tragedies.  When the match burned out he thought of something else.  Supposing that Clemency were lying half-dead anywhere near the road, how was she to know that a friend was near?  Immediately he began to whistle.  Whistling was a trick of his, and he had a remarkably sweet, clear pipe.  He knew that Clemency, if she were to hear his whistle, would know who was near.  He whistled “Way down upon the Suwanee River” through, then he began on the “Flower Song” from Faust, walking all the time quite rapidly but with alert ears.  He was half through the “Flower Song” when he stopped short.  He thought he heard something.  He listened, and did hear quite distinctly an exceedingly soft little voice, which might have been the voice of shadows—­“Is that you?”

“Clemency,” he cried out, and rushed toward the wood, and directly the girl was clinging to him.  She was panting with sobs, but she kept her voice down to a whisper.  “Speak low, speak low,” she said in his ear.  “I don’t know where he is.  Oh, speak low.”  She clung to him with almost a spasmodic grip of her slender arms.  “If you had been ten minutes longer I think I should have died,” she whispered.  “Don’t make a sound.  I don’t know where he is.”

“Was it—­” began James.  He felt himself trembling at the thought of what the girl might be going to reveal to him.

“Yes, that same dreadful man.  Uncle Tom was right.  I stayed too long at Annie’s.  It was almost dark when I left there.  She persuaded me to stay to dinner.  They had turkey.  I was about half a mile below here when he, the man, came out of the woods, just as he did before.  I heard him, and I knew.  I did not look around.  I ran, and I heard his footsteps behind me.  The darkness seemed to shut down all at once.  I knew he could catch me, and remembered what I had heard about wild animals when they were hunted.  I had gone a little past here, running just as softly as I could, when I turned right into the woods, and ran back.  Then I lay right down in the underbrush and kept still.  I heard him run past.  Then I heard him come back.  He came into the woods.  I expected every minute he would step on me, but I kept still.  Finally I heard him go away, but I have not dared to stir since!  I made up my mind I would keep still until I heard a team pass.  It did seem to me one must pass, and one would have at any other time, but it has been hours I have been lying there.  Then I heard your whistle.  I was almost afraid to speak then.  Don’t speak above a whisper now.  Did you come on foot?”

“I had the gray mare, and she balked about half a mile from here.  You are sure you are not hurt?”

“No, only I am trying hard not to faint.  Let us walk on very fast, but step softly, and don’t talk.”

James put his arm around the girl and half carried her.  She continued to draw short, panting breaths, which she tried to subdue.  They reached the place where the gray mare loomed faintly out of the gloom with the dark mass of the buggy behind her.