straight. "No, I am not."

"All men are!" she broke forth, wildly. "They lie to us--they trick
us--they swear to us--and kneel and pray--and then"--tossing up her
arms with a cry that was a shriek--"they make _us_ kneel--and
laugh--laugh--and laugh at us!"

She threw herself upon the grass and rolled about, plucking at her
flesh as if she had indeed gone mad.

"But for you," she sobbed, "it would be over now, and your horse's
hoofs had stamped me out. And now 'tis to do again--for I will do it
yet."

"Nay, you will not, Mistress," he said, in a still voice, "for your
child's sake."

He thought, indeed, she would go mad then: she so writhed and beat
herself, that he blamed himself for his words, and knelt by her,
restraining her hands.

"'Tis for its sake I would kill myself, and have my face beaten into
the bloody dust. I would kill it--kill it--kill it--more than I would
kill myself!"

"Nay, you would not, poor soul," he said, "if you were not distraught."

"But I am distraught," she wailed; "and there is naught but death for
both of us."

'Twas a strange situation for a young man to find himself in, watching
by the roadside the hysteric frenzy of a maddened girl; but as he had
been unconscious on the day he stood, an unclad man, giving the aid
that would save a life, so he thought now of naught but the agony he
saw in this poor creature's awful eyes and heard in her strangled
cries. It mattered naught to him that any passing would have thought
themselves gazing upon a scene in a strange story.

There was a little clear stream near, and he went and brought her
water, making her drink it and bathe the dust-stains from her face and
hands, and the gentle authority with which he made her do these simple
things seemed somehow to somewhat calm her madness. She looked up at
him staring, and with long, sobbing breaths.

"Who--are you?" she asked, helplessly.

"I am the Marquess of Roxholm," he answered, "and I ride to my father's
house at Camylott; but I cannot leave you until I know you are safe."

"Safe!" she said. "I safe!" and she clasped her hands about her knees
as she sat, wringing her fingers together. "You do not ask me who I
am," she added.

"I need not know your name to do you service," he answered. "But I must
ask you where you would go--to rest."

"To Death--from which you have plucked me!" was her reply, and she
dropped her head against her held-up knees and broke forth sobbing
again. "I tell