The first sound she heard was a horse’s trotting as some one rode away down the hill. There was a jumble of interjections, groans, and arguments, amid which she distinguished her vagabond’s voice. He was at least not slain! She sent up a swift prayer of grateful joy, and called him again. He replied with a guarded question.

“Who’s calling?”

“I—I,” she answered. “What is it?”

“An accident. Nobody hurt.”

Following the direction of his voice, she came upon him seated on a stone, with another man standing beside him. He addressed her formally.

“Madam, do not be alarmed. There has been an accident. This gentleman is a constable. He was—er—under the impression that he ought to shoot me, and did so without waiting for explanations.”

“Oh, dear—oh....”

He interrupted again, as quickly as he could get his breath.

“I presume the shots wakened you, or, if you were not asleep, alarmed you. It was most charitable of you to run to the assistance of the wounded.” “Wounded!”

“Slightly. One favour only—let me ask. May we come in for a moment and find out the extent of the damage? I am sure the officer will assist in binding up the wounds he has made. We will trouble you for only a few moments.”

She understood that she was to moderate her anxiety. Her vagabond did not mean to let their former acquaintance be known to the village sleuth who might gossip it about the valley.

“Can the constable carry you in?”

“No, ma’am! nor hi wouldn’t try it!” came out of the night, with indignant emphasis and a cockney accent as thick as the darkness.

“No need, officer. It’s my shoulder that is hit. If I may come in....”

“Hi might as well tell yer that, w’erever you go, Hi goes with yer, as Ruth she says to Nay-homy in the Scriptur’; cos w’y? Cos you’re hunder arrest, that’s w’y.”

“Thank you for the explanation. I might have thought you were following me from sheer affection.”

“Oh, don’t jest!” Rosamond pleaded. “It may be dreadfully serious. I will run in ahead and find some linen to make bandages—and telephone for the doctor.” She ran up the road toward her gate, not heeding his protests against the doctor.

Dr. Wells’s office- and horse-boy, Peter, answered the telephone almost immediately. He slept in the office downstairs for that purpose. Dr. Wells was wont to say that while Peter never woke up, when the bell rang, he always got up and took the name fairly correctly, stumbled to his master’s door and repeated it, and then, after harnessing the horse, rolled back to bed without knowing that he had been up. When vagabond and constable entered Villa Rose, Peter was even then rapping on the doctor’s chamber door and saying the name of “Mearely.”

Rosamond scurried hither and thither producing soft linen and lotions, safety pins and needle and thread, cotton batting and smelling salts, until the end of the big table looked like a peep into a hospital. To all protests she answered:

“Don’t talk! Don’t talk! Save your strength.”

The ball had furrowed the fleshy part of his left arm just below the shoulder. Rosamond was obliged to remove his coat, cut the sleeve of his shirt, and bathe and dress the wound herself without assistance from the constable. That worthy stood by, twirling a battered straw hat and staring open-eyed and open-mouthed at the contents of the living room. He refused point blank to take any surgical responsibility.

“Hi’m a constable, and Hi ain’t no bloomin’ doctor. Hi drills ’oles in yer; Hi don’t stop ’em hup again,” was his pithy and definite retort, when besought to put the pins in the bandage while Mrs. Mearely held it secure. In the end she was obliged to tie it, achieving quite a pretty bow-knot which she spread out daintily and patted into place, feeling a natural pride in it which she was not inclined to conceal.

While refusing to put a finger to the business, himself, the constable was willing to make remarks and to offer criticisms, such as:

“Hi’ve ’eard of gangrene a-settin’ in hafter a shot. Hi shouldn’t be surprised if ’e’d take to gangrene, ’im bein’ of that dark, bilious complexion. A dark-skinned man is bound to be a bilious man. Hi never knowed it to fail.”

Or:

“If Hi’d ben doin’ the job, Hi’d ’ave done it very different. But hit’s not my place to nuss. Wot’s your name (’nyme’ he called it), by the w’y?”

“Mrs. Mearely.” shortly. She already detested that constable.

He was a broad, slow person of forty or more, with a dragging walk that, at first sight, seemed to be lameness; but save for self-importance and a weary disgust at the world, his limbs were whole. His head was as large as the average headstone, and of somewhat the same shape; and though it was not of the same material, it was thicker and looked as hard. He wore a gray linen duster, soiled and much crumpled, from which he occasionally filliped bits of dried mud with his thumb nail. He spoke in the deliberate, very positive accents of a man who knows he has never made a mistake of any kind, even by accident, in all his life. He forbore to argue with Mrs. Mearely when she accused him of a callous soul, anent the bandaging. He simply put back the flap of his duster and polished his badge with his cuff. The inference was plain. She might have riches; but he was the Law.

“Why doesn’t Dr. Wells come? I am so frightened about you!” She burst out presently, after the Law had expressed more of his uncomforting views.

“But it’s nothing,” the victim protested.

“Oh, yes it is—it is! It’s a dreadful wound. It—it bled!”

“It’s only a graze on the shoulder. You have done everything needful.”

“Oh, no—I don’t know how to attend to it properly. If only the doctor would come! Don’t they c-cauterize—wounds?” She stammered over the word, as she was not sure of it. “I—I—think I’ve read of that. And sew them up with silk?—to—to prevent people from bleeding to death?”

Her eyes were big and tearful with alarm.

“Please don’t be so troubled. It is only a trifle. You need not have sent for the doctor at all.” He turned his head to hide the flicker of amusement which he could not restrain. “Oh, don’t talk!” she urged. “You haven’t the strength to waste. Ought I to telephone again? Oh, dear! Dr. Wells’s boy is so stupid. Perhaps he hasn’t told the doctor the right name—sent him off somewhere else. And—and—you’ll bleed to death before he—he—comes to sew you up with silk.” She wept.

“No—no, dear lady. Don’t be distressed. I’m all right.”

“Aw! ’E’ll do, I guess. Nuthin’ more’n a scratch; but wot a goin’-on habout it!” The constable was disgusted.

Rosamond turned on him, angrily.

“What do you know about it? It is all your fault! You might have killed him!”

This had far from the desired effect.

The constable replied proudly, looking from one to the other for admiration:

“Hif it was my juty Hi’d ’ave ’ad ter kill ’im.” He put the straw hat on his head with an air.

“Duty! How dare you shoot a man just because you see him alone on the road at night!”

“Yes, ma’am. But, you see, ma’am, constable Gardner and me, we was sent out to-night to look for a tramp. That’s hon account of some busybody thinkin’ they seen ’im ’ereabouts this very hevenin’. So they tells the chief, and ’e sends us, me an’ Gardner,—my nyme bein’ Marks, Halfred Marks, Halfred Marks” (he touched his hat-brim to each in turn). “An’ so we comes beatin’ hit along hup the valley. An’ w’en Hi seen ’im on the porch....”

Rosamond made an exclamation of alarm.

“You—you saw...?”

“Be careful,” her patient whispered.

“Yes, ma’am. I seen ’im standin’ on the railin’ as I come up the road. And, considerin’ the time o’ night, hit looked queer—to me.” His expression defied them to criticise his angle of vision.

“Why—why ...” Mrs. Mearely began, feeling for words that eluded her. The vagabond came to her aid.

“Naturally—naturally—sergeant....”

The Law’s regard became more affable.

“Hi hain’t the sergeant, sir—thankin’ you kindly jest the same. Seein’ a man on the railin’ at that time o’ night....”

She interrupted, nervously:

“It couldn’t have been so very late....”

“Sh!” came the warning from behind her.

Slowly and laboriously, Mr. Marks took from his pocket a large, open-faced silver watch, attached to a short loop and bow of bright, cherry-coloured ribbon.

“Three-twelve; nigh on three-fifteen,” he said, after a prolonged examination.

“But it was not three, then!” “Hi didn’t say three, ma’am. Hi said three-twelve. Three-thirteen it is now, bein’ as time an’ tide waits for no man. Must a’ben two-thirty, any’ow—nearer two forty-five.” Preparing to return the watch to his pocket, he noticed the other man gazing at its cherry bow. “Hi see you’re hadmirin’ of this. It’s one of Mrs. Marks’s ’appy touches. She ‘as a good bit of sentiment, Mrs. Marks ’as—on haccount of marryin’ late in life. Hi recommends Mrs. Marks as a wife; or hany spinster that’s standin’, so to speak, hon the doorsill of the lonesome forties, for, w’en they gets took up by a man, they’re very grateful an’ supine. So as Hi was sayin’, seein’ ’im on the railin’ at that time of night, Hi thought Hi’d see wot was hup!”

“Naturally, officer: of course.”

“So Hi starts hup the bank with Gardner; an’ jest then—bump!—the feller jumps an’ lands on my ’ead, and we goes down a-rollin’ into the road, with Gardner hafter us. Gardner, ’e picks ’isself hup an’ ’oofs it for the station, never carin’ for me; but that’s hall reg’lar, ’cause ’e goes hoff juty at two-thirty. That’s ’ow Hi knowed wot time it wos—haccount of Gardner leavin’ me in the ditch an’ ’oofin’ it for the station. Hi’d jest come hon juty; so Hi ’as to pick myself hup—an’ make it ’ot for ’im,” indicating the wounded man in the chair. “So Hi spits hout a mouthful of sand-pebbles back hon to the road (where they’d houghter of stayed hin the first place) an’ I yells at ’im: ‘’Alt!’ says Hi. But off ’e goes,” His wooden face took on an aggrieved look like a boy’s when left behind in a race.

Rosamond exclaimed angrily:

“You should have let him go. You had no right to shoot!”

“Hi’ll shoot hany man wot jumps on my ’ead—’specially at that time o’ night!” He spoke as one positively within his rights. “’Ow was Hi to know ’e was your ’usband, ma’am?”

“My—my...?” she gasped.

“’Specially as hit was in the dark. But hi wouldn’t a-knowed if hit ’ad ben in the light. Now, if you’ll give me the nyme, ma’am, Hi’ll be hoff and make my report to the chief.” He brought a large tablet notebook and pencil out of his pocket. Rosamond looked at the vagabond, her face blank with dismay.

“Report? Oh-h—you mustn’t....”

“You needn’t report this, officer,”—quickly coming to her rescue—“I have no complaint to make. It was purely an accident.”

“Oh yes! purely an accident; not of the least importance!” she emphasized, snatching gratefully at the straw.

“Thank you kindly, ma’am. Hi’ll take his nyme jes’ the syme, as a matter of juty.” There was a pause in which two disconcerted persons faced each other with perplexed looks.

“Certainly—certainly—er—but I am not this lady’s husband....”

“Then—wot is she makin’ such a goin’ hon habout yer for?” severely.

“Well—I—er—I’m—her chauffeur.”

“Yes!” she echoed, almost sobbing in her relief. “Yes! he’s the chauffeur.”

The impromptu motorist continued:

“You see—er—there was a party this evening and I drove some of the guests home—er—I had just returned. So—er—that was how it happened I was so late—two-forty-five I think you said, by the cherry-ripe timepiece.”

“Yes! that was it,” Rosamond assisted cheerfully. Her chauffeur! Wonderful vagabond! How cleverly he had extricated her from a problem which, in Roseborough, could have had but one—and that a fatal—termination.

“Wot Hi’d like to know is, w’y was you standin’ on the porch railin’ w’en Hi was comin’ hup the road?” Mr. Marks, it appeared, had an unfortunate memory for details.

“Oh, that?” with a dÉgagÉ air. “When you were coming up the road?—er—. Was that what I heard? I was in here to—er—to get a bite of supper—see, there are the plates on the table—when—hist!—I heard something—something suspicious. I listened.” He paused dramatically. Marks nodded, all agog. “Er—it was a noise!” He felt his inventive powers weakening. Marks nodded again, wisely.

“’Earin’ a noise is wot makes hany man suspicious.”

“Er—I thought it might be a tramp. So I climbed on the railing—er—to see better. I thought I saw a man—a tramp—climbing up the bank. So—of course—I jumped on him!” His manner declared that to leap from a high rail down upon the heads of tramps, was a tenet he had held from childhood.

“W’en you saw hit were a horfcer of the law—w’y didn’t you ’alt w’en Hi said ’alt?”

“Oh—that?” casually; he considered: “Well, you see, I was so frightened when I saw that I had apparently attacked a constable—I lost my head and....”

“You nearly lost me my ’ead—a-jumpin’ on it like a fancy ’igh diver on a rollin’ wave.” He accosted Rosamond, formally, pointing his pencil at her. “And your nyme’s ‘Mearely,’ you say, ma’am? Hi’d oughter know but Hi hain’t been on the county force more’n three years an’ it takes me a whiles to get hacquainted. My motto, as Hi says hit to myself a ’undred times a day, is ‘Slow and careful, Halfred.’ ‘Mrs. Mearely,’ you said?” “Yes, Mrs. Mearely. Hawthorne Road.”

He bit his pencil carefully and indited.

“Hi knows the road hall right—an’ hafter this Hi’ll stick to it—if hall the King’s ’orses an’ hall the King’s men is a-standin’ on the porch railin’. Let ’em stand there, Hi say. And see ’ow they like it! Good-night, ma’am.” He put away his note book and pencil and started slowly toward the door. The vagabond waved him a pleasant farewell.

“There’ll be no complaint from me. Good-night sergeant.”

Mr. Marks retraced his few deliberate steps.

“Hi hain’t the sergeant, thankin’ you kindly. Hi ought to be. But to hought hain’t to is—as Hi tells Mrs. Marks—she bein’ hambitious. Beggin’ your pardon, there’s a little matter Hi’d like to arsk your hadvice about. An’ that his: Might you ’ave ’ad a confederate houtside?” He gestured with his thumb.

“A confederate?” in surprise.

“No. Hi suppose not” disappointedly. “You bein’ the shoofer, Hi couldn’t say wot you’d want of a confederate. But Hi could a-swore Hi saw a ’eavy-set lookin’ man hon the ’illside habove me w’en Hi started hup to inquire wot you was doin’ hon that there railin’. That’s wot I fired the second shot for, w’en I got hup from hunder your boots. But my eyes not bein’ the best, Hi couldn’t swear hif it was a man hor a strayed cow, hor a juniper bush. But Hi took a pot shot at wot Hi thought it was; and hit seemed to me like Hi ’eard a groan. Hit might ’ave been a cow. Did you groan?”

“Moo—oo. Like that?”

Marks studied the sound.

“Hi carn’t say Hi reco’nize hit. Hi do wish Hi was a better ‘and at ’ittin wot Hi shoots at. That’s halways been a failin’ o’ mine. Look, in your hown case—just a bit of a scratch, that’s hall—and me a-’oldin’ on to your coat-tails at the time. It’ud count for a miss. Hit’s very ’umiliatin’ to a horfcer. At that, it might ’ave been a juniper bush. Good-night, sir.”

He surveyed his victim from the doorway in a peevish fashion and muttered:

“Hi do wish my aim was better. Hi do wish that.”

“Oh, good-night!” Rosamond cried in uncontrollable exasperation.

Constable Marks took out his watch.

“Good-mornin’, Hi should say.” Without undue haste he put his watch away, touched his hat, first to one, then to the other, and moved off along the verandah.

“Thank heaven he’s gone! Oh Vagabond, I wish the doctor would come! If only Blake were here to help you to bed.”

The vagabond was on his feet, rocking in a gale of laughter which only main force had silenced until the constable’s exit.

“I’m not going to bed! For a bit of a scratch like this? Never. Besides, I might miss something. Oh, human nature! How rich it is, how glorious!”

“Oh! don’t laugh like that. It exerts you too much. You must be so weak.” She tried to induce him to sit down again among the pillows of the armchair.

“I’m not weak!”—he denied the charge as if it affronted him—“only perishing for a drink of water.”

“There is ice-water in the cooler on the dining-room table. I’ll bring you a glass.” She was flitting away to get it, but he intercepted her.

“Indeed, you shall not! You must not wait on me any more. I’m neither a cripple—nor royalty. Oh, by the way”—he closed the dining room door again and came back to her—“Who is Blake? You mentioned a Blake just now.”

“He’s the coachman. Why?”

He laughed.

“You are sure he’s not the chauffeur?”

“No,” she smiled.

“To think I should have to be a chauffeur after all!” He threw out his hands with the surrendering gesture of one who has ceased to defy destiny. “Didn’t I tell you society’s greatest need was chauffeurs? See how I arose, instinctively, to meet the demand. Your chauffeur, madam—I mean ma’am.”

“It is so lucky that you thought of that!” she replied; then they both laughed again, in delight, as well as mirth, because they shared so entertaining a secret unknown to all the world.

“But I warn you, never let me drive your automobile if you value your life. I am a chauffeur in name only.”

“Never fear,” she answered gaily. “I don’t require your services. I have no automobile—except a little electric; and I drive that myself.”

“Wise woman! If you could only drive your ‘little electric’ of life as cleverly!”

She tossed her head, spiritedly.

“I’ve never had an accident!”

He challenged this.

“Because you never turn any other roads than the smooth paths of Mrs. Mearely’s walled enclosure—where there are no fascinating dangers. At least, not for you.”

Though she smiled, her answer was only half humorous.

“But what happens to people who try to escape from the safe enclosures?—Those, I mean, who won’t live the way others want them to?”

“Ah!” he cried. “They make one glorious blind leap for freedom....” “And land on—‘the ’ead of the Law,’” she retorted.

“Break its head! The sooner the better” smilingly.

“They can’t,” she replied, gravely; though the light his coming had put into her eyes, like new candles, was still there. “The law is too strong. It brings them back again—wounded!” She pointed to the bandage.

When he answered, there was a defiant ring in his voice that was not all pretence. All his gypsying past was calling to him to guard himself against the unconscious power of the little lady of the museum whose shining eyes told so frankly that her heart had set out on the great search.

“A pin-scratch on the skin of my shoulder! That’s all that the talons of social law have been able to do to this vagabond. I go to drink to liberty—and the open road—in a bumper of ice-water.”

He departed with a dramatic flourish. As the door closed behind him, Rosamond indulged in a long, delicious sigh, thinking what a marvellous end her Wonderful Day was coming to, and slipped into the big chair he had vacated. On the stand just beside the chair, which was placed close to the end of the settee, the bowl and linen strips were still in view. She rose and gathered them up. The bowl still held some water. She ran to the verandah rail and emptied it. Seeing a towel, another sponge and a roll of batting on the big table, she picked up these various items, and patted them into the bowl preparatory to putting them safely out of sight until the doctor should arrive and perhaps need them.