"He is not dead, mother," she said. "Run for my father." For one short minute she was left with him alone, then she raised her troubled face, repeated her well-known prayer: "God save Earle! If I could but have borne it for him!" she thought. Then the farmer came in, utterly useless and incompetent, as men are in the presence of great trouble which they cannot understand. He commenced his assistance by talking loudly against the perfidy of women; and when his daughter sensibly reminded him that that was no longer any use, he began to lament the folly of men in loving women so madly; reminded again that this was still more useless, Mark raised the helpless figure in his strong arms, tears running down his face. He laid Earle on a couch, and then looked helplessly at him. "I do not know what is to be done for him," he said. "His mother will go distracted. Ah! wife, she would have done a kinder deed, that golden-haired lassie of ours, if she had killed him at once." Then Mark Brace went away. "The women must manage it," he said to himself. His tender heart was wrung by the sight of that anguish. It was Mattie who ministered to him, until Earle opened his eyes, and looked at her with a glance that frightened her. "I remember it all," he said, hoarsely; "she has gone away because she did not love me--did not want to marry me. Will you leave me alone, Mattie?" "If you will promise me not to do anything to hurt yourself," she said. "I shall not do that. Do you know why? She promised to marry me, and she shall do it. To find her I will search the wide world through. I will follow her, even to the valley of the shadow of death, but she shall be my wife as she has promised to be--I swear it to the just high God!" "Hush, my dear; your great sorrow drives you mad. You will think differently after a time." "I shall not," he replied; "she shall be my wife. Listen, Mattie; bend down to me while I whisper. She shall be my wife, or I will kill her!" "Hush! You do not mean it. Your sorrow has made you mad." "No, I am not mad, Mattie." He held both her hands tightly in his own. "I am not mad, but I will have my just rights, or my just revenge." His breath flamed hotly upon her face. "You will remember that, on the day she fled from me, I swore never to rest until I found her; never to rest until she was my wife, and if she refused to be that, I swore to murder her!" Mattie shrank from him, trembling and frightened.