“Confound you!  Don’t touch me.  I’ll not be kept here, to be caught and hung!”

For an instant she thought he was mad.

“Caught and hung!” she echoed.  “My poor Edward! what do you mean?”

He sat down suddenly on a chair, close by him, and covered his face with his hands.  When he spoke, his voice was feeble and imploring.

“The police are after me, Maggie!  What must I do?  Oh! can you hide me?  Can you save me?”

He looked wild, like a hunted creature.  Maggie stood aghast.  He went on: 

“My mother!—­Nancy!  Where are they?  I was wet through and starving, and I came here.  Don’t let them take me, Maggie, till I’m stronger, and can give battle.”

“Oh!  Edward!  Edward!  What are you saying?” said Maggie, sitting down on the dresser, in absolute, bewildered despair.  “What have you done?”

“I hardly know.  I’m in a horrid dream.  I see you think I’m mad.  I wish I were.  Won’t Nancy come down soon?  You must hide me.”

“Poor Nancy is ill in bed!” said Maggie.

“Thank God,” said he.  “There’s one less.  But my mother will be up soon, will she not?”

“Not yet,” replied Maggie.  “Edward, dear, do try and tell me what you have done.  Why should the police be after you?”

“Why, Maggie,” said he with a kind of forced, unnatural laugh, “they say I’ve forged.”

“And have you?” asked Maggie, in a still, low tone of quiet agony.

He did not answer for some time, but sat, looking on the floor with unwinking eyes.  At last he said, as if speaking to himself: 

“If I have, it’s no more than others have done before, and never been found out.  I was but borrowing money.  I meant to repay it.  If I had asked Mr. Buxton, he would have lent it me.”

“Mr. Buxton!” said Maggie.

“Yes!” answered he, looking sharply and suddenly up at her.  “Your future father-in-law.  My father’s old friend.  It is he that is hunting me to death!  No need to look so white and horror-struck, Maggie!  It’s the way of the world, as I might have known, if I had not been a blind fool.”

“Mr. Buxton!” she whispered, faintly.

“Oh, Maggie!” said he, suddenly throwing himself at her feet, “save me!  You can do it.  Write to Frank, and make him induce his father to let me off.  I came to see you, my sweet, merciful sister!  I knew you would save me.  Good God!  What noise is that?  There are steps in the yard!”

And before she could speak, he had rushed into the little china closet, which opened out of the parlor, and crouched down in the darkness.  It was only the man who brought their morning’s supply of milk from a neighboring farm.  But when Maggie opened the kitchen door, she saw how the cold, pale light of a winter’s day had filled the air.

“You’re late with your shutters to-day, miss,” said the man.  “I hope Nancy has not been giving you all a bad night.  Says I to Thomas, who came with me to the gate, ’It’s many a year since I saw them parlor shutters barred up at half-past eight.’”