terror as that!
Frank has told me all about it--about how brave you were! It was
beautiful!"

"When I felt how wicked my thoughts was, there came an awful revulsion
of feeling; and then I rushed into the street, not caring if I was
killed, if I could only save you. I felt that the sacrifice of my life,
even, if it were necessary, was demanded to pay for those dreadful
thoughts. I knew the danger, Inza, but that hideous thought made me
brave."

"You are naturally brave, Elsie! I feel that I owe my life to you."

"And I wished you dead!" said Elsie self-reproachfully. "I can never
forget it. Wished you dead when you were knocked down and when the tiger
threatened you. Inza, it was something awful!"

"It was because you love Frank!"

"And you love Frank! You have confessed as much."

"Perhaps I do. I hardly know myself. But you have shown to-day that you
are much more worthy of him than I am. Don't worry about any of those
troubles any more."

She straightened up, with the look of a renouncing queen, while her dark
eyes shone like stars.

"Elsie, I will go away from here if it is necessary. I will not disturb
you and Frank."

"I take back all I said the other day!" Elsie quivered. "I retract every
word. They were selfish, jealous, hateful words. They led me to
murderous thoughts--for those thoughts about you to-day were really
murderous. You shall not go away! Not unless I go away, too!"

"Then we can be friends, dear!" said Inza, laying a hand softly on the
golden head. "That is what we will try to be, if you will, in spite of
everything."

"Yes," Elsie assented, "though I am not worthy to be your friend."

"Then we will be friends, dear!"

"We are friends!" Elsie exclaimed impulsively, drawing the hand down and
kissing it.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE GUN CLUB.

"Baw Jawve, it would be sport if a fellah could draw on a grouse on a
Scotch moor, don't you 'now! It would be something great to knock such a
bird into the heather. There really isn't any shooting in this country
to be compared to that, don't you 'now!"

Willis Paulding drawled this in his affected style, and then swung the
handsome English Greener hammerless to his shoulder and squinted down
the barrels as if he fancied he heard the whirring of a moor cock's
wings and felt the thrill of the sportsman tingling through his veins.

"What's the matter with partridge and woodcock shooting in New England?
Or quail shooting in the West and Sou