She drew her charge close by the wall, and trembling with fear for him, she stationed herself by his side. The troop passed at a full trot through the street; and at the sound of their clanging arms, and the ringing hoofs of their heavy chargers, Lucille might have seen, had she looked at the blind man's face, that its sad features kindled with enthusiasm, and his head was raised proudly from its wonted and melancholy bend. "Thank heaven," she said, as the troop had nearly passed them, "the danger is over!" Not so. One of the last two soldiers who rode abreast, was unfortunately mounted on a young and unmanageable horse. The rider's oaths and digging spur only increased the fire and impatience of the charger; he plunged from side to side of the narrow street. "_Gardez vous_," cried the horseman, as he was borne on to the place where Lucille and the stranger stood against the wall; "are ye mad--why do you not run?" "For heaven's sake, for mercy sake, he is blind!" cried Lucille, clinging to the stranger's side. "Save yourself, my kind guide!" said the stranger. But Lucille dreamt not of such desertion. The trooper wrested the horse's head from the spot where they stood; with a snort, as he felt the spur, the enraged animal lashed out with its hind legs; and Lucille, unable to save _both_, threw herself before the blind man, and received the shock directed against him; her slight and delicate arm fell shattered by her side--the horseman was borne onward. "Thank God, _you_ are saved!" was poor Lucille's exclamation; and she fell, overcome with pain and terror, into the arms which the stranger mechanically opened to receive her. "My guide, my friend!" cried he, "you are hurt, you--" "No, sir," interrupted Lucille, faintly, "I am better, I am well. _This_ arm, if you please--we are not far from your hotel now." But the stranger's ear, tutored to every inflection of voice, told him at once of the pain she suffered; he drew from her by degrees the confession of the injury she had sustained; but the generous girl did not tell him it had been incurred solely in his protection. He now insisted on reversing their duties, and accompanying _her_ to her home; and Lucille, almost fainting with pain, and hardly able to move, was forced to consent. But a few steps down the next turning stood the humble mansion of her father--they reached it--and Lucille scarcely crossed the threshold, before she sank down, and for some minutes was insensible to pain. It was left to the stranger to explain, and to beseech them immediately to send for a surgeon, "the most skilful--the most practised in town," said he. "See, I am rich, and this is the least I can do to atone to your generous daughter for not forsaking even a stranger in peril." He held out his purse as he spoke, but the father refused the offer; and it saved the blind man some shame that he could not see the blush of honest resentment with which so poor a species of remuneration was put aside.