“You would do so much!” she cried bitterly. “But you won’t do this for me.” “I will do anything that will be of service, Miss Wilmer,” I said firmly, “but to waste our time here will not be of serivce.” “What will?” she wailed. “Will anything?” Then, stopping me as I was about to answer, “There! a light!” she cried. “Do you see? There is a light before us! We can inquire.” She was right, there was a light. Nay, when we had advanced a few yards we saw that there were two lights, which proceeded from the windows of some building. I was grateful for the discovery, grateful for anything that put an end to the contest between us; and “Thank God!” I said as cheerfully as I could. “Now we shall learn where we are, and we can decide what to do.” “More, there is the river,” she added; and a moment later I, too, caught the gleam of moonlight on a wide water, that flowed on the farther side, as it seemed to me, of the spot whence the lights issued. I was glad to see it, and I said so. I could discern the building now—a gaunt, dark block set high against the sky; a mill apparently, for a skeleton frame of ribs rose against one end of it. The lights that we had seen issued from two windows at some distance from the ground and not far apart. As well as I could judge, the building stood between road and river on piles, with a rood or so of made ground to landward, and a few wind-bent cypresses fringing the river bank behind. It was a lonely house, and dark and forbidding by night; but by day it might be cheerful enough. “I will inquire,” I said, briskly slipping from my saddle. “You had better wait here while I go,” I added. I was in the act of leading my horse towards the door, when she thrust out her hand and seized my rein. “Stop!” she said. And then for a moment she did not speak. I obeyed; for the one word she had uttered conveyed to me, I don’t know how, that a new peril threatened us. “Why?” I muttered. “What is it?” I looked about us. I could see nothing alarming. I turned to her. She sat low in the saddle, her head sunk on her breast, and for a moment I fancied that she was ill. Then in a low, despairing tone, “I cannot,” she muttered, speaking rather to herself than to me, “I cannot do it.” I stared at her. To fail now, to succumb now—she who had borne up so well, gone through so much, endured so bravely! “I am afraid I do not understand,” I said. “What is the matter, Miss Wilmer?” Her head sank lower. By such light as there was I could see that the spirit had gone out of her, that her courage had left her, and hope. “I cannot do it,” she said again. “God forgive me!” “What? What cannot you do!” I asked, carried away by my impatience. “Let us go back,” she said. “We will go back.” And she began to turn her horse’s head.