hand. He moved more rapidly toward the silent figure by the tree, and
still Shirley watched wide-eyed, her figure tense and trembling, the hand
that held the crop half raised to her lips, while the dark form rose and
poised for a spring.

Then she cried out, her voice ringing clear and high across the little
vale and sounding back from the cliff.

"Oh! Oh!" and Armitage leaped forward and turned. His crop fell first
upon the raised hand, knocking the knife far into the trees, then upon
the face and shoulders of the Servian. The fellow turned and fled through
the maple tangle, Armitage after him, and Shirley ran back toward the
bridge where she had left her groom and met him half-way hurrying toward
her.

"What is it, Miss? Did you call?"

"No; it was nothing, Thomas--nothing at all," and she mounted and turned
toward home.

Her heart was still pounding with excitement and she walked her horse to
gain composure. Twice, in circumstances most unusual and disquieting, she
had witnessed an attack on John Armitage by an unknown enemy. She
recalled now a certain pathos of his figure as she first saw him leaning
against the tree watching the turbulent little stream, and she was
impatient to find how her sympathy went out to him. It made no difference
who John Armitage was; his enemy was a coward, and the horror of such a
menace to a man's life appalled her. She passed a mounted policeman, who
recognized her and raised his hand in salute, but the idea of reporting
the strange affair in the strip of woodland occurred to her only to be