She looked at him more closely than before in her overrunning joy, and her face fell a little. No doubt she had seen herself in mirrors since her alteration, but not in a real mirror until she saw herself reflected in his very pale face. She smiled still, but a little foolishly; then no more, and stopped chatting. It was as if a stone had been set to seal up a spring--a large stone laid upon her bubbling heart. There was a silence. He saw that she must be seeing what he could not keep out of his face. He could not help it; he could get no control over his feelings, over his expression. He was not sure he cared to--he did not try. He was at sea: he did not know what he felt, what he did not feel. The bottom seemed to have dropped out of his heart, out of the world--out of something, everything. He knew not! He only knew he was sick--sick, and incapable of speech, of action, of reflection. "You can't stay here, child," he heard some one saying, in a matter-of-fact, superficial voice. "Don't you see, yourself, that you can't? For your own sake, I mean. It would never do, Minnie. You must understand that. You don't know what a thing a small country village like this is, for gossip and slanderous tongues. I couldn't let you injure yourself so, don't you see?" "It wouldn't be proper?" she inquired, faintly. "No, Minnie; no, it wouldn't--at all. Don't you see it?" She got to her feet, full as pale as he now. "All right," she said, and after a few mechanical steps, paused a moment, looking down, biting her finger--lost in thought, or waiting for something to happen, for him to say something further. He could not speak--he could not make himself speak. "All right," she said again, very distinctly, and turned to go without another word. "Minnie! Minnie!" he faltered, and had instinctively cast himself after her. His outstretched hand almost touched her pink draperies. She turned on him fiercely, whisking herself out of reach. He was confronted for a second by a little angry street-boy face, but with the gathered experience and woe of half a race in the eyes. "Let me alone! Don't dare to touch me! Nathaniel Fraisier, I hate you!" She began desperately to run. He saw her clutch her poor little ruined head, and heard her cry out, breaking into sobs: "Oh, my hair! Oh, my hair!" He dropped in the grass, face downward, and pressed his hands over his ears, trembling. It all seemed so strange, so out of proportion.