And so Jeff went on every day, and he was quiet, and he began again to watch himself in his working; and he did not see any beauty now around him, and it was dull and heavy always now inside him, and yet he was content to have gone so far in keeping steady to what he knew was the right way for him to come back to, to be regular, and see beauty in every kind of quiet way of living, the way he had always wanted it for himself and for all the colored people.  He knew he had lost the sense he once had of joy all through him, but he could work, and perhaps he would bring some real belief back into him about the beauty that he could not now any more see around him.

And so Jeff Campbell went on with his working, and he staid home every evening, and he began again with his reading, and he did not do much talking, and he did not seem to himself to have any kind of feeling.

And one day Jeff thought perhaps he really was forgetting, one day he thought he could soon come back and be happy in his old way of regular and quiet living.

Jeff Campbell had never talked to any one of what had been going on inside him.  Jeff Campbell liked to talk and he was honest, but it never came out from him, anything he was ever really feeling, it only came out from him, what it was that he was always thinking.  Jeff Campbell always was very proud to hide what he was really feeling.  Always he blushed hot to think things he had been feeling.  Only to Melanctha Herbert, had it ever come to him, to tell what it was that he was feeling.

And so Jeff Campbell went on with this dull and sodden, heavy, quiet always in him, and he never seemed to be able to have any feeling.  Only sometimes he shivered hot with shame when he remembered some things he once had been feeling.  And then one day it all woke up, and was sharp in him.

Dr. Campbell was just then staying long times with a sick man who might soon be dying.  One day the sick man was resting.  Dr. Campbell went to the window to look out a little, while he was waiting.  It was very early now in the southern springtime.  The trees were just beginning to get the little zigzag crinkles in them, which the young buds always give them.  The air was soft and moist and pleasant to them.  The earth was wet and rich and smelling for them.  The birds were making sharp fresh noises all around them.  The wind was very gentle and yet urgent to them.  And the buds and the long earthworms, and the negroes, and all the kinds of children, were coming out every minute farther into the new spring, watery, southern sunshine.

Jeff Campbell too began to feel a little his old joy inside him.  The sodden quiet began to break up in him.  He leaned far out of the window to mix it all up with him.  His heart went sharp and then it almost stopped inside him.  Was it Melanctha Herbert he had just seen passing by him?  Was it Melanctha, or was it just some other girl, who made him feel so bad inside him?  Well, it was no matter,