The strong black horses pranced merrily along the road, which now on one side lay beneath the mountain, covered with the red, yellow and brown masses of forestry that in the autumn glorify the earth, and in daily bleeding beauty divert a gazer's thoughts from the cruel frosts of night. To the left a deep gorge, rocky and dangerous, swept to the river below. Two vehicles, coming in opposite directions, could barely pass each other, and the driver who had the inside track might well bless his luck. But secure in the skill of their black Jehu, the two women gave no single thought to danger, but kept up their conversation indefatigably. John, keen and alert, pulled up his team carefully as he heard the tramp of a horseman rapidly approaching. The horseman also slowed up, and when alongside stopped entirely, to exchange greetings. He was elderly and distinguished-looking, despite his shabby, dust-covered clothing and carelessly-cropped hair and beard. His worn, melancholy face brightened as he swept off his hat and made careful inquiries after the ladies' health. Then he cantered on and the inmates of the carriage leaned back again. "Poor Colonel Thomas!" commented Mrs. Gourlay. "I recollect when he was the first young man in the county. He has gone all to pieces in the last year. He was rather high once, but Amanda was too much for him. Sam calls her 'Petruchio in petticoats.'" Her tones smote her listener's ear as sounds coming from afar. Poor Colonel Thomas! Had he ever been in love with that sharp-tongued woman? How terrible for a woman to have upon her conscience the wreck of a man's life. If Robert should ever come to wear that bowed look--if instead of the proud confidence that well became his comely Saxon features, he should show in sunken eyes and fitful flush the marks of that ill remedy that promises but never brings "surcease of sorrow...." But he was too strong, too sane; misery could never drive him to dissipation, although it might drive him to desperation of another sort. Her quick fancy began to picture Robert estranged from the woman he loved. Mentally she saw him growing cold, gloomy and reserved--their intimacy gone as if it had never been, and they two, bound by unbreakable ties, aging in sight of each other, their lives dragging on in a way that might come to end in mutual aversion and disgust. She knew that Robert would construe her going away to-day, after their cold parting, into a determination to assert herself against him, and still worse, to seek abroad sympathy for that which she was bound as a loving wife to bear in silence and to forget.