Thorne regarded the white face upon his breast with trepidation, amazed even amid his anxiety at the fierce pang that shot through his heart at the sight of its pallor.  Suppose she should be seriously hurt!  Brute that he had been, not to have taken better care of her.  Fool! fool! to have let her touch that accursed gun!  His hand trembled as he loosened her cloak, and passed it tenderly over her shoulder.  Dislocated?  No; such cruel harm had not befallen her:  a bruise, a little stiffness was the worst in store.  A passionate relief, bewildering in its intensity, thrilled through him; his dark cheek rivaled hers in pallor; his eyes glowed.

Then her lids quivered, the gray eyes unclosed, and the color flushed back warmly, covering cheek and brow and neck with a mighty surge of crimson.  With a quick effort, Pocahontas disengaged herself from his arms, and leaned against the fence, a few steps away from him.  Struggling for self-mastery, Thorne made his anxious inquiries, striving by a fierce exercise of will to still his bounding pulses, and banish from his eyes the expression he felt glowing within them.  And Pocahontas, with her paleness in force again, replied to his inquiries with tremulous but determined lightness, putting aside his self reproaches, and assuming the blame with eager incoherence.  She made a terrible mess of it, but Thorne was past all nicety of observation; his only thought, now that he was assured of her safety, was to get himself away without further betrayal of his feelings.  His mind was in a tumult, and his heart rose up and choked him.  For a moment he held the small, tremulous fingers in a strong, warm clasp, then with a quick “good-night” relinquished them, sprang over the fence and walked rapidly away in the direction of Shirley.

CHAPTER IX.

Walking home in the still dusk of the winter gloaming, Thorne found himself compelled at last to look the situation in the face without disguise or subterfuge; to “take stock” of it all, as it were, and ask himself what should be the result.  He had lingered in Virginia, lengthening his stay from week to week, because the old world quaintness of the people, the freshness and yet antiquity of thought prevalent among them, charmed him, pleased the aesthetic side of his nature, as the softness of their voices pleased his ear, and the suavity of their manners, his taste.  He was tired to death of the old routine, weary beyond expression of the beaten track, of the sameness of the old treadmill of thought.  Here he had found variety.

For somewhat the same reason he had sought Pocahontas, charily at first, dreading disappointment, but finally, as his interest deepened, without reserve.  She was different from other women, more candid, less impressible.  He could not discover what she thought of him, beyond her surface interest in his talents and conversation.  She piqued and stimulated him; in her presence he exerted himself and appeared at his best, which is always pleasant to a man.  Even old thoughts, and hackneyed theories donned new apparel when about to be presented to her notice.