She pointed to the stable. "He had a fit. Penn says he has had one before; but he thought him cured. He stood quiet in the ditch after he had broken from the chaise." "Alice, did you love him?" "My husband!" A door near us opened, and Ben Somers and young Parker looked in. They were the watchers. Parker went back when he saw me; but Ben came in. He knelt down by me, put his arm around me, and said, "Poor girl!" Alice raised her tear-stained face, looking at me curiously, when he said this. She took hold of my streaming hair and pulled my head round. "Did _you_ love him?" Ben rose quickly and went to the window. "Alice!" I whispered, "you may or you may not forgive me, but I was strangely bound to him. And I must tell you that I hunger now for the kiss he never gave me." "I see. Enough. Go back to your room. I must stay by him till all is over." "I can't go back. Ben!" "What is it?" "Take me upstairs." Raising me in his arms, he whispered: "Leave him forever, body and soul. I am not sorry he is dead." He called Charlotte on the way, and with her he put me to back to bed. I asked him to let me see the dress they had taken off. "That is enough," I said, "Charles broke my arm." It was torn through the shoulder, and the skirt had been twisted like a rope. Ben made no reply, but bent over me and kissed me tenderly. All this time Miss Prior had slept the sleep of the just; but he had barely gone when she started up and said, "Did you call, my dear?" "No, it is day." "So it is; but you must sleep more." I could not obey, and kept awake so long that Dr. White said he himself should go crazy unless I slept. "Presently, presently," I reiterated; "and am I going home?" At last my mind went astray; it journeyed into a dismal world, and came back without an account of its adventures. While it was gone, my friends were summoned to witness a contest, where the odds were in favor of death. But I recovered. Whether it was youth, a good constitution, or the skill of Dr. White, no one could decide. It was a faint, feeble, fluttering return at first. The faces round me, mobile with life, wearied me. I was indifferent to existence, and was more than once in danger of lapsing into the void I had escaped.