He muttered an inarticulate word, as he sprang from his horse, and stooped over her, and when he saw her face, recoiled for a moment. For a brief instant or two he could see nothing distinctly, a film was over his eyes, and a great sob in his throat, as he turned, and hung his horse’s bridle over the post of a gate in the wall He then stooped down, raised the lifeless figure in his arms, and carried her over the rough road to the farm door. The dogs, who were his friends, came out to welcome him, and then stopped, sniffing suspiciously at the skirts of the strange burden he bore. The farmer’s wife saw him, and ran forward, with upraised hands, ‘Lord ’a mercy, Dr. Langstroth—what is’t?’ ‘Mrs. Nadin, you have promised many a time to do me a good turn; and I want a very good one doing now. Give a shelter to this poor thing till her trouble is over; it is a sad tale, and I’ll tell it you afterwards.’ Mrs. Nadin made no more ado. Langstroth had, according to her, saved her husband’s life two years ago, and with true north country love, she had been ever since burning to ‘pay him back again.’ She only stopped to look at the girl’s face, and to ejaculate Ada’s name. Then she called her daughter to her aid, and they whispered horror-struck conjectures to one another as they tended the wretched young woman. And here, under the roof of these pitiful strangers, was that evening born, before his time, the son of Otho Askam—a child of sorrow, if ever one came into the world. CHAPTER XXXIX THE BROTHERS