Was the day darker outside, or how was quenched that subtle brightness of aspect that had made the girl's face radiant? It was beautiful still, that statuesque contour, but as chill and unresponsive as if indeed its every line had been wrought with a chisel. The smooth hair, with its sheen of silken fineness, caught the light on its coiled and plaited chestnut-tinted strands. One hand rested on her brown sunbonnet, laid on the ledge of the gray rock, and she leaned her weight upon it. Her head and her fair complexion--so fair that it transmitted to the surface an outline of the blue veins in her temple and throat, and even her eyelids--and the roseate fluctuations in her cheek were very distinct against the yellow clay of the bank of earth behind her. Her little rough low-quarter shoes and the brown stockings showed a trifle beneath the skirt of the brick-dust-colored homespun dress she wore, as they were placed on a boulder that stood out of the tawny rushing stream below. He noted the change. He could not account for it other than as a vicarious resentment. "I ain't faultin' Ad'licia," he said, more emphatically. "She war tormented powerful 'bout me, warn't she?" "A-fust," said Julia veraciously. Her voice was as inexpressive as her eyes. "But Ad'licia is one ez always hopes fur the best." He drew back with a sudden recoil. "Waal, now, by the Lord!" he cried furiously, "she's welcome ter her hope! Settin' thar in the house, warm, an' dry, an' fed, an' clean,"--he looked down with a sort of repulsion upon his miry garments,--"a-hopin' fur the bes', an' makin' herself mighty comfort'ble an' contented, an' _me_ hyar, freezin' in this cold hole, an' mighty nigh starvin', in rags an' mis'ry, an' sick, an' sorry, an' lonesome enough ter die, an' shet out o' the light! My God, ef I warn't 'feared o' my life, I'd let the off'cer take me! The State hain't got no sech term o' imprisonment ez this!" Julia was leaning forward, each line of her impassive face replete with meaning, reflecting his every sentiment, but with the complement of sympathy and acquiescence and responsive anger in his anger. He turned suddenly, lifting his arm with a scornful gesture toward the low vault with its dank, earthy odor, the ledges of barren, inhospitable rock, the cold stream rushing forth from the darkness within, seen in an appalling blackness adown the tunnel, against which his white-lined face looked whiter, his form taller in his closely belted garb and with his long boots drawn up to the knees. He waved his arm as if to include it all. "An' Ad'licia,--she hopes for the bes'."