The scene in the hotel office had left Jessica in a state of mental distraction in which reason was in abeyance. In the confusion she had slipped into the little sitting-room unnoticed, feeling a sense almost of physical sickness, to sit in the half-light, listening to the diminishing noises of the spilling crowd. She was wind-swept, storm-tossed, in the grip of primal emotions. The surprise had shocked her, and the strange appeal of the violin had disturbed her equipoise. The significant words of awakening spoken in the office had come to her distinctly. In their light she had read the piteous puzzle of that gaze that had held her motionless on the balcony. Hugh had forgotten the past--all of it, its crime, its penalty. In forgetting the past, he had forgotten even her, his wife! Yet in some mysterious way her face had been familiar to him; it had touched for an instant the spring of the befogged memory. As she spurred through the transient twilight past the selvage of the town and into the somber mountain slope, she struck the horse sharply with her crop. He who had entrapped her, who had married her under the shadow of a criminal act, who had broken her future with his, when his whole bright life had crashed down in black ruin--could such a one look as he had looked at her? Could he make such music that had wrung her heart? All at once the horse shied violently, almost unseating her. A man was lying by the side of the road, tossing and muttering to himself. She forced the unwilling animal closer, and, leaning from the saddle, saw who it was. In a moment she was off and beside the prostrate form, a spasm of dread clutching at her throat at sight of the nerveless limbs, the chalky pallor of the brow, the fever spots in the cheeks. A wave of pity swept over her. He was ill and alone; he could not be left there--he must have shelter. She looked fearfully about her. What could she do? In that town, whose intolerance and dislike she had seen so actively demonstrated, was there no one who would care for him? She turned her head, listening to a nearing sound--footsteps were plodding up the road. She called, and presently a pedestrian emerged from the half-dark and came toward her. He bent over the form she showed him. "It's Stires," he said with a chuckle. "I heard he'd come back." The chuckle turned to a cough, and he shook his head. "This is sad! You could never believe how I have labored with the boy, but"--he turned out his hands--"you see, there is the temptation. It is his unhappy weakness." Jessica remembered the yellow, smirking face now. She had passed him on the day Tom Felder had walked with her from the Mountain Valley House, and the lawyer had told her he lived in the cabin just below the Knob, where she so often sat. She felt a quiver of repulsion. "He is not intoxicated," she said coldly. "He is ill. You know him, then?"