very nerve in my body a-quivering. It
was the voice of my Naomi outside the door.

She entered all alone. She looked pale and thin; this I saw dimly, for
my eyes were partly closed. She looked at me long and tenderly, as
though she wanted, by looking, to see if I were better. Then she sat
down by my bedside.

"Are you ill, my little one?" I asked.

She started up like one frightened.

"Oh, Jasper!" she cried; "do you know me? Are you so much better? Oh, my
love, my love!"

Somehow, I know not how it was, but strength came back to me then, so I
lifted my arms, and my little maid nestled her head on me and sobbed her
joy.

"You are sure you will get better, Jasper?"

"Yes, sure."

Presently we fell to talking, for I wanted to know what had taken place,
and she told me little by little, as I could take it in.

"Where am I?" I asked.

"Where? why, at Pennington, your home."

"Yes; and the Tresidders?"

A cloud came over her face. "Richard Tresidder's mother is dead," she
said. "That night when you were shot there was a great commotion. She
had what the folks call a seizure, and she never spoke again. In her
hand she held a pistol, but it is not believed that she shot you. My
father thinks it was Nick, and that she pulled the pistol from him. She
only lived a few hours, and was buried three days later."

I heaved a sigh of relief. Thank God I had been saved from this. All the
same, I felt sad that my little maid suffered it all.

"And Nick?" I asked presently.

"He left Pennington that night. No one knows where he is now, except his
father."

"And he?"

"My father knows where he is. I do not."

"And so I am at Pennington all alone?"

"My father is here. I would not leave you; I could not, you know,
Jasper."

Thus while the rooks cawed in their joy and the dogs barked I lay, while
my little maid sat by my side, and told me the things which my heart
yearned to know.

Presently her father came, and when he knew how well I was, he said he
must return to Trevose as soon as possible and take my Naomi with him.

"But what am I to do without her?" I asked woefully.

"You must get well, Jasper, and come to Trevose to see her."

After that he told me many things which I need not write here concerning
the Tresidders, and of the way they had acted--told me why he had
behaved so strangely to me; and how to deceive them, and thus gain his
rights without difficulty, he had pretended to fall in with their
w