“Little Jess owes her life to you, Mr. Dinsmore,” she cried. “She should adore the very ground you walk on for it to the day she dies, and I shall impress that upon her mind,” she added. “Perhaps it would be best never to let her know of her danger,” he suggested, suavely, but Mrs. Bryson would not hear to any such arrangement. “It was but just that Jess should know how he had saved her life at the risk of his own,” she declared. And this was the story which was told to Jess when she regained consciousness under Mrs. Bryson’s skillful treatment some half an hour later. The girl listened with eyes opened wide with amazement. She recollected hearing the report of the revolver as she sprang forward to dash it from his hand, and missing her foothold, stumbling over the fallen tree, and going over the precipice, as she imagined, and a shudder of terror swept over her. “Then he did not kill himself, after all!” she faltered, and Mrs. Bryson, who imagined that she referred to the perilous descending and rescuing of herself, knowing nothing about the episode in which the revolver played a part, answered: “Heaven saved him to rescue you in the most miraculous manner, and you should fairly worship such a grand hero as he has proven himself to be, Jess.” Jess could not bring herself to explain to Mrs. Bryson the cause which had brought the accident about. She merely closed her eyes, wondering how it happened that he had missed his aim, and failed to shoot himself when he held the revolver close to his temple, and she echoed the old housekeeper’s observation that it must indeed have been a miracle. The fright through which Jess had gone did not affect her much, and she was as good as new, and up with the birds, and out in the grounds, the next morning. But early as she was, “her hero,” as Mrs. Bryson declared she was going to designate him forever after, was out before her. Jess never remembered in what words she attempted to thank him for the service he had rendered her in saving her life. He put up his white hand with a quick, impatient sigh, saying, softly: “It was to be, that is why I missed my aim; that much I owe to you, for, as you brushed past me, you turned my hand aside, and my bullet went wide of its mark. I owe my life as much to you therefore, little Jess, as you owe yours to me.” CHAPTER XVIII. A PREMONITION OF COMING EVIL. “I am really glad if I was the cause of preventing you from committing so terrible an act as suicide,” said the girl, solemnly, “for that would have been very wicked.” “If you have lost all that makes life worth the living, you care little enough how soon existence ends for you,” he replied, artfully; and with a well-simulated heartbroken sigh, which caused little Jess to begin for the first time to pity him. He saw her softened mood in her eyes, and followed up his advantage with adroit skill, and, ere Jess was quite aware of it, he was proposing to her for the second time.