y dishonored in the encounter. He looked at it
shuddering, with a countenance of intense disgust, and made a motion as
if to hurl it into the street. But his eye again fell upon the cooper's
squalid little figure, as he stood twisting his hands into his apron,
and with voluble eagerness protesting that it was not his dog, but that
of the English ship-captain, who had left it with him, and whom he had
many a time besought to have the beast killed. Mr. Arbuton, who seemed
not to hear what he was saying, or to be so absorbed in something else
as not to consider whether he was to blame or not, broke in upon him in
French: "You've done me the greatest service. I cannot repay you, but
you must take this," he said, as he thrust a bank-note into the little
man's grimy hand.

"O, but it is too much! But it is like a monsieur so brave, so--"

"Hush! It was nothing," interrupted Mr. Arbuton again. Then he threw his
overcoat upon the man's shoulder. "If you will do me the pleasure to
receive this also? Perhaps you can make use of it."

"Monsieur heaps me with benefits;--monsieur--" began the bewildered
cooper; but Mr. Arbuton turned abruptly away from him toward Kitty, who
trembled at having shared the guilt of the other spectators, and seizing
her hand, he placed it on his arm, where he held it close as he strode
away, leaving his deliverer planted in the middle of the sidewalk and
staring after him. She scarcely dared ask him if he were hurt, as she
found herself doing now with a faltering voice.

"No, I believe not," he said with a glance at the frock-coat, which was
buttoned across his chest and was quite intact; and still he strode on,
with a quick glance at every threshold which did not openly declare a
Newfoundland dog.

It had all happened so suddenly, and in so brief a time, that she might
well have failed to understand it, even if she had seen it all. It was
barely intelligible to Mr. Arbuton himself, who, as Kitty had loitered
mocking and laughing before the door of the shop, chanced to see the dog
crouched within, and had only time to leap forward and receive the cruel
brute on his breast as it flung itself at her.

He had not thought of the danger to himself in what he had done. He knew
that he was unhurt, but he did not care for that; he cared only that she
was safe; and as he pressed her hand tight against his heart, there
passed through it a thrill of inexpressible tenderness, a quick,
passionate sense of poss