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Eric stepped close to Margaret’s side and laid his hand on her saddle. “You are not hurt?” he asked, hoarsely. As he raised his face in the soft starlight she saw that it was white and drawn and that his lips were working nervously.

“No, no, not at all. But you, you are suffering; they struck you!” she cried in sharp alarm.

He stepped back and drew his hand across his brow.

“No, it is not that,” he spoke rapidly now, with his hands clenched at his side. “But if they had hurt you, I would beat their brains out with my hands. I would kill them all. I was never afraid before. You are the only beautiful thing that has ever come close to me. You came like an angel out of the sky. You are like the music you sing, you are like the stars and the snow on the mountains where I played when I was a little boy. You are like all that I wanted once and never had, you are all that they have killed in me. I die for you tonight, tomorrow, for all eternity. I am not a coward; I was afraid because I love you more than Christ who died for me, more than I am afraid of hell, or hope for heaven. I was never afraid before. If you had fallen–oh, my God!” He threw his arms out blindly and dropped his head upon the pony’s mane, leaning ]imply against the animal like a man struck by some sickness. His shoulders rose and fell perceptibly with his laboured breathing. The horse stood cowed with exhaustion and fear. Presently Margaret laid her hand on Eric’s head and said gently:

“You are better now, shall we go on? Can you get your horse?”

“No, he has gone with the herd. I will lead yours, she is not safe. I will not frighten you again.” His voice was still husky, but it was steady now. He took hold of the bit and tramped home in silence.

When they reached the house, Eric stood stolidly by the pony’s head until Wyllis came to lift his sister from the saddle.

“The horses were badly frightened, Wyllis. I think I was pretty thoroughly scared myself,” she said as she took her brother’s arm and went slowly up the hill toward the house. “No, I’m not hurt, thanks to Eric. You must thank him for taking such good care of me. He’s a mighty fine fellow. I’ll tell you all about it in the morning, dear. I was pretty well shaken up and I’m going right to bed now. Good night.”

When she reached the low room in which she slept, she sank upon the bed in her riding dress, face downward.

“Oh, I pity him! I pity him!” she murmured, with a long sigh of exhaustion. She must have slept a little. When she rose again, she took from her dress a letter that had been waiting for her at the village post-office. It was closely written in a long, angular hand, covering a dozen pages of foreign note-paper, and began:

My Dearest Margaret: if I should attempt to say

how like a winter hath thine absence been

, I should incur the risk of being tedious. Really, it takes the sparkle out of everything. Having nothing better to do, and not caring to go anywhere in particular without you, I remained in the city until Jack Courtwell noted my general despondency and brought me down here to his place on the sound to manage some open-air theatricals he is getting up.

As You Like It

is of course the piece selected. Miss Harrison plays Rosalind. I wish you had been here to take the part. Miss Harrison reads her lines well, but she is either a maiden-all-forlorn or a tomboy; insists on reading into the part all sorts of deeper meanings and highly coloured suggestions wholly out of harmony with the pastoral setting. Like most of the professionals, she exaggerates the emotional element and quite fails to do justice to Rosalind’s facile wit and really brilliant mental qualities. Gerard will do Orlando, but rumor says he is

epris

of your sometime friend, Miss Meredith, and his memory is treacherous and his interest fitful.