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Nessie, to feel her arms about him and his head drawn to her soft bosom. Then he knew he had gone to the abode of the blessed, for Nessie completed his Heaven. A marvellous sweet weakness flooded him. He lifted rather hazy arms about Nessie's neck, drew her face down to his own, and murmured her name.

She was sobbing:

"Oh, Abner, are you badly hurt? Do you feel better? Oh, I heard the shooting last night! I knew it was you! Oh, Abner! Abner!"

The men had placed the wounded man on an ancient bed—it may have been the very bed Abner was born in—and Nessie was sobbing and bending over him as if she could not take her hands away from caressing and loving him.

Mr. Sim Pratt said he would go and telephone to Lanesburg for a motor to come after Abner.

Nessie immediately thought it would not be safe for him to be moved in a motor.

"Sure it will," assured Pratt in a cheerful voice. "It's nothing but a scalp wound; as soon as it's dressed he'll be up and all right."

By this time Abner's Heaven had become badly diluted with the earth, and a few minutes later resolved itself into the living room of the old Coltrane place with half-a-dozen labourers in it, with its big fireplace, the carved arms, and some unfragrant diapers strung before a blazing log.

Nessie was still frightened and chafing Abner's hands when Mr. Belshue entered the room, and he in turn was bewildered by the novelty of so many guests. One of the men began explaining to him what had happened.

Abner became uneasily aware that Nessie was still half lying on the bed beside him, with one arm under his neck, and stroking his hands with the other. He saw that the jeweller's entrance made no difference at all in her anxiety and tenderness for him. The wounded man looked steadily at the jeweller's gray face, and finally, with much effort to control the movements of his tongue, he mumbled thickly,