“I have been frightened,” said she.  Without quite knowing what she did, she caught hold of his arm and clung to him tightly.

“What frightened you?” asked Anderson, fairly trembling himself and looking down at her.

“There was a man asleep in the grove, in there,” explained Charlotte, falteringly—­she still felt faint and strange—­“and—­and—­I sat down there, and did not see him, and then he—­he woke up and—­”

Anderson seized her arm in a fierce clutch.  “What?” he cried.  “Where is he?  What?  For God’s sake!”

“He went away out in the road and did not seem to see—­me.  I sat still,” said Charlotte.  Then she was very faint again, for he, too, frightened her a little.

Anderson caught her, supporting her, while he tore off his coat.  Then he half carried her over to a ledge of rocks cropping out of the furzy gold-and-blue undergrowth, and sat down beside her there.  Charlotte sat weakly where she was placed.  She was deadly white and trembling.  Anderson hesitated a moment, then he put an arm around her, removed her hat, and drew her head down on his shoulder.

“Now keep quiet a little while until you are better,” he said.  “You are perfectly safe now.  You say the man did not see you?”

Charlotte shook her head against his shoulder.  She closed her eyes; she was really very near a complete swoon, and scarcely knew where she was or what was happening; only a vague sense of another will thrust under her sinking spirit for a support was over her.

As for the man, he looked down at the little, pale face, with the dark lashes sweeping the soft cheeks, at the mouth still trembling to a sob of terror and grief, and a mighty wave of emotion was over him.  He realized that he held in his arms not only the girl whom he loved, towards whom his whole being went out in protection and tenderness, but himself, his whole future, even in some subtle sense his past.  He was like one on some height of the spirit, from which he overlooked all that was, all that had gone before, and all that would come.  He was on the Delectable Mountain.  Within himself he comprehended the widest vision of earth, that which is given through love.  The man’s face, looking at the woman’s on his shoulder, became transfigured.  It was full of uttermost tenderness, of protection as perfect as that of a father for his child.  His heart, as he looked at her, was at once that of a lover and a father.  He unconsciously held her closer, and bent his face down over hers softly, as if she had been indeed a child.

“Poor little soul!” he whispered, and his lips almost touched her cheek.