“You must let Dr. Stone dress this at once,” she said, more gently, Sanders thought, than he had ever heard a woman speak in all his life. He turned aside; there was something in the contact of the two that at once maddened him and drew him down to despair. He had dared to hope that she would consent to become his wife, and yet the man to whom she was so gently ministering had once been her lover. Yes, that was the man. He was sure of it now. Dwight's attitude, tone of voice, and glance of the eye were evidence enough. Besides, Sanders asked himself, where was the living man who could know Helen Warren and not be her slave forever afterwards? “Well, I'll go right in,” Carson said, gloomily. He and Keith and Garner were passing through the gate when Linda called to him as she came hastily forward, but Keith and Garner were talking and Carson did not hear the old woman's voice. Helen met her and paused. “Let him alone to-night, mammy,” she said, almost bitterly, it seemed to Sanders, who was peering into new depths of her character. “_Your_ boy is safe, but Carson is wounded--_wounded_, I tell you, and his mother may be dying. Let him alone for to-night, anyway.” “All right, honey,” the old woman said; “but I'm gwine ter stay here till de doctor comes out en ax 'im how dey bofe is. My heart is full ter-night, honey. Seem 'most like God done listen ter my prayers after all.” Sanders lingered with the pale, deeply distraught young lady on the veranda till Keith came out of the house, passed through the gate, and strode across the grass towards them. “They are both all right, thank God!” he announced. “The doctor says Mrs. Dwight has had a frightful shock but will pull through. Carson was right; his wound was only a scratch caused by the grazing bullet. But God knows it was a close call, and I think there is but one man in the State low enough to have fired the shot.” When Keith and Sanders had left her, Helen went with dragging, listless feet up the stairs to her room. Lighting her lamp, she stood looking at her image in the mirror on her bureau. How strangely drawn and grave her features appeared! It seemed to her that she looked older and more serious than she had ever looked in her life.