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face of the idol of her girlhood—poor shattered idol with the feet of clay—base metal she had taken for pure gold! It was not only that he was older—he had aged more than she—but a subtler change had passed over him; he was hardened, embittered, coarsened, undefinably deteriorated. She saw the colour mount in his haggard cheek at her calm words.

"Coals of fire," he said, with a touch of bitter mockery that disguised pain. "Well, if it's a comfort to you to know it, Barbara, they burn."

"Which way are they most likely to come?" she asked, putting personal questions determinedly aside.

"They'd probably skirt the wood; but yet there's no knowing but what they might make their way down the gulch and round by the creek yonder."

"Whichever way you go," she said, in deep consideration, "you might run right into the jaws of danger. And if they found you with another horse, and that horse discovered not to be yours, it might be worse for you—if they refused to believe it had been freely lent to you."

"They'd not be likely to waste much time on inquiries," he observed, drily. "It's not their way to make allowance for priest or prayer. Perhaps I had better lie low for a time until the heat of the chase is over. Who is here with you, Barbara?"

"No one to-day. My brother and his wife are out until to-morrow."

"You are alone?" he said, with a softening of tender respect in his tone. "Forgive my intrusion. You must not risk the least trouble for me. I'll feel like a king after this rest and refreshment here, and be ready to go on my way."

They were still discussing the best course to be adopted when a faint sound in the distance struck on their ears—a sound so faint and far that, had it not been for the wonderful clearness and stillness of the dry, crisp, dewless air, it could not have reached them.

"Hark! What is that?" said Desmond, holding his breath.

"We can see the road better from the upstairs windows—come!" she exclaimed, springing to her feet. She hastily closed the outer door into the courtyard, which still stood open, and ran upstairs, followed by Desmond. From the highest window of the house—a sort of landing or look-out at the top of the stairs—they had a view of the windings of the white road between wood and hillside.

The night had fallen like a dark mantle over the land; but the sky was clear; the moon had risen; and in the dusk they could just distinguish the pale, dim line of the road between the shadows of the trees—could even discern upon it, though some distance off as yet, what looked at first like a dark, blurred, swift moving spot, then resolved itself into a group of mounted men riding straight for the Saucel Ranch.

"There they are," said Oliver Desmond in a low voice; but he was suddenly and strangely calm now the danger was at his door. "They're coming here. There's a handy tree I see over yonder, just outside your gates," he added, with the frequent tendency of men who are used to carry their lives in their hands to "jest upon the axe which kills them." Barbara clasped and wrung her hands.

"Too late to fly!" she said. "Before we could get Sultan out of the stable and saddle him they'll be here! There's no time for escape. You must hide!"

"If they've got dogs, I'm a dead man," he rejoined, staring at the fast nearing horsemen; "and I shall be dangling from that tree before an hour has passed!"

Barbara flew to the nearest door and opened it, then the next, and the next, glancing in wild and eager haste into each room to see in which any hiding-place might be found—although she knew too well the simple arrangements of the ranch offered no facilities for concealment. No secret chambers, no sliding panels, no dark recesses nor trap-doors in this plain wooden "frame" house. The outhouses? No, they would probably be the first places searched; the natural idea of the pursuers would be that he might have sought refuge there unknown to the inmates of the house. There were no cellars, no possible safe hiding-places on the lower floor; on the upper floor there were but three rooms—Mr. and Mrs. Thorne's room, Barbara's room, and the "guest-room." All were plainly furnished with bare necessaries: no "old oak chests," no tapestries nor hanging draperies, no curtained recesses, no place to hide a good-sized dog, much less a full-grown man. Barbara's was the only one of the bedrooms that could boast of a cupboard—a long, narrow cupboard which she used as a wardrobe, and kept her dresses there hung on pegs. This was the only place.

There was not a moment to lose in talk.