keep himself from lurching forward into the house, and then found himself confronted by a tall, thin girl in nondescript attire, of which the only details he could remember were a scanty skirt, deplorably shabby, and a man’s holland jacket.

“Will you give me food and shelter for a day or two? I am done up with wandering, and my horse died the day before yesterday.”

Dick’s voice was shaken and unsteady from all that he had gone through, and he looked even more an object of pity than he supposed.

The girl’s eyes were mournful, but she only shook her head, answering regretfully⁠—

“I’m very sorry for you, but this isn’t a hotel, and we don’t cater for strangers.”

“You will surely let me have some food. I can pay you; and can’t you see that I am starving?”

His voice was hoarse and urgent now, and again he had to lay fast hold of the door-frame to keep himself from falling.

“I will give you some food, though I’m afraid you won’t think it is very nice. But you can’t stop here, because granfer wouldn’t let you. Button End, where Joe Lipton lives, isn’t more than ten miles away. He’ll take you in for certain, and make you comfortable too. They often have people there,” the girl answered.

Dick laughed harshly. “A quarter of a mile I might manage by crawling; but ten miles is as much out of the question as a journey to the moon.”

The girl looked troubled, then said, in a soothing tone⁠—

“Come in and sit down, while I get you something to eat. Perhaps if you have a good rest you may⁠——”

But the sentence was not finished, for at that moment Dick swayed towards her, and would have gone crash on the floor at her feet had she not caught him in her strong young arms, and so broken his fall. Only staying to thrust an old coat of her grandfather’s under his head for a pillow, she darted to the fireplace, where a pot of broth was being kept warm in the embers, and, pouring some of it into a cup, came back with it, and kneeling by the stranger’s side tried to put some of it in his mouth with a spoon.

The broth was some that she had made for the sick dog, but it was strong and nourishing, and it was all she had. When a few spoonfuls had trickled down his neck, Dick came back to his senses again, and, being supported by the girl, was able to drink the rest of the broth in feeble gulps.

“Ah, you were nearly done for that time, you poor thing!” she said, in kindly tones, her lustrous eyes shining with a beautiful womanly pity.

“Yes, very nearly. If it had not been for you, I think I must have gone under,” he murmured weakly.

His senses were reeling still, but the broth was doing him good. Yet even now he failed to understand how low down in his strength he had come, until, making an effort to rise and stand on his feet, he sank helpless to the ground again.

There was anxiety mingled with the pity on the girl’s face. It was plain to her that the stranger would not be able to continue his journey for hours, probably days, and it was the thought of what Doss Umpey would say to this tax on his hospitality, that was troubling her so sorely now.

“If only you’d been at Joe Lipton’s place, now, instead of here, they could have made you ever so comfortable,” she said, with a sigh of regret, as she hovered about him in anxious wonder as to how she was to get him on to the settle, where he could lie more comfortably than on the floor.

“I am all right here, or should be if I could have some more broth,” he said, with a wistful look at the empty cup in Nell’s hand.

But she shook her head with a decided air. “To over-feed starved things is to kill them outright, so if you want to get better you must just trust yourself to me.”

“Sorry to give you so much trouble,” he murmured weakly.

“Oh, tending sick things isn’t trouble. I just love nursing, only I haven’t had any one to nurse since father died, except a dog or a horse now and then. This is such a lone house, you see, and there are no people here to want helping. I should be just perfectly happy to have you here to take care of till you are well, only granfer will hate it so, that he won’t be even common pleasant to you, I’m afraid.”

“Never mind; I must risk the unpleasantness, as I can’t get any further. It is beginning to rain, too, so it is a mercy I reached shelter when I did,” Dick said drowsily, for a pleasant feeling of languor was stealing over him.

“Rain? So it does. I must get you on the settle somehow, and then go out and bring in Pip⁠—⁠that is our dog, you know. He’s a big, savage creature at ordinary times, but he got fighting last night, and is so dreadfully mauled that there ain’t much life left in him. Now, put your arms round my neck, and I will pull you up.”

Wrapping her thin muscular arms about the stranger, Nell succeeded in getting him on to his feet, and, supporting him as best she could, got him across the floor, dumping him unceremoniously on to a long low settle, which stood beside the great open fireplace. Then she went out for the dog, for by this time the rain was coming down heavily.

The creature must have been a considerable weight, but she staggered into the house with it, laid it tenderly down by the side of the fire opposite to Dick, and ministered to its wants with as much affection as if it had been a child.

The man on the settle watched her in silence, marvelling at the womanly tenderness, which was in such sharp contrast to her appearance; then presently, growing more drowsy, he fell asleep.

Once or twice he was conscious of being roused, and made to swallow something, but the disturbance seemed only like a part of his dreams, and it was hours before he was fully awake again.

Sounds of rather heated argument assailed his ears now. A man’s voice, raised in fretful complaint, was saying⁠—

“I’ve told you often enough that I wouldn’t have a lot o’ strange folk clutterin’ round, pokin’ their noses into what doesn’t belong to ’em, and when I says a thing I mostly means it, as you ought fer to know.”

“Oh, I know it well enough, and I wouldn’t have kept him here if I could have sent him on. But, granfer, he dropped like dead at my feet, and at first I thought he was gone.”

“Not much loss if he had died that I can see. I expect he will be no end of expense to us,” grumbled the man’s voice; and at this Dick considered it high time to make them aware that he was awake and listening.

“I can pay you for all I need, thank you. Although I’m afraid no money can really recompense your granddaughter for her great kindness to me.”

The room was in heavy shadow, and the wood fire gave only a dull red glow, so that Dick Bronson could not see clearly the face of the old man, who turned round with a note of snarling query in his thin voice.

“What are you, anyway? A sheriff’s officer?”

“Nothing half so important. Only just a hard-working man, taking a holiday in the forest; but my horse got stranded in a soft spot, and I had to shoot the poor beast. Then I lost my bearings, and had come almost to the end of my endurance, when I reached this house.”

There was such a ring of sincerity in the simple statement, that Doss Umpey’s suspicions about the good faith of the unknown were allayed to a certain extent, and he asked,