and saw that his face was white, but the glitter of
determination in his eyes was so new and curious that it held her
attention for the moment necessary to give her strength to obey. He
almost pulled her to her feet, and then half dragged, half ran with her
across. Yet within ten feet of the end, the trembling of his hand had
communicated itself to her whole body. She watched the drops of
perspiration fall from his pale face and, fascinated, followed them down
with her eyes. Then wrenching her hand from his, she almost fell down
again. It seemed to her her head swayed back and forth with such force
as might bear her whole body with it, and she squatted down, shivering.

It was a most humiliating finish to an exciting adventure, for when he
strove to compel her again to rise, Crosby found that terror is
contagious. He himself dared not stand. He squatted down in front of
her, and on all fours the two crawled toward the bank. Sissy could have
kissed the earth when her hands touched it.

But it took her some time to recover. The sympathetic fussing of the
Misses Bryne-Stivers she endured as in a dream. She even permitted Mr.
Garvan to take her hand and help her walk for a time. But when they
reached the first house and had turned down Taylor Street, she was so
thoroughly herself that she contrived to let the rest pass her, and she
rested till Crosby came up. She was walking beside him, with a sudden
flattering kindness that almost turned his head, when he looked in the
direction in which her eyes were fixed, and saw his mother in her
phaeton pull up and beckon to him.

He looked shyly at Sissy. He would have given much to be told that this
forgiveness was not to be merely temporary, like others that had
preceded it whenever Mrs. Pemberton might see and disapprove; that he
was no longer to be flouted and scorned when there was nobody but Sissy
herself to be glad of it.

"The shadow of the guillotine is over you!" said Sissy, in a bombastic
whisper addressed to Mrs. Pemberton--a comforting formula the Madigans
had invented to still their envy of those who rode in carriages. But her
smiling face, when it turned toward Crosby, had no threat in it.

Relieved, forgiven, reinstated,--for there was a promise without words
in his tyrant's good humor,--Crosby laughed out gaily. At that moment
he had no more fear for Madam Pemberton than for the invoked Madame
Guillotine.

"S' long, Sissy," he cried, waving his basket to her a