An Unwilling Guest by Grace Livingston Hill

place of dan ger. She had crept into an alcove with roof enough for protection from the rain and there, facing her in the companion alcove not three feet away stood a man, and his face she knew at once. She seemed to have seen his smile before, though that was impossible in the dark, and when he spoke, as he immediately did, she knew his voice. It all had been so strange. They had seemed good friends at once, as if they had known each other for years. He had seen that she was trembling, that she was afraid of the storm, and had led her inside to a place more sheltered, where the awful flashes that blazed through the whole sky could not be so distinctly seen and where the roar of the thunder and the sound of the dashing water in the thoroughly aroused little lake would reach but faintly through the great stone walls; and there they had talked.
    She had told him how grateful her father was for his service to her a year ago, and how chagrined she was that she had not inquired his name, and how they had tried their best to find him and thank him. When he smiled and said he was glad she had not been afraid of him also, she felt that she had known him a long time.
    Never once during the two hours they spent in the old hall of the castle, while the elements did their worst outside, did it occur to her to wonder if he belonged to the favored few who composed her world of society and who were eligible to talk and dance and play with such as she. It was only afterward that this question came to her, when her friends asked, "Who is he?" and "What is he?" for they came from the part of the world where these things count for much. Then she found she knew very little indeed from her three hours spent with him, as to either of these important questions, in the sense that these people meant. Afterward, when her brother Dick had been called in to help, she had been glad to know that he stood high in his profession, and could go anywhere, if he but chose. But he had not come her way again, though she had always been hoping that he would.
    Their talk that afternoon had drifted to the old ruin and she s ud denly found it peopled with real folks, breathing and walking before her, and she wondered why this man could make the people of history so interesting to her, when her friends had only bored her with talk of them.
    Once when the lightning had been most vivid and she had shud dered involuntarily and covered her eyes with her hands, he had said, "Don't be afraid," in a quieting tone. Then she had looked up into his face and had known that he was not at all afraid.
    She lay awake a long time that night after thinking the whole story over. A sudden thought had come to her. Was it, could it be because he belonged to this strange family and held peculiar beliefs, that he had not been afraid of that terrible storm? Or was it because he was a man? No, he had something more in his face than most men when they are merely brave. There was something in this whole family, some control ling, quieting force that she did not understand.
    How very strange that he should have belonged to these people! And stranger still that she should be here.

Chapter 6
Maurice Grey's Vow
    There were other vigils kept that night. The mother in her own room, though she put her light out quietly enough and knelt beside her bed as usual, prayed long and earnestly for her dear boy and added a petition for "the stranger beneath our roof." Then she lay down to wonder anxiously if she had done exactly right in bringing this strange unknown quantity into the house just now, when her dear boy was coming home, and to tell herself for the thousandth time that day that it had not been her doing. She had not even known that Maurice was coming this week. Finally she laid d own her burden, asking her heav enly Father to make it all work out to his glory, and fell asleep.
    Allison in her room was trying to read her Bible. She was reading by course and her chapter that night brought her to