with some agitation in her manner. She seized me by the sleeve
in a way that no man would have thought of, exclaiming, "Let us go at
once--come!" Her sudden anxiety to be off took me entirely by surprise.

"You have a horse?" I said, hearing the jingling of her spurs. But she
declared that her horse was well enough off where he was. "Come!" she
said; "let us be off!"

"With all my heart," I replied. I was so highly elated that I forgot
for the moment that I was dealing with a woman, and I threw my arm
lightly over her shoulder with a gesture of friendliness and
protection.

She threw it off and shrank from it as if it were a serpent. "What do
you mean?" she cried. Her face was red with anger, and her eyes were
blazing with scorn. "Don't dare to touch me!" For an instant I knew not
what to do or say, and then it suddenly occurred to me that it would be
well to hide from her the fact that I knew who she was and so I made a
great pretence of anger. I seized her by the arm. "If you give me
another word of your impertinence I'll carry out my threat of half an
hour ago."

All the anger died out of her eyes. "You hurt me," she said almost in a
whisper. "Oh, pray pardon me; I have travelled far to-day, and I am
weak and nervous. Why did you come here to-night? But for you----" she
paused and glanced up into my face, and placed her hand on mine. And
then I would have known if I had not known before that she was no other
than Jane Ryder, the little lady of the top-buggy. I looked in her
eyes, and they fell; in her face, and it was covered with blushes; and
somehow I was happier than I had been in many a long day.

"Come!" said I with some sternness, and held out my hand to her.
Instinctively she seized it and clung to it as we went out into the
night, followed by Whistling Jim.

"I have a friend who lives farther up the road," she said. "It is not
far, but perhaps it is farther than you care to come--and you have no
overcoat." I was not thinking of what she was saying, but of the warm
little hand that nestled so confidingly in mine. I knew then, or
thought I knew, that this little hand so soft and white, nestling in my
big paw like a young bird under its mother's wing, had the power to
make or mar my life. But, as is ever the way with birdlike things, the
hand slipped from its nest and left it empty.

She was worrying about the ruffian we had left on the floor. "The
trouble with him," I said, "is that he is selling infor