Randolph
Anderson. Now she was sure that she was safe. She stumbled again to
her feet, and ran weakly out of the oak grove. There was a low fence
between the grove and the field, and when she reached that she
stopped. She felt this to be insurmountable for her trembling limbs.
"Oh, dear!" she said, aloud, and although the man was holding his
butterfly-net cautiously over the top of a clump of asters so far
away that it did not seem possible that he could hear her, he
immediately looked up. Then he hastened towards her. As he drew near
a look of concern deepened on his face. He had had an inkling at the
first glimpse of her that something was wrong. He reached the fence
and stood looking at her on the other side.

"I am afraid I can't get over," Charlotte said, faintly. She never
knew quite how she was over, lifted in some fashion, and Anderson
stood close to her, looking at her with his face as white as hers.

"What is it?" he asked. "Are you ill, Miss Carroll? What is it?"

"I have been frightened," said she. Without quite knowing what she
did, she caught hold of his arm and clung to him tightly.

"What frightened you?" asked Anderson, fairly trembling himself and
looking down at her.

"There was a man asleep in the grove, in there," explained Charlotte,
falteringly--she still felt faint and strange--"and--and--I sat down
there, and did not see him, and then he--he woke up and--"

Anderson seized her arm in a fierce clutch. "What?" he cried. "Where
is he? What? For God's sake!"

"He went away out in the road and did not seem to see--me. I sat
still," said Charlotte. Then she was very faint again, for he, too,
frightened her a little.

Anderson caught her, supporting her, while he tore off his coat. Then
he half carried her over to a ledge of rocks cropping out of the
furzy gold-and-blue undergrowth, and sat down beside her there.
Charlotte sat weakly where she was placed. She was deadly white and
trembling. Anderson hesitated a moment, then he put an arm around
her, removed her hat, and drew her head down on his shoulder.

"Now keep quiet a little while until you are better," he said. "You
are perfectly safe now. You say the man did not see you?"

Charlotte shook her head against his shoulder. She closed her eyes;
she was really very near a complete swoon, and scarcely knew where
she was or what was happening; only a vague sense of another will
thrust under her sinking spirit for a support was over her.