Joan blushed, touched by an act that had more honest sympathy than had a hundred words. Since she was weary and tired at heart, such tyranny was very sweet. “But what of Gabriel?” she asked. “Gabriel can wait,” Judith answered her, with a smile; “you are my charge, and I will play my brother’s keeper. Shall I risk your health on such a night! No, I have come by other plans. Can you walk with me one short mile?” Some faint color had risen to Joan’s cheeks. She stood up like one half dazed, one hand still clasped in Judith’s, the other holding her wet skirt. “Where shall I go?” she asked. “Come; leave the where to me.” Not a mile from the cross-roads towards Saltire lived an old widow whom Judith had mothered in her winter years. The widow’s cottage was set back from the road amid trees and meadows, all alone. To this same cottage Judith took Joan that windy evening, like some kind fairy radiant in doing good. She would lodge Joan there for her sake and for Gabriel’s, and tread the dream-path she herself had made. Thus these two, sisters in charity, came that evening to the little cottage and knocked at the door under the tiled porch. Judith went in while Joan waited in the twilight. She heard the voice of Gabriel’s sister conjuring for her comfort in the cottage room. Nor did the old woman hesitate to comply, for Judith’s asking was law with the honest poor. Widow Milton was soon laying wood in the parlor grate and setting a chair for the drying of Joan’s wet clothes. Judith came out to Gabriel’s wife in the twilight, with a wonderful smile on her pale face. “Go in, sister,” she said, “the old lady can be trusted. Stay, promise me, till I come again.” And Joan promised, with her arms about Judith’s neck. XL MAJOR MALTRAVERS had taken a “hunting-box” early in the year in perilous proximity to Gabingly Castle. Maltravers had remained a god above the clouds through the autumn and early winter, both for expediency’s sake and to prevent any unnecessary linking-up of incidents. His name had not appeared in the cause of justice, for Gabriel’s undefended suit had led to no ransacking of evidence on Ophelia’s side. The soldier had soon become popular in the neighborhood, and he was even formally introduced to Ophelia on the hunting-field by Miss Mabel Saker, who posed as a mutual friend. Maltravers, being an excellent horseman and a good man at the flask, had soon won the esteem of the “young bloods” of the neighborhood. His keen, jockey-like face and trim, tailor-made figure were to the fore in many a gusty gallop, and his voice rang as clear as the huntsman’s horn.