It is too good to be true. I cannot realize that I
am free. I am like a little bird that hops about its
cage, peeps through the door which its mistress'
hand has opened, and knows not what to think. It
wishes to go; but it is frightened. What shall it
do, David? Tell it! Shall it Ayr

"I also am too bewildered to act and almost too
bewildered to think," he said with unaffected ex-
citement and anxiety, for now that the time and
opportunity for him to take so momentous a step
had come, his heart failed him. It was only with
the most violent effort and under a most pressing
necessity that he pulled himself together and con-
tinued,

"The little bird must fly, and its mate must fly
with it. There are too few hours before daylight
and we must not lose a single one. But are you
sure that you are quite ready? Is your mind made
up? Will you go with me trustfully? Will you
accept whatever the future has in store?"

She took him in her strong young arms, printed
her first kiss upon his lips, and said: "I will go
with you to the ends of the earth ! I will go with
you through water and through fire ! The future
cannot bring me anything from which I shall shrink,
if it lets us meet it hand in hand!"



THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 185

Silently and swiftly they gathered together the
few necessities of a sudden journey, stole out of the
quiet building and hurried away to a livery stable.
