hed back after it and gave her the
start she needed. Breathless, terrified to death, she raced on, tearing
her frock, dropping the library cards and parasol she still had held in
her hand. Once she caught her sash on a tree-wire. Once her slipper-heel
caught and nearly threw her. The chase seemed unending. She could hear
the dreadful footsteps of the tramp behind her, and his snarling,
swearing voice panting out threats. He was drunk, she realized with
another thrill of horror. It was a nightmare happening.

On and on--she stumbled, fell, caught herself--but the tramp had gained.
Then at last the almost invisible gap in the hedge, and she fled
through.

"_Allan! Allan! Allan!_" she screamed, fleeing instinctively to his
chair.

The rose-garden was like a place of enchanted peace after the terror of
outside. Her quick vision as she rushed in was of Allan still there,
moveless in his chair, with the little black bull-dog lying asleep
across his arms and shoulder like a child. It often lay so. As she
entered, the scene broke up before her eyes like a dissolving view. She
saw the little dog wake and make what seemed one flying spring to the
tramp's throat, and sink his teeth in it--and Allan, at her scream,
_spring from his chair_!

Phyllis forgot everything at the sight of Allan, standing. Wallis and
the outdoor man, who had run to the spot at Phyllis's screams, were
dealing with the tramp, who was writhing on the grass, choking and
striking out wildly. But neither Phyllis nor Allan saw that. Which
caught the other in an embrace they never knew. They stood locked
together, forgetting everything else, he in the idea of her peril, she
in the wonder of his standing.

"Oh, darling, darling!" Allan was saying over and over again. "You are
safe--thank heaven you are safe! Oh, Phyllis, I could never forgive
myself if you had been hurt! Phyllis! Speak to me!"

But Phyllis's own safety did not concern her now. She could only think
of one thing. "_You can stand! You can stand!_" she reiterated. Then a
wonderful thought came to her, striking across the others, as she stood
locked in this miraculously raised Allan's arms. She spoke without
knowing that she had said it aloud. "_Do you care, too?_" she said very
low. Then the dominant thought returned. "You must sit down again," she
said hurriedly, to cover her confusion, and what she had said. "Please,
Allan, sit down. Please, dear--you'll tire yourself."

Allan sank into his