thed
in dirty bandages, and a bottle was on the table beside him. He was
leaning forward; his face was gray, and there was a stare of naked
horror in his eyes. One hand grasped the great dog who stood at his
side, with yellow teeth glinting, and muzzle hideously wrinkled; with
the other he pointed a palsied finger at her.

"Ma God! wha are ye?" he cried hoarsely.

The girl stood hard against the door, her fingers still on the handle;
trembling like an aspen at the sight of that uncannie pair.

That look in the little man's eyes petrified her: the swollen pupils;
lashless lids, yawning wide; the broken range of teeth in that gaping
mouth, froze her very soul. Rumors of the man's insanity tided back on
her memory.

"I'm--I--" the words came in trembling gasps.

At the first utterance, however, the little man's hand dropped; he leant
back in his chair and gave a soul-bursting sigh of relief.

No woman had crossed that threshold since his wife died; and, for a
moment, when first the girl had entered silent-footed, aroused from
dreaming of the long ago, he had thought this shawl-clad figure with the
pale face and peeping hair no earthly visitor; the spirit, rather, of
one he had loved long since and lost, come to reproach him with a broken
troth.

"Speak up, I canna hear," he said, in tones mild compared with those
last wild words.

"I--I'm Maggie Moore," the girl quavered.

"Moore! Maggie Moore, d'ye say?" he cried, half rising from his chair,
a flush of color sweeping across his face, "the dochter o' James Moore?"
He paused for an answer, glowering at her; and she shrank, trembling,
against the door.

The little man leant back in his chair. Gradually a grim smile crept
across his countenance.

"Weel, Maggie Moore," he said, halfamused, "ony gate ye're a good
plucked un." And his wizened countenance looked at her almost kindly
from beneath its dirty crown of bandages.

At that the girl's courage returned with a rush. After all this little
man was not so very terrible. Perhaps he would be kind. And in the
relief of the moment, the blood swept back into her face.

There was not to be peace yet, however. The blush was still hot upon her
cheeks, when she caught the patter of soft steps in the passage without.
A dark muzzle flecked with gray pushed in at the crack of the door; two
anxious gray eyes followed.

Before she could wave him back, Red Wull had marked the intruder. With
a roar he tore himself from his