A moment later Eleanor Leigh was galloping for life down the steep bridle-path. It was a breakneck gait, and the path was rough enough to be perilous, but she did not heed it. It was the first time in all her life that she had been conscious that she could be of real use. She felt that she was galloping in a new world. From house to house she rode, but though all were sympathetic, there was no one to go. Those who might have gone, were elsewhere--or were dead. The doctor was away from home attending at other bedsides and, by the account given, had been working night and day until he could scarcely stand. Riding to the nearest telegraph station, the girl sent a despatch to a doctor whom she knew in the city where she lived, begging him to come or to send some one on the first train and saying that he would be met and that she would meet all his expenses. Then she sat down and wrote a note to her cousin. And two hours later, just as the dusk was falling, she rode up to the door of a country cabin back among the hills. As she softly pushed open the door, with her arm full of bundles, a form rose from the side of a bed and stood before her in the dusk of the room. "My God! you must not come in here. Why have you come here?" "To help you," said the girl. "But you must not come in. Go out. You must," said John Marvel. [Illustration: "But you must not come in."] "No, I have come to stay. I could not live if I did not stay now." She pushed her way in. "Here are some things I have brought. I have telegraphed for a doctor." It was long before she could satisfy John Marvel, but she staid, and all that night she worked with him over the sick and the dying. All that night they two strove to hold Death at bay, across those wretched beds. Once, indeed, he had struck past their guard and snatched a life; but they had driven him back and saved the others. Ere morning came one of the children had passed away; but the mother and the other children survived; and Eleanor Leigh knew that John Marvel, now on his knees, now leaning over the bed administering stimulants, had saved them. As Eleanor Leigh stepped out into the morning light, she looked on a new earth, as fair as if it had just been created, and it was a new Eleanor Leigh who gazed upon it. The tinsel of frivolity had shrivelled and perished in the fire of that night. Sham had laid bare its shallow face and fled away. Life had taken on reality. She had seen a man, and thenceforth only a man could command her.