"Don't be alarmed; we are safe now," I added, drawing her arm through mine. "Now lean on me."
"But you must be tired, Ernest Thornton."
"No, not a particle; let me help you as much as I can."
"This is much easier than it was before," said she; and she clung to me like a frightened child—as indeed she was.
"Don't be afraid to lean your whole weight upon me," I added. "I would carry you if I could."
I think it was her fears more than her exertions that exhausted her; and, by the time we had walked another mile, as I estimated the distance, she declared that she felt better, and more able to walk than at first. As we continued on our way, I saw a horse car on another avenue,—street railroads at that time were not so abundant as now,—and we followed a cross street till we came to the track.
"I feel ever so much better now!" exclaimed Kate, as the circumstances became more hopeful.
"There is nothing more to fear," I replied. "I wish I knew how Tom Thornton was."
"Why, what is the matter with him?" asked Kate, with astonishment; and I perceived that she had no definite idea of what had happened before the public house. The poor girl was so terrified that she had hardly known anything from the time our suspicions were first excited till we had walked two or three miles from the scene of the affray.
"Did you think, Kate, that he permitted us to leave the carriage?" I asked.