She whispered with some difficulty, “No one.”

“You are perhaps spared much.” There was a silence. Presently he said

gently: “We must not wait here too long; we must follow the

lanterns—see, they are going. You can stand; now try and walk. Give me

your hand—that way. Lean on me. Take one step—now another. Come! Don’t

be afraid—you _must_.”

With his arm around her, supporting, guiding, almost carrying her, she

essayed to walk. Shaking at each step pitifully at first, then growing

stronger, with one hand locked in his, she found herself ascending the

rocky path of the hillside with dark moving shapes beside her. The

lights ahead disappeared in the mouth of a long tunnel into which the

light was walled solidly. He was leading her along the railroad-ties. As

she stumbled from time to time, she became formlessly conscious that he

winced and caught his breath involuntarily while trying to keep her from

falling with that strong grip. The confused impression of his suffering

grew finally so intense upon her, and seemed in her weak condition such

a terrible load to bear, that she wept helplessly.

He felt her shaking, and stopped short, looking back at her anxiously.

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m hurting you.”

“Not more than I can stand. Don’t stop to talk about it; we mustn’t fall

behind. Hold my hand fast.”

The railroad-ties stretched beyond the tunnel. The rain met the

wayfarers full in the face. The dark, tramping, struggling forms were

all ahead with the drowning lanterns. The walk had become an incessant,

endless thing, dreadful as a journey through the inferno, but for the

protecting, enfolding clasp of that guiding hand—a strong, clean touch,

that subtly conveyed warmth to the blood and courage to the heart. With

her palm pressed to that of this unseen friend, Dosia felt clearly that

she could have walked blindfolded to the end of the world, sure that he

knew the path and that it led to some unknown good. They seemed to grow

as one in the unspoken comforting of trust.

Their feet were on a road now. There was a sudden clatter of horses’

hoofs through the rush of wind and rain. A wagon stopped beside them.

Dosia found herself lifted in and laid on a pile of straw. There were

others lifted in also; then the horses jogged on with their load,

carrying her away from the friend whose face she had not seen, and with

whom she had exchanged no word of farewell.

She heard nothing of him in that long day at the farmhouse, where she

lay waiting in a half stupor for the cousin who had been sent for. But

through her life long that hand-clasp stood to Theodosia Linden for all

the high, protecting care, the strength and gentleness, the fine,

unselfish thought that a woman looks for in a man, and the finding of

which is her greatest good on earth.