A man, bareheaded, with grizzled curly hair, turned suddenly, not ten feet from her, and stared dumfounded at her, his twisted, brown cigar an inch from his lips. The torn-out sleeve of her nightgown had bared one side to her waist: the great rent that slit the lower half of the garment left one slender leg uncovered above her white knee. A spray of wild azalea wreathed her dark tumbled hair, and Rufus, his plumy tail curled around her feet in the shadow, and his green eyes flaming, might have been a baby panther. She leaned one hand on the rough bark of a chestnut and gazed with startled eyes at the man; it seemed that the forest must swallow her at a breath from a human throat. He lifted one hand and pinched the back of the other with it till his face contorted with the pain. "Then there _are_ such things!" he said softly; "well, why not?" He moved forward almost imperceptibly. "If I were younger, I should know you were not possible," he muttered, "but now I know that I have never doubted you--really." Again he took a small step. Caroline, paralyzed with fear and embarrassment, for she thought he was merely teasing her a little before he punished her--his pleasant, low voice and whimsical manners brought her back suddenly to the ordinary world and the stern facts of her escapade--shivered slightly, but did not attempt flight. "It was this extraordinary night that brought you out, of course," he went on, again slightly shortening the distance between them, "you and the little cub. It was a moon out of five thousand, I admit. Do you live in that chestnut?" With a sudden agile bound he covered the space between them and seized her by the shoulder. "Aha!" he cried, "I have--good heavens, it _is_ a child!" "Of course I am--I'm Caroline," she murmured writhing under his grasp. He pulled her out into the little glade. "Oh! you're Caroline, are you?" he repeated, thoughtfully; "dear me, you gave me quite a turn, Caroline. Where did you come from--the big house?" "I came from a long way," she said briefly. "I was--I was taking a walk. Where do you live? Don't you ever to go bed?" The man chuckled. "I have been feeling adventures in my bones all day," he said, "and here they are; a child and a cat. If you will come with me, Mademoiselle, I will show you where I live." He led the way gravely to the dim, white object, and Caroline perceived it to be a tent, pitched by the side of a spring that poured through a tiny pipe set into the rock. The tent flap was tied back, and she saw inside it a narrow cot, covered with a coarse blue blanket, a roughly made table, spread with a game of solitaire, and a small leather trunk. On the further side of the tent there smoked, in a rude, improvised oven of stones, a dying fire. Above it, under a shelf nailed to the tree, hung a few simple utensils; two or three large stumps had been hacked into the semblance of seats.