spirit among many tossed dark shades.  When David first saw her, he thought she was looking at him.  But in another moment her beautiful face, which had been pale enough before, turned as white as her frock and her large eyes widened with terror.  And then David knew that she was looking beyond him and had seen the horror by the tree.  He forgot his own horrified faintness, he forgot where he was, the doctor—­everything but Ruth and that look in her dear face.  He sprang toward her with a piercing cry and outstretched arms.

“Ruth!” he cried.  “Here I am, Ruth, dear.  I am coming to you.  I’ll take you away!”

It was a single voice raised against the deafening roar of a hurricane.  Only the doctor heard or heeded, and he laid a restraining hand on David’s shoulder.

“You are right,” he said.  “Take her away as soon as you can.  She should not have come.  Is she your sister?  Come this way.  We will go round,” he went on, without waiting for an answer.  “We may be able to reach her from the other side of the shed.”

The firm touch and calm tone partly brought the boy to himself, and he followed as closely as he could, but only to be beaten back again and again.  That terrific chant was now at its highest and wildest, and he and the doctor were caught in the human maelstrom and swirled hither and thither like straws.  They were swept far apart, and when they were quickly driven together again, they had lost sight of Ruth.  They were tossed once more, and thrown outside the fiercest swirl.  Standing still, they held to a tree, gasping, and searched the crowd with their gaze, trying to find her.  She was nowhere to be seen.  But while they thus paused, waiting for breath to go on, they saw a tall man near by, leaning against a pillar and quietly overlooking the wild scene.  He stood within the circle of torchlight, and they could see him distinctly.  Neither the doctor nor David had ever seen him before and neither ever saw him again, but they never forgot just how he looked that night.

He was a very tall man of more than six feet in height.  He was very erect and very slender, with the slenderness that gives a look of youth as well as grace.  There was no tinge of gray in his tawny hair, which fell heavily back from his high, narrow forehead, without any of the stiffness seen in his later portraits.  He was not more than thirty-five years of age at this time, but his face was already lined with care and trouble and exposure.  It was naturally pale and thin, almost haggard.  Its sole redeeming feature was the wonderful brilliance of his blue eyes.  The doctor and David could not see the color of his eyes, and yet he seemed to them a singularly handsome man, as he did to almost every one.  There was something about him that may be called a presence, for lack of a better term, something which drew the gaze of the crowd and held it everywhere.  Many eyes were upon him that night in the very height and