aid fervently. "I feared the worst. They are coming
on, you say?"

"Yes, but it will be quite an hour before they can get here. You will
excuse me, Mrs Lee, I want to get back to poor old Vane's side."

"Yes, go," she said cheerfully. "I shall be very busy getting ready for
him. The doctor did not say that you were to take anything back?"

"No," said Gilmore; and he hurried away, admiring the poor little lady's
fortitude, for he could see that she was suffering keenly, and only too
glad to be alone.

As he hurried back to the town he was conscious for the first time that
his lower garments were still saturated and patched with dust; that his
hands were torn and bleeding, and that his general aspect was about as
disordered as it could possibly be. In fact he felt that he looked as
if he had been spending the early morning trying to drag a pond, and
that every one who saw him would be ready to jeer.

On the contrary, though he met dozens of people all eager to question
him about Vane, no one appeared to take the slightest notice of his
clothes, and he could not help learning how popular his friend was among
the townsfolk, as he saw their faces assume an aspect of joy and relief.

"I wonder whether they would make so much fuss about me," he said to
himself; and, unable to arrive at a self-satisfying conclusion, he began
to think what a blank it would have made in their existence at the
rectory if Vane had been found dead. From that, as he hurried along, he
began to puzzle himself about the meaning of it all, and was as far off
from a satisfactory conclusion as when he began, on coming in sight of
the little procession with the doctor walking on one side of Vane, and
Macey upon the other.

He had not spoken, but lay perfectly unconscious, and there was not the
slightest change when, followed by nearly the whole of the inhabitants
of Greythorpe, he was borne in at the Little Manor Gate, the crowd
remaining out in the road waiting for such crumbs of news as Bruff
brought to them from time to time.

There was not much to hear, only that the doctor had carefully examined
Vane when he had been placed in bed, and found that his arms and
shoulders were horribly beaten and bruised, and that the insensibility
still lasted, while Doctor Lee had said something about fever as being a
thing to dread.

They were the words of wisdom, for before many hours had passed Vane was
delirious and fighting to get out of bed and de