tation to
secure such a friend. I was too cowardly to face the world alone. And
now see what's happened! You're in danger and disgrace on my account.
I must go away--I must do what I should have done at first," and with
her face buried in her hands she rocked back and forth, overwhelmed by
the bitterness and reproach of her thoughts.

"Alida," he urged, "please be calm and sensible. Let me reason with
you and tell you the truth. All that's happened is that the Oakville
cubs have received a well-deserved whipping. When you get calm, I can
explain everything so it won't seem half so bad. Neither you nor I are
in any danger, and, as for your going away, look me in the eyes and
listen."

His words were almost stern in their earnestness. She raised her
streaming eyes to his face, then sprung up, exclaiming, "Oh! You're
wounded!"

"What's that, compared with your talk of going away?"

All explanations and reassurances would have been trivial in effect,
compared with the truth that he had been hurt in her defense. She
dashed her tears right and left, ran for a basin of water, and making
him take her chair, began washing away the blood stains.

"Thunder!" he said, laughing, "How quickly we've changed places!"

"Oh, oh!" she moaned, "It's a terrible wound; it might have killed you,
and they WILL kill you yet."

He took her hands and held them firmly. "Alida," he said, gravely yet
kindly, "be still and listen to me."

For a moment or two longer her bosom heaved with convulsive sobs, and
then she grew quiet. "Don't you know you can't go away?" he asked,
still retaining her hands and looking in her face.

"I could for your sake," she began.

"No, it wouldn't be for my sake. I don't wish you to go, and wouldn't
let you. If you should let the Oakville rabble drive you away, I WOULD
be in danger, and so would others, for I'd be worse on 'em than an
earthquake. After the lesson they've had tonight, they'll let us alone,
and I'll let them alone. You know I've tried to be honest with you
from the first. Believe me, then, the trouble's over unless we make
more for ourselves. Now, promise you'll do as I say and let me manage."

"I'll try," she breathed softly.

"No, no! That won't do. I'm beginning to find you out. You may get
some foolish, self-sacrificing notion in your head that it would be
best for me, when it would be my ruination. Will you promise?"

"Yes."

"Famous! Now you can bathe my head all