"It was the way we met, I suppose--the way I saw you first," he confessed, fighting back his embarrassment. "Tell me about it, Joe," she pleaded softly. "I was regaining consciousness after the accident. My whole body was a great pain. I was trying to understand what had happened." He hesitated and then went on. "I opened my eyes. For an instant everything was blurred and indistinct. Things were whirling about in mists and billowy clouds. They rolled apart and through them, constantly growing clearer, came your face." He was almost whispering now. "You looked too beautiful for this world and I believed that I was dead." A little smile like a wavelet before a summer's zephyr swept over his face. "You are a girl from the clouds to me," he said gently. A very flushed Virginia leaned towards him. A great tenderness for this big fellow held her, and for a moment she could not trust herself to speak. She reached for his hand and held it in her own. "I must go," she murmured, as if driven away by her own timidity, and then, giving him a smile of ineffable sweetness, she left him. Joe Curtis was so tumultuously happy for the rest of that afternoon that it was necessary for Miss Knight to reprove him on no less than three occasions. Virginia called again upon Mr. Wilkins after leaving the hospital. Her business with the lawyer was speedily dispatched, and upon her departure for home, Hezekiah presented himself before Obadiah for conference. The manufacturer glanced at his counsel and indicated a seat. "I was on the point of sending for you," he told Hezekiah, and in a characteristic way went right to the matter upon his mind. "The river water is bothering somebody again. They have started that old row about the chemicals and dyes in the waste from the dye-house at the mill poisoning the water. The State Board of Health is trying to tell me that it makes the water unfit for consumption in the towns below and is responsible for certain forms of sickness which have appeared." "That's bad." Hezekiah looked at the ceiling. "What's bad?" demanded Obadiah with asperity. "The sickness," the lawyer explained thoughtfully. "Oh, I thought you meant the waste from the dye-house," snarled Obadiah. "Well, isn't that bad, too? I certainly am glad that South Ridgefield doesn't take the water for its supply below your mill. I shouldn't care to drink it, would you?" Hezekiah could be frank. "What I want to drink is not the question," snapped Obadiah, raising his voice a tone. The attitude of his attorney had aroused his displeasure. "No," Hezekiah went on, "it's what you can make the other fellow drink which interests you."