She clasped her hands in front of her and looked up steadily at the moon. It was clear of the clouds now—a keen-edged sickle against a slatey sky; and such light as it shed fell full enough upon the thin brown face and fearless eyes of the nameless girl whom, as Missy, two or three simple honest folk had learnt to like so well that they could think of her kindly even when the black worst was known of her. Her lips moved—perhaps in prayer for those two or three—perhaps to crave forgiveness for herself; but they never trembled. Neither did her knees, though suddenly she knelt. And now her eyes were shut; and it seems, or she must have heard him, her ears also. She opened her eyes again, however, to look her last at sky and moon. But her eyes were full of tears. So she shut them tight, and, putting her hands in front of her, swung slowly forward. It was then that John William stooped forward and caught her firmly by the waist; but, after a single shrill scream, the spirit left her as surely as it must had he never been there.... Only, it came back. He had taken off his coat. She was lying upon it, while he knelt over her. The narrow moon was like a glory over his head. “Why did you do it?” she asked him. “You might have let me get to rest when—when you didn't care!” “I do care!” he answered; “and I mean you to rest now all the days of your life—your new life, Missy. I have cared all the time. But now I care more than ever.” “Your father and 'Bella——” “Care as much as I do, pretty nearly, in their own way. Missy, dear, don't you care, too,—for me?” She looked at him gratefully through her starting tears. “How can I help it? You picked me up out of the gutter between you; but it was you alone that kept me out of it, after I'd gone; because I sort of felt all the time that you cared. But oh, you must never marry me. I am thinking so of your mother! She will never, never forgive me; I couldn't expect it; and she is going to get quite better, you know—I feel sure that she is better already.” He put his hand upon the hair that was only golden in the moonshine: he peered into the wan face with infinite sadness: for here it was that Missy was both right and wrong. THE END. End of Project Gutenberg's The Unbidden Guest, by Ernest William Hornung