as well as upon hers, and as she looked up, Diana was impressed with the vivid force, the directness, the self-absorption of the man’s look. If her presence there meant anything to him, if he had felt her beauty and her charm as she lay helpless in his arms, he gave no sign. It was a look of power, of reserve, of iron will; she was suddenly conscious of an impulse to answer him as simply as a child.

“It is nothing,” she said; “I don’t believe I’m even hurt much. Where did you find me?”

“Almost at my door,” he replied, moving quietly to a kind of cupboard at the other side of the room and pouring some brandy into a glass. “You must drink this; your clothing is soaked through and I have nothing dry to offer you, but if you can, come to the fire.”

Diana took the liquor and drank it obediently, unconsciously yielding to the calm authority of his manner. Then she tried to rise, but once on her feet, staggered, and would have fallen but for his arm. He caught her and held her erect a moment, then gathered her up without a word, and carried her to[43] a seat by the little open stove into which he had already thrown some wood. Diana sank into his old armchair with crimson cheeks. She was half angry, half amused; he was treating her like an injured child, and with as little heed of her grand-dame manners as if she had been six years old.

[43]

“I have telephoned to Dr. Cheyney,” he said simply, “but, of course, this storm will delay him.”

“I am not ill,” Diana protested. “I am not even badly hurt; my horse ran away, and I—I think I sprained my ankle.”

“You were clinging to the fence,” Trench said, without apparent emotion, “and you fainted when I lifted you.”

She sickened at the memory, yet was woman enough to resent the man’s indifference. “I’m sorry you ’phoned for poor old Dr. Cheyney,” she said stiffly; “please ’phone to my people to send for me.”

“I tried,” he replied, undisturbed by her hauteur, “but the storm must have interfered. I can’t get them, and now I can’t get Dr. Cheyney.”

“How long was I unconscious?” she asked quickly, trying to piece together her recovery and all that he had done.

“Ten minutes,” he answered. “I saw the horse going by riderless and went out to look. It seemed a long time 

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