It was not far that our young friend had to walk to reach Shirley, but a weariness which he had not felt before crept over him as he walked. His head ached sorely, and as the excitement died away it was succeeded by a numbness of despondency, the like of which he had never known before. He had declined to "ride and tie" with Billy, thinking the task a small one to walk through by a woods path to the house, while Billy followed the main road. With his first feeling of despondency came bitter mortification at the thought that he had allowed so small a thing as a fox-chase to so excite him. The exertion had been well enough, but he felt that the object in view during the latter half of the chase, namely, the defeat of young Harrison, was one wholly unworthy of him, and the color came to his cheek as he thought of the energy he had wasted on so small an undertaking. Then he remembered the gallant animal sacrificed in the blind struggle for mere victory, and he could hardly force the tears back as the thought came to him in full force that the nostrils which had quivered with excitement so short a time since, would snuff the air no more forever. He felt guilty, almost of murder, and savagely rejoiced to know that the death of the horse would entail a pecuniary loss upon himself, which would in some sense avenge the wrong done to the noble brute. The numbness and weariness oppressed him so that he sat down at the root of a tree, and remained there in a state of half unconsciousness until Billy came from the house to look for him. Arrived at the house he went immediately to bed and into a fever which prostrated him for nearly a week, during which time he was not allowed to talk much; in point of fact he was not inclined to talk at all, except to Cousin Sudie, who moved quietly in and out of the room as occasion required and came to sit by his bedside frequently, after Billy and Col. Barksdale quitted home again to attend court in another of the adjoining counties, as they did as soon as Robert's physician pronounced him out of danger. At first Cousin Sudie was disposed to enforce the doctor's orders in regard to silence; but she soon discovered, quick-witted girl that she was, that _her_ talking soothed and quieted the patient, and so she talked to him in a soft, quiet voice, securing, by violating the doctor's injunction, precisely the result which the injunction was intended to secure. As soon as the fever quitted him Robert began to recover very rapidly, but he was greatly troubled about the still unpaid-for horse. Now he knew perfectly well that Cousin Sudie had no money at command, and he ought to have known that it was a very unreasonable proceeding upon his part to consult her in the matter. But love laughs at logic as well as at locksmiths, and so our logical young man very illogically concluded that the best thing to do in the premises was to consult Cousin Sudie.