“What is it?  Oh!  Mr. Boyle, save me!”

“They are wolves,” he said hurriedly.  “But there is no danger; they would never attack you; you were safe where you were; let me lead you back.”

But she remained rooted to the spot, still clinging desperately to his coat.  “No, no!” she said, “I dare not!  I heard that awful cry in my sleep.  I looked out and saw it—­a dreadful creature with yellow eyes and tongue, and a sickening breath as it passed between the wheels just below me.  Ah!  What’s that?” and she again lapsed in nervous terror against him.

Boyle passed his arm around her promptly, firmly, masterfully.  She seemed to feel the implied protection, and yielded to it gratefully, with the further breakdown of a sob.  “There is no danger,” he repeated cheerfully.  “Wolves are not good to look at, I know, but they wouldn’t have attacked you.  The beast only scents some carrion on the plain, and you probably frightened him more than he did you.  Lean on me,” he continued as her step tottered; “you will be better in the coach.”

“And you won’t leave me alone again?” she said in hesitating terror.

“No!”

He supported her to the coach gravely, gently—­her master and still more his own for all that her beautiful loosened hair was against his cheek and shoulder, its perfume in his nostrils, and the contour of her lithe and perfect figure against his own.  He helped her back into the coach, with the aid of the cushions and shawl arranged a reclining couch for her on the back seat, and then resumed his old place patiently.  By degrees the color came back to her face—­as much of it as was not hidden by her handkerchief.

Then a tremulous voice behind it began a half-smothered apology.  “I am so ashamed, Mr. Boyle—­I really could not help it!  But it was so sudden—­and so horrible—­I shouldn’t have been afraid of it had it been really an Indian with a scalping knife—­instead of that beast!  I don’t know why I did it—­but I was alone—­and seemed to be dead—­and you were dead too and they were coming to eat me!  They do, you know—­you said so just now!  Perhaps I was dreaming.  I don’t know what you must think of me—­I had no idea I was such a coward!”

But Boyle protested indignantly.  He was sure if he had been asleep and had not known what wolves were before, he would have been equally frightened.  She must try to go to sleep again—­he was sure she could—­and he would not stir from the coach until she waked, or her friends came.

She grew quieter presently, and took away the handkerchief from a mouth that smiled though it still quivered; then reaction began, and her tired nerves brought her languor and finally repose.  Boyle watched the shadows thicken around her long lashes until they lay softly on the faint flush that sleep was bringing to her cheek; her delicate lips parted, and her quick breath at last came with the regularity of slumber.