Then a wave of color came over the girl’s face.  “I am better,” she said, and raised herself abruptly.  Anderson drew back and removed his arm.  He feared she was offended, and perhaps afraid of him.  But she looked piteously up in his face, and, to his dismay, began to cry.  Her nerves were completely unstrung.  She was not a strong girl, and she had, in fact, been through a period of mental torture which might have befitted the Inquisition.  She could still see the man’s evil face; her brain seemed stamped with the sight; terror had mastered her.  She was for the time being scarcely sane.  The terrible imagination of ill which had possessed her, as she sat there gazing at the sleeping terror, still held her in sway.  She was not naturally hysterical, but now hysterics threatened her.

Anderson put his arm around her again and drew her head to his shoulder.  “You must not mind,” he said, in a grave, authoritative voice.  “You are ill and frightened.  You must not mind.  Keep your head on my shoulder until you feel better.  You are quite safe now.”  Anderson’s voice was rather admonishing than caressing.  Charlotte sobbed wildly against his shoulder, and clung to him with her little, nervous hands.  Anderson sat looking down at her gravely.  “Is your mother at home?” he asked, presently.

“No,” sobbed Charlotte; “they have all gone to drive.”

“Nobody in the house?”

“Only Marie.”

Anderson reflected.  He was much nearer his own home than hers, and there was a short-cut across the field; they would not need to strike the road at all.  He rose, with a sudden resolution, and raised the weeping girl to her feet.

“Come,” said he, in the same authoritative voice, and Charlotte stumbled blindly along, his arm still around her.  She had an under-consciousness that she was ashamed of herself for showing so little bravery, that she wondered what this man would think of her, but her self-control was gone, because of the too tense strain which had been put upon it.  It was like a spring too tightly compressed, suddenly released; the vibrations of her nerves seemed endless.  She tried to hush her sobs as she was hurried along, and succeeded in some measure, but she was still utterly incapable of her usual mental balance.  Once she started, and clutched Anderson’s arm with a gasp of fear.

“Look, look!” she whispered.

“What is it?” he asked, soothingly.

“The man is there.  See him?”

“There is nothing there, child,” he said, and hurried her over the place where her distorted vision had seen again the object of her terror, in his twisted sleep in the grass.

Anderson began to be seriously alarmed about the girl.  He did not know what consequences might come from such a severe mental strain upon such a nervous temperament.  He hurried as fast as he dared, almost carrying her at times, and finally they emerged upon the garden at the right of his own house.  The flowers were thinning out fast, but the place was still gay with marigolds and other late blossoms.  As he passed the kitchen door he was aware of the maid’s gaping face of stupid surprise, and he called out curtly to her:  “Is my mother in the house?”