ting eyes.

"I don't know, Aunt Ray," he said dubiously; "this is hardly a woman's
affair. If there's a scrap of any kind, you hike for the timber."
Which was Halsey's solicitous care for me, put into vernacular.

"I shall stay right here," I said, and crossing the small veranda, now
shaded and fragrant with honeysuckle, I hammered the knocker on the
door.

Thomas opened the door himself--Thomas, fully dressed and in his
customary health. I had the blanket over my arm.

"I brought the blanket, Thomas," I said; "I am sorry you are so ill."

The old man stood staring at me and then at the blanket. His confusion
under other circumstances would have been ludicrous.

"What! Not ill?" Halsey said from the step. "Thomas, I'm afraid
you've been malingering."

Thomas seemed to have been debating something with himself. Now he
stepped out on the porch and closed the door gently behind him.

"I reckon you bettah come in, Mis' Innes," he said, speaking
cautiously. "It's got so I dunno what to do, and it's boun' to come
out some time er ruther."

He threw the door open then, and I stepped inside, Halsey close behind.
In the sitting-room the old negro turned with quiet dignity to Halsey.

"You bettah sit down, sah," he said. "It's a place for a woman, sah."

Things were not turning out the way Halsey expected. He sat down on
the center-table, with his hands thrust in his pockets, and watched me
as I followed Thomas up the narrow stairs. At the top a woman was
standing, and a second glance showed me it was Rosie.

She shrank back a little, but I said nothing. And then Thomas motioned
to a partly open door, and I went in.

The lodge boasted three bedrooms up-stairs, all comfortably furnished.
In this one, the largest and airiest, a night lamp was burning, and by
its light I could make out a plain white metal bed. A girl was asleep
there--or in a half stupor, for she muttered something now and then.
Rosie had taken her courage in her hands, and coming in had turned up
the light. It was only then that I knew. Fever-flushed, ill as she
was, I recognized Louise Armstrong.

I stood gazing down at her in a stupor of amazement. Louise here,
hiding at the lodge, ill and alone! Rosie came up to the bed and
smoothed the white counterpane.

"I am afraid she is worse to-night," she ventured at last. I put my
hand on the sick girl's forehead. It was burning with fever, and I
turned to where Thomas lingered in the