"About what?" asked Mr. Rutledge, following her. And as I caught Grace's saucy voice, and Mr. Rutledge's quick, sarcastic laugh, as they passed down the hall, my very breath came quick and short, under the maddening pressure of a pain I had never felt before. Pique, jealousy, vexation, I had known enough of, but this, that dashed all other passions to the dust, and held me gasping in such terrible subjection, was nearer to a deadly sin. It shot so keen through every vein, it burned so madly in my brain, that for a moment, pride and reason were stunned; and, regardless of Victor's eyes fixed on my face, with a low cry of pain, I pressed my hand to my forehead, then flew down the steps, and vanished from his sight in the shrubbery. He could hardly have followed me if he had chosen; I was out of sight of the house before he could have realized that I had left him. The cool, fresh wind in my face only allayed the pain enough to give me fresh strength to fly from what, alas! could not be left behind. The still, unruffled expanse of the lake, as I reached its banks, gave me that sort of a pang, that it gives one to wake up from a short troubled sleep, when death and trouble have come in the night, and find the sunshine flooding the room. It was so utterly out of tune, so calmly impassive while such hot passion was raging in my heart--so smiling and indifferent while I was throbbing with such acute pain, that I sprang away from the sight of it, and hurried on into the woods, never pausing till I had reached the pine grove at the head of the lake. It was better there; the pine-trees moan when there is no breath to stir them--sunshine and singing-birds penetrate their solemn depths but rarely; and at last I stopped, panting and trembling, on a knoll that rose abruptly in the midst of this forest sanctuary. I sunk down on the slippery ground at the foot of a tall pine, and leaning my throbbing temples on my hands, tried to think and reason. Do the wild flowers and mountain herbage raise their heads and meet the sunshine and shake off the blight, an hour after the burning lava has swept over their frail beauty? Thought, reason, faith, were as impossible at that moment to me, as growth, and feeling, and verdure are to them. I did not think--I could not reason; some hateful words rang in my ears, and a wild, confused purpose mingled with the chaos that passion had made in my mind; but beyond that I was incapable of thought.