Then his mind seemed to recover its balance, and, putting out his hand, he said, very courteously: “I am glad to see you, Mr. Hansford. I am afraid your daughter has had a sorry night, but she has done me a world of good. I believe I should have died without her. Will you sit down? Our quarters are small and not the best ventilated in the world.” Roger sat down, while Elithe went out into the fresh morning air, which each moment grew fresher and warmer as the sun came over the hills. All traces of the storm were gone, except where pools of water were standing in the road and rain drops were falling from the trees. Mrs. Stokes’s mother was preparing breakfast, and, attracted by the odor of coffee, Elithe walked that way. “Drink this. It will do you good. You are white as a sheet,” the woman said, offering her a cup of strong, hot coffee. Elithe drank it, and, sitting down upon a bench outside the door, fell asleep from fatigue and exhaustion. Here her father found her when he came from his interview with the stranger, who had seemed gentlemanly in every way and very profuse in his thanks for what Elithe had done for him. “If she could only stay for a day or two, I believe she would exorcise all the evil spirits there are in me and make a man of me,” he said. He emphasized the _spirits_, and Roger knew what he meant. But this was not the time for a temperance lecture, and he only replied that on no account could he allow his daughter to stay. It was not the place for her. “I know,—I know,” the stranger interrupted him. “Miss Grundy would say it is very much _not_ the place for her, but she’d be safe with these men, who adore her; and safe with me. Suppose I am a scamp of the deepest dye, I’d as soon insult my mother were she living as harm your daughter by a word, or look, or thought. Let her stay for one day, and you stay with her.” He was very earnest, and drops of sweat stood on his forehead, but Mr. Hansford was firm. “I’ll come to-morrow and see how you are,” he said, “and when you are able you will find a plain but good hotel in Samona, where you will be more comfortable than here. My daughter must go home.” “I suppose you are right, but you’ll let me say good-bye to her!” Pennington said, quite cheerfully, buoyed up with the prospect of soon getting to Samona, where he would be near Elithe.