Now she would pass a stretch of bracken, higher than her head, through which the sunlight streamed in a blaze of emerald fire. Anon she came to pause in a grove of beeches, gazing up in awe at the giant branches above her, curving in graceful arches far above her head; or she stooped in delight over some gnarled old tree-stump, alive with feathery ferns and delicately coloured lichens; and once she came to a wide, green bank o’ercovered quite with delicate cobwebs, dew-flecked, shimmering like silken gauze, beneath which swayed the tender lily-plants, like the slender forms of eastern beauties, dancing in their jewelled veils. It was a world of magic delight, and as she wandered on, she fell again beneath the forest spell, and forgot her cares in the sheer joy of beauty. For the forest has a magic charm for all who will yield to its influence. The song of the sea is restlessness; the teaching of the hills is aspiration, but the spell of the forest is peace. But suddenly she stopped, with a quick indrawing of the breath, for close beside her, separated only by a leafy screen, she heard a deep, shuddering sigh. Her first impulse was to flee at once along the road she had come, back to the safe shelter of the hollow. But her curiosity stayed her, and she waited, hand on heart, for what should follow. Again came the groan, and this time she could distinguish some muttered words. "My God! I will endure no more. It must end now." Barbara had been no true woman had she turned back now. But it was perhaps as much pity as curiosity that prompted her to push gently aside the branches, and peer through them at the speaker of these despairing words. Before her, on a fallen tree sat the dismallest figure of a man she had ever seen. Pale, emaciated, with haggard face half concealed by a tangle of matted hair, and clad in that most melancholy of apparels—soiled and tattered finery. His right arm hung limply at his side, a pistol in the hand. His head was bowed upon his breast, but even as Barbara looked, he raised it, and she marked his desperate glance, his eyes hardened in despair. As she looked upon his face the beauty of the forest vanished, it showed but as a drear wilderness of thorn and bramble, a fit setting to the desperate figure of the man before her; even so does the sight of a drowned corpse rob the sea of all its glory. The man raised his face for a minute to the heavens, as though he would fling a look of defiance at the pitiless gods; then slowly lifted the pistol in his hand and turned the muzzle towards his temple, curling his finger round the trigger. Without thought of aught save that the deed must be prevented, Barbara did not pause to consider her best course of action; she sprang through the bushes and confronted the sufferer, holding out her hands entreatingly towards him, and, with a sudden flash of instinct, crying in half-pleading, half-commanding tones: "Hold, sir, hold. I require your protection."