Lower, lower still he stooped, his arms outheld, and at last she felt them close round her, lifting her with that same strength of steel which she remembered on the mountain-side at Montavan. Orion stood like a statue--motionless as if he knew and understood all about it, his head slewed round a bit as though watching until the little business should be satisfactorily accomplished, and blowing gently through his velvety nostrils meanwhile. And then Jean found herself resting against the curve of Blaise’s arm, with the roan’s powerful shoulders, firm and solid as a rock, beneath her. “All right?” queried Blaise, gathering up the reins in his left hand. “Lean well back against my shoulder. There, how’s that?” “It’s like an arm-chair.” He laughed. “I am afraid you won’t say the same by the end of the journey,” he commented ruefully. But by the end of the journey Jean was fast asleep. She had “leant well back” as directed, conscious, as she felt the firm clasp of Blaise’s arm, of a supreme sense of security and well-being. The reaction from the strain of the afternoon, the exhaustion consequent upon her flight through the mist and the fall which had so suddenly ended it, and the rhythmic beat of Orion’s hoofs all combined to lull her into a state of delicious drowsiness. It was so good to feel that she need fight and scheme and plan no longer, to feel utterly safe... to know that Blaise was holding her... Her head fell back against his shoulder, her eyes closed, and the next thing of which she was conscious was of being lifted down by a pair of strong arms and of a confused murmur of voices from amongst which she hazily distinguished Lady Anne’s heartfelt: “Thank God you’ve found her!” And then, characteristically practical, “I’ll have her in bed in five minutes. Blankets and hot-water bottles are all in readiness.” ***** It was the evening of the following day. Jean, tucked up on a couch and with her strained ankle comfortably bandaged, had been reluctantly furnishing Blaise with the particulars of her experience at the bungalow. She had been very unwilling to confide the whole story to him, fearing the consequences of the Tormarin temper as applied to Burke. A violent quarrel between the two men could do no good, she reflected, and would only be fraught with unpleasant results to all concerned--probably, in the end, securing a painful publicity for the whole affair. Fortunately Blaise had been out when Judith had rung up earlier in the day to inquire if Jean had returned to Staple, or he might have fired off a few candid expressions of opinion through the telephone. But now there was no evading his searching questions, and he had quietly but determinedly insisted upon hearing the entire story. Once or twice an ejaculation of intense anger broke from him as he listened, but, beyond that, he made little comment.