strange trampling sounds a little farther on where my
horse could not go--and I got off and ran.

"I fell down and got up and ran again; and it seemed as if my feet
wouldn't leave the ground, but only held me back. It seemed like they
hadn't any more power to run--and--then I came there and I saw." She
paused, covering her face with her hand as if to shut out the sight, and
slipped to her knees beside him. "Oh, I saw your faces--all terrible--"
He put his arm about her and drew her close. "I saw you fall, and your
face when it seemed like you were dying as you fought. I saw--" Her sobs
shook her, and she could not go on.

"My beautiful priestess of good and holy things!" he said.

She leaned to him then and, placing her arms about him, ever mindful of
his hurt, she lifted his head to her shoulder. The flood-gates of her
reserve once lifted, the full tide of her intense nature swept over him
and enveloped him. It was as light to his soul and healing to his body.
How often it had seemed as if he saw her with that halo of light about
her, and now it was as if he had been drawn within its charmed radius,
as surely he had.

"And then, dear heart, what did you do?"

"I thought you were killed, and almost--almost I cursed him. I hope now
I wasn't so wicked. But I--I--called back from God the promise I had
given him."

"And then--tell me all the blessed truth--and then--"

"You were bleeding--bleeding--and I took off your clothes--and I saw
where you were bleeding your life away, and I tied my dress around you.
I tore it in pieces and wound it all around you as well as I could, and
then I put your coat back on you, and still you didn't waken. It seemed
as if you had stopped breathing. And then I saw the bruise on your head,
and I thought maybe you were only stunned. I brought water from the
branch and put your head on the wet cloth and bound it all around, but
still you looked like he had killed you, and then--" he stirred in her
arms to feel their clasp.

"And then--then--"

"I went for help," she said, in so low a tone it seemed hardly spoken.

"First you did something you have not told me."

She waited in a sweet shame he recognized and gloried in, but he wanted
the confession from her lips.

"And then?"

"You said you would teach me to say things without words," she said
tremulously.

"Not now. Later. Put everything you did in words. And then--"

"I thought you were dying." She drew in a long, sighing bre