down in his fall.

"Girls! Clianthy! Pendrilly!" she cried as she crouched there, clinging
to the prostrate form. "Don't leave me--it's Creed himself. You got to
he'p me!"

[Illustration: "The door was flung back and in the darkness stood
Creed Bonbright."]

But the girls were gone like frightened hares. As she got to her feet in
the doorway she could hear the sound of their flying footsteps down the
lane. All was dead still in the room behind her, yet only an ear as fine
as hers could have distinguished those light, receding footfalls that
finally melted into the far multitudinous whisper and rustle of the
storm.

She turned back in the dark and knelt down beside him, passing a light,
tender hand over his face and chest. He breathed. He was a living man.

"Creed," she whispered loud and desperately. There was no movement or
response.

"Creed," raising her voice. "O my God! Creed, darlin' cain't you hear me?
It's me. It's Jude--poor Jude that loves you so--cain't you answer her?"

There came no reply. She lifted the cold hand, and when she let go of it,
it fell. She leaped to her feet in sudden fear that he might die while
she delayed here. With trembling fingers she struck a match and lit her
candle. Her eye fell on the two pins the girls had thrust in it and named
for Andy and Jeff. With a swift motion she plucked them out and threw
them on the floor. She looked from the prostrate figure to the bed in the
corner. No--she couldn't lift him to lay him there; but she ran and
brought pillows and covers, raising his head upon the one, lapping him
softly in the other.

When all was done that she could do, there was the instant need to hurry
home for help. She hated terribly to leave him alone in the dark, yet a
lighted candle with a man so ill was a risk that she dared not run--he
might move about and set the house on fire. When she closed the darkened
room with its stark figure lying under the white covers, her heart sank
and sank. She must turn the key upon him. There was no good in
hesitating. Only her strong will, her high courage, sustained her as she
locked the door, and turning ran, with feet that love and terror winged,
toward her own home. The rain drenched her; the darkness seemed a thing
palpable; she slipped and fell, got to her feet and ran on. Jephthah
Turrentine, asleep in his own cabin, heard the sound of beating palms
against his door, and a voice outside in the dark and the rain that cried
upon h