could be near him,--help him.-- SHE never would touch his hand
again,--never again, never,--unless he came back now.-- He was
near the tree: she closed her eyes, turning away. When she
looked again, only the bare road lay there, yellow and wet. It
was over, now.

How long she sat there she did not know. She tried once or twice
to go to the house, but the lights seemed so far off that she
gave it up and sat quiet, unconscious, except of the damp
stone-wall her head leaned on, and the stretch of muddy road.
Some time, she knew not when, there was a heavy step beside her,
and a rough hand shook hers where she stooped, feebly tracing out
the lines of mortar between the stones. It was Knowles. She
looked up, bewildered.

"Hunting catarrhs, eh?" he growled, eying her keenly. "Got your
father on the Bourbons, so took the chance to come and find you.
He'll not miss ME for an hour. That man has a natural hankering
after treason against the people. Lord, Margret! what a stiff
old head he'd have carried to the guillotine! How he'd have
looked at the canaille!"

He helped her up gently enough.

"Your bonnet's like a wet rag,"--with a furtive glance at the
worn-out face. A hungry face always, with her life unfed by its
stingy few crumbs of good; but to-night it was vacant with utter
loss.

She got up, trying to laugh cheerfully, and went beside him down