Perhaps God would let her buy forgiveness with her life. Why had she not taken the fever; or was this fever now which rioted through her veins? She was walking homeward with her shoes slung across her shoulders. The grass felt cool and damp against her bare feet. Would it not wither where she trod? She looked backward over her shoulder with a laugh. It seemed to her that her footprints would be set as with fire across that lush June field. Then came a curse upon her eyes. For her the earth lost all its summer green; the heavens above her bent not bluely down to meet the blue horizon. The birds ceased singing, and echoed her mirthless laugh; all nature took it up--a monstrous harmony of jovial sounds. At what were they making merry, these creatures large and small--the crickets, the wild birds, the many voices of field and forest, of air and water? Was it at her they laughed? Did they jeer at her because she had lost her soul? Ah, for the cool green to look upon! Ah, that its blue would return to the lurid heavens! The curse of blood was upon her. Because of it she looked on all things as through a scarlet veil. Red was the vault above her; red the far-reaching line of well-loved hills; red, red, the whirling earth. Virginia did not die. A week after her recovery she sent and asked if Roden would come to her father’s room; she wished to speak with him. He went most willingly, having never felt as though he had sufficiently thanked her for what she had done for one who was to him as the life in his veins. As he entered the room, in spite of all his self-control he could not restrain a slight start. Was this Virginia Herrick?--this snow maiden with eyes of fire, and tangled hair that seemed to flame about her white face as though it would consume it?--this fragile, wasted, piteous memory of a woman? She was as poor a likeness of her former self as a sketch in white chalk would be of one of Fortuny’s sunlit glares of canvas. He came and stood beside her, wordless, and then put one of his strong brown hands kindly on her hair. “Wait,” she said, drawing herself away from him--“wait.” “Ah, Miss Virginia,” he said, in his breezy, gentle voice, “we will soon have you out of this. You won’t know yourself in two weeks.” “Wait,” she said, her great eyes burning into his. “My poor little girl,” he said, almost with tenderness, “I am afraid you have over-estimated your strength. You had better let me go now. I will come to-morrow whenever you send for me.” “Wait,” she said a fourth time, in that strange, still voice. He had a horrified doubt in regard to her reason as he took the chair to which she pointed and sat down facing her. “Well,” he said, with an assumption of gayety which he was far from feeling, “what is it? Am I to be scolded for anything?” “Do you believe in torment?” said the girl. She kept her hollow, stirless eyes on his. There was an absence of movement about her almost oppressive. She seemed not even to breathe.