“The horse was running on the grass beside the road,” Seth remarked. “Probably going for a doctor,” was her comment. “I wonder who is ill!” “It looked to me more like the headless horseman than a sick-messenger.” As he said this, and they turned to walk again, his face lighted up once more. The thought seemed to please him, and he smiled on her as he added: “Let me be superstitious enough to fancy that the thing which just flashed by, in a rumble of low thunder, was the demon that has been torturing me all this while. We will say that he has been defeated, baffled, and has fled in despair, and that”--he looked still more smilingly at her--“the fiend has been beaten and driven away by you. Do you know, Annie, that here in this lovely light you are the very picture of a good angel? Perhaps angels don’t wear seal-skin cloaks, or have such red cheeks, but if they knew how becoming they were, they would.” Annie’s face, which had been immobile in thought, softened a little. She was accustomed to her cousin’s hyperbole. “I am delighted if you feel better,” she laughed back. “But it is no credit specially to me. Contact with any other rational human being would probably have had the same effect upon you. If I had helped you in any way, or advised you, perhaps I might own the angelic impeachment. But I don’t even know the first thing about your trouble, except that you’ve quarrelled with Albert, and--and had a temptation.” She had begun gayly enough, but she uttered the last words soberly, almost gravely. Instinct and observation alike told her that Seth’s experiences had been of a deeply serious nature. He sighed heavily, and looked on the ground. How much could he tell her?--in what words should he put it? Even as he sought in his mind for safe and suitable phrases, an Idea--a great, luminous, magnificent Idea--unfolded itself before his mental vision. It was not new to him--years ago he had often entertained and even nourished it--yet it had been hidden, dormant so long, and it burst forth now so grandly transformed and altered, that for an instant he stopped abruptly, and put his hand to his breast as if to catch his breath. Then he walked on again, still with his eyes on the ground. He fancied that he was meditating; instead, he was marvelling at the apotheosized aptness of the Providence which had sent this Idea at just this time, and swearing grateful fealty to it with all the earnestness of his being. He looked up at last, and drew her arm through his. They were near the house now. “I am going to make a clean breast of it, Annie,” he said. “If I have not finished when we get to the bars, shall we turn back? I want you to hear it all.” “It is pretty late, Seth,” she said, but neither in tone, nor in the manner in which she allowed her arm to be taken, was there the kind of refusal which dismays. There was no need now to seek words. They came fast, keeping pace with the surge of his thoughts.