"I mean," said Catharine, speaking slowly, as if half surprised at what had occurred to her, and half lost in looking at it--"I mean that I do not a bit reflect at such times upon what I do. It is as if something or somebody took hold of me, and, before I know where I am, the thing is done, and yet there is no something nor somebody--at least, so far as I can see. It is wonderful, for after all it is I who do it." Tom looked intently at her. She seemed to be taking no notice of him and to be talking to herself. He had never seen her in that mood before, although he had often seen her abstracted and heedless of what was passing. In a few moments she recovered herself, and the usual everyday accent returned with an added hardness. "Here we are at Chapel Farm. Mind you say nothing to father or mother; it will only frighten them." Mrs. Bellamy came to the gate. "Lor' bless the child! wherever have you been!" "Slipped into the water and left my shoes behind me, that's all"; and she ran indoors, jumping from mat to mat, and without even so much as bidding Tom goodbye, who rode home, not thinking much about his business, but lost in a muddle of most contradictory presentations, a constant glimmer of Catharine's ankles, wonderment at her accident--was it all true?--the strange look when she disclaimed the honour of his rescue and expounded her philosophy, and the fall between his shoulders. When he slept, his sleep was usually dreamless, but that night he dreamed as he hardly ever dreamed before. He perpetually saw the foot on the step, and she was slipping into his arms continually, until he awoke with the sun. CHAPTER V