He had determined on finding help to send some one back for Phyl; any of the coloured folk hereabouts would be able to pilot her to Grangersons. He was not troubling about the broken phaeton or the horses; the horses had plenty of food and water; so far from suffering they would have the time of their lives. They might be stolen--he did not care, and nothing was more indicative of his mental upset than this indifference toward the things he treasured most. All to the left of the grass road, the trees were thin, showing tracts of marsh land and pools, and the melancholy green of swamp weeds and vegetation. The vegetable world has its reptiles and amphibians no less than the animal; its savages, its half civilised populations, and its civilised. The two worlds are conterminous, and just as cultivated flowers and civilised people are mutually in touch, here you would find poisonous plants giving shelter to poisonous life, and the amphibious giving home to the amphibious. The woods on the right were healthier, more dense, more cheerful, on higher ground; one might have likened the grass road to the life of a man pursuing its way between his two mysteriously different characters. Silas had determined to make straight for home after having sent assistance for Phyl, what he was going to do after arriving home was not evident to his mind; he had a vague idea of clearing out somewhere so that he might forget the business. He had done with Phyl, so he told himself. But Phyl had not done with him. He had been scarcely ten minutes on his road when her image came into his mind. He saw her, not as he had seen her last seated on the straw in the miserable cabin, but as he had seen her at the ball. The curves of her limbs, the colour of her hair, her face, all were drawn for him by imagination, a picture more beautiful even than the reality. Well, he had done with her, and there was no use in thinking of her--she cared for that cursed Pinckney and she was as good as dead to him, Silas. An ordinary man would have seen hope at the end of waiting, but Silas was not an ordinary man, a long and dubious courtship was beyond his imagination and his powers. Courtship, anyhow, as courtship is recognised by the world was not for him. He wanted Phyl, he did not want to write letters to her. There is something to be said for this manner of love-making, it is sincere at all events. He tried to think of something else and he only succeeded in thinking of Phyl in another dress. He saw her as he saw her that first day in the stable yard at Grangersons. Then he saw her as she was dressed that day in Charleston. Then he remembered the scene in the churchyard. He could still feel the smack she had given him on the face. The smack had not angered him with her but the remembrance of it angered him now. She would not have done that to Pinckney.