g she could not help wincing once as the
bandage accidentally brushed a rather badly scratched ankle. Trenby
paused almost breathlessly. The hand in which he held the white,
blue-veined foot shook a little.

"Did I hurt? I'm awfully sorry." His voice was gruff. "What he
wanted to do was to crush the slim, bruised foot against his lips. The
very touch of its satiny skin against his hand sent queer tremors
through every nerve of his big frame.

"There!" he said at last, gently letting her foot rest once more on the
sofa. "Is that comfortable?"

"Quite, thanks." Then, turning to the whip's wife as she re-entered
the room carrying a jug of hot water, she went on, with that inborn
instinct of hers to charm and give pleasure: "What a nice, sunny room
you have here, Mrs. Denman. I'm afraid I'm making a dreadful mess of
it. I'm so sorry."

"Don't mention it, miss. 'Tis only a drop of water to clear away, and
it's God mercy you weren't killed, by they savage 'ounds."

Nan bestowed one of her delightful smiles upon the good woman, who,
leaving the hot water in readiness; hurried out to tell her husband
that if Miss Davenant was going to be mistress of the Hall, why, then,
'twould be a lucky day for everyone concerned, for a nicer,
pleasanter-spoken young lady--and she just come round from a faint and
all!--she never wished to meet.

Nan put her hand up to her throat.

"Something hurts here," she said in a troubled voice. "Did one of the
hounds leap up at my neck?"

"No," replied Trenby, frowning as his eyes rested on the long red weal
striping the white flesh disclosed by the Y-shaped neck of her frock.
"One of those dunder-headed fools cut you with his whip by mistake.
I'd like to shoot him--and Vengeance too!"

With a wonderfully gentle touch he laid a cloth wrung out in hot water
across the angry-looking streak, and repeated the process until some of
the swelling went down. At last he desisted, wiping dry the soft
girlish throat as tenderly as a nurse might wipe the throat of a baby.

More than a little touched, Nan smiled at him.

"You're making a great fuss of me," she said. "After all, I'm not
seriously hurt, you know."

"No," he replied briefly. "But you might have been killed. For a
moment I thought you _were_ going to be killed in front of my eyes."

"I don't know that it would have mattered, very much if I had been,"
she responded indifferently.

"It would have mattered to me." His voi