"Tell me about that," Elise said; and to entertain her Rutledge told her at length the story of that cataclysm of piedmont South Carolina. He went into the details without which such description is only awful, not interesting. Many were the incidents of heroism and hairbreadth escapes and unspeakable calamity which he related; and he told the stories with such vividness of portraiture, dramatic fire and touches of pathos that, with the roar of many waters actually pounding upon her ear-drums, Elise could close her eyes and see the scenes he depicted. In looking upon the pictures he drew with such living interest she found herself straining her tight-shut eyes in search of his figure among the throng that lined the river-bank or fought the awful flood. Time after time as he described an act of heroic courage in words that burned and glowed and crackled with the fire that could stir only an eye-witness or an actor in the unstudied drama he was reproducing, she would clothe the hero with Rutledge’s form, identify his distinctive gestures and movement and catch even the tones of his voice as it shouted against the booming of the waters: but with studied regularity and distinctness Rutledge at some point in every story, incidentally and apparently unconsciously, would make it plain that the hero of that incident was a person other than himself. He might have told her, indeed, many things to his own credit: especially of a desperate ride and struggle in one of those dugouts which he had volunteered to make in order to prevent an old negro man adrift on a cabin-top from going over Pacolet Dam Number 3, where so many unfortunates went down and came not up again; but at no time could Elise infer from his speech that he was the hero of his own story. Her word "artful" still rankled in his memory, and he swore to his own soul that she should never, never hear him utter a word that might show he possessed or claimed to possess courage. The only method by which Elise could deduce from his words the conclusion that Rutledge was of courageous heart was that courage seemed such a commonplace virtue among the people of his section that he probably possessed his share of it. Her curiosity was finally aroused to know whether by any artifice she might induce him to tell of his own exploits, which his very reticence persuaded her must be many and interesting, and she brought all her powers into play to draw him out: but to no purpose. She refrained from any direct appeal to him in fear that a personal touch might turn the conversation along dangerous lines; and Rutledge, having been properly rebuked, waited for some intimation of permission before presuming to discuss other than impersonal themes.