Here he found his horse comfortably stalled, and with all his housings yet on him. He climbed into the saddle. He might have had a full sack upon his shoulders, from the trouble it cost him. As he rode away, he could have thought his head rocking like a toy-tumbler. He had to hold on with a frantic grip, or he would have rolled off into the road and probably snapped his spine like a stick of celery. The flinty track seemed to slide under him as if it were a long ribbon reeling off a drum. And all the time the pain in his head was horrible. Presently he was sicklily aware of a woman’s figure crossing from a field-path in front of him. Even in his anguish, something that was familiar in its pose struck him. “Betty!” he murmured thickly; and pulling up his horse with uncalculated abruptness, actually toppled out of the saddle, and fell in a heap to the ground. She ran to him, uttering a faint cry. The horse had swerved on the moment, and one of its rider’s feet was wedged in a stirrup. She caught the bridle, backed the frightened animal, and so saved its master a deadly mangling. Then, looping the reins over her arm, she bent above the prostrate man, with shining eyes full of rebuke and pity. “Oh!” she said--“how could your honour be so foolish?” He smiled up at her with a lost look of pain. “How, Betty?” he whispered. “You should ’a slept it off,” she said, “before you took the road.” “You think me tipsy?” She answered with a little sigh. “Betty, my dear”--the mere effort of speech wrung a moan from him--“I’m not tipsy, upon my honour. I was fool enough to trust Mr. Breeds, that’s all; and he repaid me by drugging my wine.” “You come fro’ the ‘Dog and Duck’?” “I’ve spent the night there in a chair.” “Oh, Mr. Tuke! What made you go?” “Why, I wanted to see for myself.” She went quite pale; and suddenly there was a bright tear running down her cheek. “Oh, me!” she whispered. “’Twas I drove you to it. You might ha’ been murdered, and ’twas I drove you to it.” “Nonsense, Betty. ’Twas coming to a head before you spoke. I should have had it out with Mr. Breeds in any case, sooner or later.” “And he poisoned your wine? Oh, oh!” “Now, my dear--that was only a move in the game. Forewarned is forearmed, you know. But my head seems like to burst. Will you put your cool hand on it, Betty?” She acquiesced timidly, as he lay against the hedge-side. But soon, emboldened by the yearning pity that, in her sex, so passionlessly yields itself to any passionate appeal for help or comfort, she wrought with instinctive sympathy upon the throbbing temples and pressed the hard pain from them. “It is like a little snow-wind from the mountains blowing over flowers,” murmured the patient drowsily. “What are you doing at ‘Delsrop’ again, Betty?” “At ‘Delsrop’! Sure your honour’s dreaming,” she cooed. “You lie a’most within hailing distance of the ‘First Inn.’” Mr. Tuke uttered an exclamation and struggled into a sitting posture.