rds her. She took him by the wrist, stuck both heels in the
crisp turf, and pulled. Paul set an elbow on the brink, and strained
upwards with all his might Something sucked out of the stream-bed, and
the waters went muddy. 'You're coming!' cried May, and gave a haul which
was meant to be victorious; but Paul still hung like a log.

'There's about a ton of it,' said Paul. 'It's tied like ropes.'

'Gimme t'other hand,' returned young Devon. 'I'll pull ee out if I dies
for't.'

Paul surrendered the other hand, and she pulled. There was another
suck at the bottom of the stream, and Paul came up by a foot. She went
backwards for a new vantage-ground, and pulled again, and Paul came to
bank, clothed from the waist downward in water-lily leaf and weed, and
lay face downwards helpless on the turf at her feet.

'Now,' she said tartly, 'you're not goin' to faint, I hope!' Paul said
nothing. 'Like a girl,' she added, with disdain.

'Not me,' answered Paul, with his nose in the turf. 'What have I got to
feint for?'

He asked the question with feeble scorn, and fainted.

May Gold stooped to a basket which lay near her, and, taking from it a
pair of garden scissors, knelt beside Paul, and began to snip his bonds.
He woke to find her thus engaged, and a virginal sweet sense of shame
filled him. Her fingers touched his skin at times, and he tingled with a
soft fire.

'Nobody'd think it from they grimy paws,' said May Gold to herself; 'but
he've got a skin as fair as a maid's.'

Paul heard the words, and shuddered exquisitely as she laid her soft
warm hand on his shoulder, leaning over him, and slicing away at the
withes in a business-like fashion.

'I'll finish that,' he said tremulously.

'La,' she cried, 'the child's awake all the time! There's the scissors;
I'll go and wait in the lane.'

Paul lay still for a moment listening to the rustle of her dress; and
when it had gone out of hearing he rolled over, and with a shaking hand
began to free himself of the remnant of his bonds. He had not, so far,
had time to think of the imminent peril from which he had escaped. He
had been near death. Death! What a grip at the heartstrings! He had
had his second of terror in the fact, but the fact was nothing like the
looking back on it There was no urgent fear now to compel him to the
restraint of cowardice, and at this instant he was coward from scalp to
sole--from heart to skin coward. The peril escaped was a thousand times
more