Upon this she burst into a passionate fit of weeping, and the good wagoner saw that she was not in a fit state to answer further questions. Endeavoring to calm her, he assisted her down the hill to where his team was standing, but before they reached it she swooned. It was not an easy task to lift her into the shelter of his wagon, but he managed it, and made up a bed of straw upon which he laid her. Then he started his horses again, and was careful to avoid ruts, in order not to jolt his fair guest too roughly. He had the whole day before him, and it would do if he reached his home before night. Now and again he mounted the wagon to look at Emilia, and was concerned that he could obtain no coherent words from her. The poor girl's trials had produced their effect upon her weak frame, and she was fast relapsing into delirium. All that he could distinguish in her feverish mutterings were the words, "I am innocent, I am innocent! I have done no wrong. God will speak for me!" Even these pathetic utterances came from her at intervals, and he had to piece them together. Her youth and beauty deeply impressed the kind-hearted man, and he did not regret the course he had taken. In the middle of the day he arrived at a village, and gave his horses two hours' rest. He utilized these two hours by hunting up a doctor, who, feeling Emilia's pulse and putting his hand on her hot forehead, said, "She is in a high state of fever. The only thing you can do is to get her home as quickly as possible." He believed her to be the wagoner's daughter, and he gave the old man a draught which Emilia was to be persuaded to take, should she have an interval of consciousness before they reached their journey's end. The wagoner's anxiety now was to get home as soon as possible, and the roads being good he put his horses to a trot. At six o'clock in the evening the journey was over, and the team stood at the door of his cottage. His old wife ran out to greet him, and he rapidly explained to her what he had done, and why he had done it. "Was it right, mother?" he asked. The tears rushed to her eyes. It was thirty years since he had addressed her by that endearing term, and she thought, as he had thought, of the daughter they had lost in the time gone by. There are memories that never die. "Quite right, John," murmured the old woman, and together they carried Emilia into their cottage and laid her upon a bed. There the wagoner left his wife to attend to the young girl; he had his horses to look after, and when this was done he returned to the cottage, to find Emilia undressed and in bed, with the old woman standing by her side. "We must have a doctor, John," she said, and away he went for one.