Not that I had not once or twice intoxicating moments. Once I looked up from my book as I sat on the porch and I found her eyes brooding upon me. For a few seconds mine held them—it seemed as if she could not drag hers away! Then, as she at last turned her head, I saw the blood dye the whiteness of her neck and cheek to the very hair; and for a delicious minute my heart rioted madly. Again I was standing over her one day and I had fallen silent, gazing at and worshipping her slender neck and high-braided head. I suppose she felt my eyes upon her, for slowly I saw the same blush spread over the white—slowly and irresistibly; and to stay the foolish words that rose to my lips I had to go away and hide myself in my room, where I sat gripping the cold fingers of my bandaged arm until the blood burned in them. Why, why had she blushed, I asked myself? For when I met her next, she was cold as Diana and distant as a star. And as if she were not satisfied with that, but must punish me farther, she presently sent to me to ask if I would be good enough to leave the veranda free next day, as she wished to examine a small parcel of a new staple of cotton. As the veranda was the only place where I had the chance of seeing her, this was enough to vex me; but I had no choice except to obey, and I spent the greater part of the morrow in my own room and in a bad temper. I was there about three in the afternoon fretting and fuming and trying to read when I heard the patter of naked feet crossing the porch, a sound that was quickly followed by a stir in the house. A moment later the commotion grew to something like an alarm. Voices rose here and there in various keys, I caught cries of affright, a door was slammed hurriedly, silence followed. And on that, to tell the truth, my heart sank. “Marion is here,” I thought. “He has come for me.” And if Marion’s return had meant release and freedom instead of a prison hospital at Hillsboro’ I do not know that I should have been much better pleased! I did not go out or make inquiry. I considered that I had been cast on my own company with little thought and small ceremony; and pride bade me wait until I was summoned. I clung, too, to hope as long as it was possible to do so. It might not be Marion. The stir might have nothing to do with me. And so some minutes, five perhaps, passed. Then with no warning there came a sharp knock at my door, and Mammy Jacks entered. The woman looked flustered and alarmed. “Marse Craven”, she said, “Missie, she up’n sond fer you. She des tarryin’ fer you de no’th aidge uv Hick’ry Knob, en I ’low de sooner’n you go de better. A little mo’ en you miss er en de kindlin’ll be in de fier. You gwine?” I stared at the woman. I fancied at first that I had not understood her. “Hickory Knob?” I said. “Why it is two miles from here! Madam Constantia cannot have walked there! I heard her voice less than—”