Kilmeny of the Orchard 
     
    
   
   
    
     realized that the expression on the girl’s 
     
     face was one of terror—not merely the 
     
     startled alarm of a shy, childlike creature 
     
     who had thought herself alone, but abso- 
     
     lute terror. It was betrayed in her 
     
     blanched and quivering lips and in the 
     
     widely distended blue eyes that stared 
     
     back into his with the expression of some 
     
     trapped wild thing. 
     
    

    
     It hurt him that any woman should look 
     
     at him in such a fashion, at him who had 
     
     always held womanhood in such rever- 
     
     ence. 
     
    

    
     “ Don’t look so frightened,” he said 
     
     gently, thinking only of calming her fear, 
     
     and speaking as he would to a child. “ I 
     
     will not hurt you. You are safe, quite 
     
     safe.” 
     
    

    
     In his eagerness to reassure her he took 
     
     an unconscious step forward. Instantly 
     
     she turned and, without a sound, fled 
     
     across the orchard, through a gap in the 
     
     northern fence and along what seemed to 
     
     be a lane bordering the fir wood beyond 
     
    

    
     64