arried."

"Don't be a little fool, child!" he broke out in spite of himself.
Then gently, decisively, he disengaged her fingers from his coat; but
their clinging grasp checked his impatience to be gone.

He bent down, and spoke in a softened tone. "I've no time for
arguments, Evelyn. I am simply doing my duty."

He was gone--and she remained as he had left her, with hands lying
listlessly in her lap, and a frown between her finely pencilled
brows,--mollified, but by no means convinced.

Honor had hurried into the hall, where Frank Olliver greeted her with
impulsive invitation.

"Why don't you 'boot and saddle' too, Honor, an' ride along with us?"

"I only wish I could! I'd love to go! But I _must_ stay with Evelyn.
She is upset and nervous about Theo as it is."

"Saints alive! How _can_ you put up with her at all--at all!"
muttered irrepressible Frank. "But hush, now, here's the blessed
fellow himself!"

Theo Desmond strode rapidly down the square hall, hung with trophies
of the chase and implements of war--an incongruous figure enough, in
forage cap and long brown boots with gleaming spurs, his sword buckled
on over his evening clothes. He snatched a long clasp-knife from the
wall in passing, and the Irishwoman, with an nod of approval, hurried
out into the verandah, where the impatient horses could be heard
champing their bits.

Desmond had a friendly smile for Honor in passing.

"Pity you can't come too. Be good to Ladybird. Don't let her work
herself into a fever about nothing."

* * * * *

For eight breathless minutes the grey and the dun sped through the
warm night air, under a rising moon, their shadows fleeing before
them, long and black,--two perspiring saises following zealously in
their wake;--till their riders drew rein before a pandemonium of
scurrying men and horses, silhouetted against a background of fire.

The great pile of sun-dried bedding burnt merrily: sending up fierce
tongues of flame, that shamed the moonlight, as dawn shames the lamp.
A brisk wind from the hills caught up shreds and flakes from the
burning mass, driving them hither and thither, to the sore distraction
of man and beast.

Lithe forms of grass-cutters and water-carriers, in the scantiest
remnants of clothing, leaped and pranced on the outskirts of the fire,
like demons in a realistic hell.

In valiant spurts and jerks, alternating with ignominious flight, they
were combating that c