"Oh, God bless him! God bless him!" cried Mary. She made a step forward, then turned again, with a visible tremor. "But are you sure he is--quite--quite----Mr Murray," she added, growing very pale, and putting out her hands to him as he approached from under the old doorway, "oh, how can I thank you? You have saved Roger's life!" Abel was paler than she was, and his face looked like that of a man absolutely worn out and exhausted. "It was nothing," he said. "I knew one way was safe, but not the other. The upper arch always crumbled at a touch--but I frightened you, I know I must have frightened you. It is a foolish weakness I have. I laugh when I am agitated." "Oh, never mind that. You limp, too; we are a nice pair of cripples. Come along," said Roger, "let us lean upon each other. I must have come down upon you with all my weight." "I knew that arch would go. I was prepared for it. I am only limping out of sympathy," said Murray, with again a harsh, though momentary, laugh. Mary ran in before them, still with a little shiver, and met the squire coming out, dignified, to know what was the matter? "I don't know who was laughing like that, but it was very vulgar and very objectionable," he said. A few hurried words, however, allayed Mr Ridley's displeasure. "God bless me!" he said, devoutly, and hurried out to thank the stranger who had saved his son's life. "Though Roger ought to have known better than to have run such a risk," he said, seriously, as the agitated group came back to the house. All were in commotion, the servants fluttering to and fro, the very cook, her hands covered with flour, coming out to gaze. "I'll bet that gentleman's been here before," John said, privately. "Bless you, he knows all the ways of th' ould place as well as I do that was born and bred on the Waterside;" and Sir Richard, the only spectator who was quite unmoved, recollected, and had observed as none of the rest did, what Murray said. They made much of him when they got indoors, paying a great deal more attention to his nerves than to Roger's foot, which was bruised though not seriously hurt. Roger, however, declared himself quite able to walk as far as the village with them, when at last the young men took their leave. They all set out together--Sir Richard going the same way as the others as far as the head of the lake. Roger was jealously on the watch as they passed through the village, lest by any chance they should meet Lily; but they had got past all danger, as he thought, and were once more on the open road by the waterside, when, with a sudden leap of his jealous heart, he saw her approaching. They all perceived her at the same moment. It is not necessary, in those simple regions, that a young woman should put on a hat or bonnet every time she goes out. Lily's beautiful head was uncovered. The wind playing with the locks about her forehead brought out tiny curls from the neatly braided hair, and freshened the colour in her cheeks.