He alternated between hope and despair. At one time he felt quite sure that she loved him, and that this was only a caprice, nothing more; she was determined not to be easily won. Then his mood changed, and he despaired. She had never loved him, and preferred leaving home and every one rather than marry him. Still, in one thing, he was inflexible; let it be how it might, he was determined to find her. He would search the whole world through, but find her he would. He was spared, in that hour of anguish, one trial; no pang of jealousy came to him; he felt certain of one thing, at least, if Doris did not love him, she loved no one else. If she would not marry him, she was not going to marry another. He knew quite well that here at Brackenside she had seen no one; thank Heaven at least for that. Then a deep, heavy, dreamless sleep came over him. When he woke again it was night and honest Mark, with a face full of bewildered pain, was standing over him. "Come, Earle," he said, "this will never do; you have been here all day without food. You must not give way after this fashion." But the troubled eyes raised to his had no understanding in them. "Remember," continued Mark, with his simple eloquence, "you are the only son of your mother, and she is a widow." The words, in their simple pathos, struck Earle. He rose from his couch, and Mark saw, as he did so, that he shuddered and trembled like one seized with mortal cold. "What do you wish me to do, Mark?" he said. "Take something to eat, then go home to your mother. The world is not all ended because a golden-haired lassie has chosen to run away from you. Women are all very well," continued Mark, with an air of oracular wisdom, "but the man who trusted his whole heart in them would not be a wise man." "Then I have been foolish," said Earle, "for I trusted my life and my love together." He was standing up then, looking around him with vague, bewildered eyes. "I am to go home, Mark?" he said at last. And the farmer, believing that air and exercise would be best for him, said "Yes." But Earle turned away with a sick shudder from the food that was offered to him. "I could sooner eat ashes," he said. And they forebore to press him. "You will feel better to-morrow," said Mark. "A night's sleep makes a wonderful difference in our way of looking at matters." But Mattie and her mother followed him with wistful eyes. "She has spoiled his life," said Mrs. Brace. "She has broken his heart," said Mattie. Then they seemed to remember that all their sympathy was given to Earle, and they had not thought of being sorry for themselves. Mattie had lost, as she believed, her sister, yet her thoughts were all for Earle. The three sat in silence. It was Mark who broke it first: "So, after all, it was to Earle and to us she was writing," he said, "and not to her school-fellows. I wish I had gone in the room and looked over her shoulder; I should have known, then, what she was doing."