a slight cut in her forehead where she had fallen, and only her nostril quivering like theirs, as the horses stood there trembling.  The buggy was a wreck, and the horse had disappeared; and the two men, sobered by the fall, came up humbly to her to apologize.  She heard them silently, with a pale face like some injured queen’s; and then, bowing to them their dismissal, motioned Pinckney into the phaeton, which, though much broken, was still standing, and, getting in herself, drove slowly home.

“She might have killed herself,” thought Pinckney, but he held his peace, as if it were the most natural course of action in the world.  To tell the truth, under the circumstances he might have done the same alone.

Then it began.  Pinckney could not keep this woman out of his head.  He would think of her at all times, alone and in company.  Her face would come to him in the loneliness of the sea, in the loneliness of crowds; the strong spirit of the morning was hers, and the sadness of the sunset and the wakeful watches of the night.  Her face was in the clouds of evening, in the sea-coal fire by night; her spirit in the dreams of summer morns, in the hopeless breakers on the stormy shores, in the useless, endless effort of the sea.  Her eyes made some strange shining through his dreams; and he would wake with a cry that she was going from him, in the deepest hours of the night, as if in the dreams he had lost her, vanishing forever in the daily crowd.  Then he would lie awake until morning, and all the laws of God and men would seem like cobwebs to his sorrow, and the power of it freezing in his heart.  This was the ultimate nature of his being, to follow her, as drop of water blends in drop of water, as frost rends rock.  Let him then follow out his law, as other beings do theirs; gravitation has no conscience; should he be weaker than a drop of water, because he was conscious, and a man?

So these early morning battles would go on, and character, training, conscience, would go down before the simpler force, like bands of man’s upon essential nature.  Then, with the first ray of the dawn, he would think of Emily Austin, sleeping near him, perhaps dreaming of him, and his mad visions seemed to fade; and he would rise exhausted, and wander out among the fresh fields and green dewy lanes, and calm, contentful trees, and be glad that these things were so; yet could these not be moved, nor their destiny be changed.  And as for him, what did it matter?

So the days went by.  And Emily Austin looked upon him with eyes of limitless love and trust, and Pinckney did not dare to look upon himself; but his mind judged by day-time and his heart strove by night.  Hardly at all had he spoken to Miss Warfield since; and no reference had ever been made between them to the accident, or to the talk between them in the valley.  Only Pinckney knew that she was to be married very shortly; and he had urged Miss Austin to hasten their own wedding.