His mother and his maiden aunt, who with himself made up the entire household, received him with small scoldings and twitterings of anxiety. They felt his wet clothes, prophesied a return of his fever and forced him to go immediately to bed, where they administered hot drinks and toast soaked in scalded milk. He lay awake a long time, somewhat fatigued and excited. In his feeble condition and in the monotony which his life had assumed of late the trifling experience of the afternoon took on the full proportions of an adventure. He thought it over again and again, but finally fell asleep and slept soundly. He awoke once, just at dawn, and lay looking through his window at a rosy cloud which reposed upon an infinite depth of sky, motionless as if sculptured against the blue. A light morning wind stirred the curtains and the scent of mignonette floated in from the dewy garden. He had that confused sense of anticipation so common in moments between waking and sleeping, when some new, pleasant thing has happened, or is to happen on the morrow, which the memory is too drowsy to present distinctly. Of this pleasant, indistinct promise that auroral cloud seemed somehow the omen or symbol, and watching it he fell asleep again. When he next awoke the sunlight of mid-forenoon was flooding the chamber, and he heard his mother's voice below stairs as she sat at her sewing. In the afternoon he started on his customary walk, and his feet led him involuntarily to the cemetery. As he traversed the path along the edge of the hill he saw in one of the grave-lots the heroine of his yesterday's encounter, and a sudden light broke in on him: she was a mourner. And yet how happened it that she wore no black? There was a wooden railing round the enclosure, and within it a single mound and a tombstone of fresh marble. A few cut flowers lay on the grave. She was sitting in a low wicker chair, her hands folded in her lap and her eyes fixed vacantly on the western hills. Putnam now took closer note of her face. It was of a brown paleness. The air of hauteur given it by the purity of the profile and the almost insolent stare of the large black eyes was contradicted by the sweet, irresolute curves of the mouth. At present her look expressed only a profound apathy. As he approached her eyes turned toward him, but seemingly without recognition. Diffidence was not among Tom Putnam's failings: he felt drawn by an unconquerable sympathy and attraction to speak to her, even at the risk of intruding upon the sacredness of her grief. "Excuse me, miss," he began, stopping in front of her, "but I want to apologize for what I said yesterday about--about the cemetery. It must have seemed very heartless to you, but I didn't know that you were in mourning when I spoke as I did." "I have forgotten what you said," she answered.