ter, she
wondered at that also.

Rivington jerked the exhausted man upright.

"Go back!" he said to Ernestine. "Go back! I won't kill him!"

She took him at his word, and went back. She heard Rivington speak
briefly and sternly, and Dinghra mumbled something in reply. She heard
the shuffling of feet, and knew that Rivington was helping him to walk.

For a little while she watched the two figures, the one supporting the
other, as they moved slowly away. Dinghra's head was sunk upon his
breast. He slunk along like a beaten dog. Then the trunk of a tree hid
them from her sight.

When that happened, Ernestine suffered herself to collapse upon the
moss, with her head upon her arms.

Lying thus, she presently heard once more the tread of a horse's feet,
and counted each footfall mechanically. They grew fainter and fainter,
till at last the forest silence swallowed them, and a great solitude
seemed to wrap her round.

Minutes passed. She did not stir. Her strength had gone utterly from
her. Finally there came the sound of a quiet footfall.

Close to her it came, and stopped.

"Why, Chirpy!" a quiet voice said.

She tried to move, but could not. She was as one paralysed. She could
not so much as utter a word.

He knelt down beside her and raised her to a sitting posture, so that
she leaned against him. Holding her so, he gently rubbed her cheek.

"Poor little Chirpy!" he said. "It's all right!"

At sound of the pity and the tenderness of his voice, something seemed
to break within her, the awful constriction passed. She hid her face
upon his arm, and burst into a wild agony of weeping.

He laid his hand upon her head, and kept it there for a while; then as
her sobbing grew more and more violent, he bent over her.

"Don't cry so, child, for Heaven's sake!" he said earnestly. "It's all
right, dear; all right. You are perfectly safe!"

"I shall never--feel safe--again!" she gasped, between her sobs.

"Yes, yes, you will," he assured her. "You will have me to take care of
you. I shall not leave you again."

"But the nights!" she cried wildly. "The nights!"

"Hush!" he said. "Hush! There is nothing to cry about. I will take care
of you at night, too."

She began to grow a little calmer. The assurance of his manner soothed
her. But for a long time she crouched there shivering, with her face
hidden, while he knelt beside her and stroked her hair.

At last he moved as though to rise, but on the instant she clu