"Well, I know I sha'n't lie down while you're gone, miss."
"Then I'll be tremendously quick, I will indeed. I only wish I'd started long ago. The moon is splendid now. You can see miles——"
"Then look there, Miss Naomi!"
"Where?"
"Past the stables—across the paddock—toward the fence."
Naomi looked. A black figure was running toward them in the moonlight.
"Who can it be, Mrs. Potter? Not Mr. Engelhardt——"
"Who else?"
"But he is reeling and staggering! Could it be some drunken roustabout? And yet that's just his height—it must be—it is—thank God!"
Her curiosity first, and then her amazement, kept Naomi seated immovable in her saddle. She wondered later why she had not cantered to meet him. She did not stir even when his stertorous breathing came painfully to her ears. It was only when the quivering, spent, and speechless young man threw his arms across the withers of her horse, and his white face fell forward upon the mane, that Naomi silently detached the water-bag which she had strapped to her saddle, and held it to his lips with a trembling hand. At first he shook his head. Then he raised his wild eyes to hers with a piteously anxious expression.