ink I can bear it," she said, under her breath.

He drew it instantly off again.

"No, you can't. Or, at least, you are not going to. Look here, Chirpy,
my dear, I think you must let me carry you, anyhow to the caravan. It
isn't far, and I can fetch you some slippers from the mill from there.
What? You don't mind, do you? An old friend like me, and a poor relation
into the bargain?" The blue eyes smiled at her quizzically, and very
persuasively.

But her white face crimsoned, and she turned it aside.

"I don't want you to," she said piteously.

"No, but you'll put up with it!" he urged. "It's too small a thing to
argue about, and you have too much sense to refuse."

He rose with the words. She looked up at him with quivering lips.

"You wouldn't do it--if I refused?" she faltered.

The smile went out of his eyes.

"I shall never do anything against your will," he said. "But I don't
know how you will get back if I don't."

She pondered this for a moment, then, impulsively as a child, stretched
up her arms to him.

"All right, Knight Errant. You may," she said.

And he bent and lifted her without further words.

They scarcely spoke during that journey. Only once, towards the end of
it, Ernestine asked him if he were tired, and he scouted the idea with a
laugh.

When they reached the caravan, and he set her down upon the step, she
thanked him meekly.

"We will have tea," said Rivington, and proceeded to forage for the
necessaries for this meal in a locker inside the caravan.

He brought out a spirit-lamp and boiled some water. The actual making of
the tea he relegated to Ernestine.

"A woman does it better than a man," he said.

And while she was thus occupied, he produced cups and saucers, and a tin
of biscuits, and laid the cloth. Finally, he seated himself on the grass
below her, and began with evident enjoyment to partake with her of the
meal thus provided.

When it was over, he washed up, she drying the cups and saucers, and
striving with somewhat doubtful success to appear normal and
unconstrained.

"Do you mind if I smoke?" he asked, at the end of this.

"Of course not," she answered, and he brought out the briar pipe
forthwith.

She watched him fill and light it, her chin upon her hand. She was still
very pale, and the fear had not gone wholly from her eyes.

"Now I'm going to talk to you," Rivington announced.

"Yes?" she said rather faintly.

He lay back with his arms under his he