It was a limp, white figure that Madge, running ahead of all the others, found stretched out on the grass. Her companions soon caught up with her.
"Nellie is dead!" cried Lillian, bursting into tears and sinking down beside her friend on the grass.
"Oh, no," assured Phil, "Nellie has only fainted." She turned quietly to David and Jack. "Go back, please, and tell Mr. Preston and some of the other men to bring a cot on which to carry Eleanor. She is only worn out and exhausted with exposure and pain. She will be all right soon. Don't look so heartbroken Madge."
Madge had not taken her eyes from her cousin's pale, haggard face. She could not believe that she was really looking at Eleanor. Could this poor, white, exhausted little creature be her Nellie? Why, it was only the afternoon before when Madge had last seen Eleanor laughing and talking to Harry Sears. And now——!
A few minutes later the men came with the cot and Eleanor was carried to the Preston home. Everybody, except David, followed her in triumph.
For David Brewster did not go back home with the others; he wished to find out about an old coal mine which he had been told was in this vicinity. He did not, of course, dream of Eleanor's connection with the place, but he had his own reasons for wishing to discover it.
An hour later the man and the old gypsy woman were startled by another visitor. David crept into the opening in the side of the hill. When he left, the man and woman in the mine had promised the lad to leave the countryside as soon as possible. They had also agreed to return to David the silver and the greater part of the money stolen from the Preston house on the night of the corn roast. It remained for David to see that the stolen goods were returned to the house without suspicion falling on any one. David believed that he could save the evil-doers from disgrace and detection. But how was he to save himself?
CHAPTER XVI
THE BETTER MAN
