to git to cook things fer you an' doctor you up."

"I'll go and stay a day, anyway," promised Westerfelt. He glanced at
Harriet Floyd, who stood behind the curtains looking out of the window.
"I don't need any finer treatment than I've had, Luke. Miss Harriet's
been better than a sister to me. She saved my life the other night,
too. If she hadn't interfered that gang would have nabbed me as sure
as preaching, and I was unarmed and too weak to stand rough handling."

Harriet came from the window. She took the roll of blankets that
Bradley had brought and held one of them before the fire.

"It's chilly out to-day," she said. "You'd better wrap him up well,
Mr. Bradley."

Bradley did not reply. He heard a noise outside, and went out hastily
to see if his horse was standing where he had left him. Westerfelt
dragged himself from his chair and stood in front of the fire. He had
grown thinner during his confinement, and his clothes hung loosely on
him.

"You have been good to me," he repeated, in a low tone, "and I wish I
could do something to pay you back." She said nothing. She bent over
and felt the blanket to see if it were scorching, and then turned the
other side to the fire.

"Mrs. Bradley is a fine nurse," she said, presently. "She'll take good
care of you. Besides, she has a better claim on you than we--mother
and I--have; she has known you longer."

"I'll tell you the truth," he answered, after studying her face for a
moment in silence. "I'd really be willing to get hurt over again for
an excuse to live here like I have. I am the loneliest man that was
ever born--lonely is no name for it. In the dead hours of the night I
suffer agonies--you see, I am not a good sleeper. I have been as near
insanity as any man that ever lived out of an asylum. But I have been
mighty nearly free from all that since you began to nurse me. I wish
to God it could go on forever--forever, do you understand?--but it
can't--it can't. I have my troubles and you have yours--that is," he
added, quickly, as she shot a sudden glance of inquiry at him, "I
reckon you have troubles, most girls do."

"Yes, I have my troubles, Mr. Westerfelt," she said, simply.
"Sometimes I think I cannot bear mine, but I do."

He said nothing, but his eyes were upon her almost with a look of fear.
Was she about to tell him frankly of her love for Wambush?

She rolled up one of the blankets and put it on the rug in front of the
fire, an