* * * * *

A little later she woke up in bewilderment.  She was no longer on the moss.  She was being carried—­carried firmly and speedily—­in some one’s arms.  She tried to open her eyes.

“Where am I?”

A voice said: 

“That’s better!  Don’t be afraid.  You’d fainted I think.  I can carry you quite safely.”

Infinite bliss rushed in upon the girl’s fluttering sense.  She was too feeble, too weak, to struggle.  Instead she let her head sink on Tatham’s shoulder.  Her right hand clung to his coat.

The young man mounted the hill, marvelling at the lightness of the burden he held; touched, embarrassed, yet sometimes inclined to laugh or scold.  What had she been about?  He had come in from hunting to find her absence just discovered, and the house roused.  Victoria and Cyril Boden were exploring other roads through the garden and park; he had run down the long hill to the station lodge in case the theory started at once by Victoria that she had escaped, unknown to any one, in order to force an interview with her father should turn out to be the right one.

Presently a trembling voice said in the darkness, while some soft curls of hair tickled his cheek: 

“I’ve been to Threlfall.  Will Lady Tatham be very angry?”

“Well, she was a bit worried,” said Tatham, wondering if the occasion ought not to be improved.  “She guessed—­you might have gone there.  There’s bad weather coming—­and she was anxious what might happen to you.  Ah! there’s the rain!”

Two or three large drops descended on Felicia’s cheek as it lay upturned on his shoulder; a pattering began on the oak-leaves overhead; the moonlight was blotted out, and when Felicia opened her eyes, it was on a heavy darkness.

“Stupid!” cried Tatham.  “Why didn’t I think of bringing a mackintosh cape?”

“Mayn’t I walk?” asked Felicia, meekly.  “I think I could.”

“I expect you’d better not.  You were pretty bad when I found you.  It’s no trouble to me to carry you, and I know every inch of these roads.”

And indeed by now he would have been very loath to quit his task.  There was something tormentingly attractive in this warm softness of the girl’s tiny form upon his breast.  The thought darted across him—­“If I had ever held Lydia so!” It was a pang; but it passed; and what remained was a tenderness of soul, evoked by Lydia, but passing out now beyond Lydia.

Poor little foolish thing!  He supposed she had been trampled on, as his mother had been.  But his mother could defend herself.  What chance had this child against the old tyrant!  An eager, protective sympathy—­a warm pity—­arose in him; greatly quickened by this hand and arm that clung to him.

The rain began to drive against them.

“Do you mind getting wet?” he said laughing, almost in her ear.

“Not a bit!  I—­I didn’t mean to give any trouble.”