began to go slowly, but surely up
it.

Little feared it was a burglar about to attack that house which held his
darling.

He stepped softly to his rifle and loaded both barrels. It was a
breech-loader. Then he crawled softly to the window, and peered out,
rifle in hand.

The man had climbed the tree, and was looking earnestly in at one of the
windows in Grace's house. His attention was so fixed that he never saw
the gleaming eye which now watched him.

Presently the drifting clouds left the moon clear a minute, and Henry
Little recognized the face of Frederick Coventry.

He looked at