"And so you fainted before we fell?" he asked, compelled to reassure himself.
"Did you fall?" she said, trembling again and laying her hand upon his arm.
"There, there," he answered gently; "I ought not to have asked you. We must never allude to it again. We must forget it. Will you try?"
"Yes, I will try, but it is hard. It belongs to the past, and we must live in the present and in the future. I will try. I love you so, and I am so thankful that you are safe." As she said this, she took his hand in both of hers and pressed it to her breast.
This tender caress produced a revulsion in his heart and he shuddered. Pepeeta observed it. "What makes you tremble so?" she asked.
"Nothing," he answered, regaining his self-control. "It is only that I have been very angry, and I cannot recover from it at once."
"No wonder," she said, taking his hand again and kissing it.
In the distance they saw the steeple of a church. "Look," said David, "there must be a village near. We will top and rest here to-night, and in the morning we will push on toward New Orleans and forget the past."
They rode in silence. Pepeeta's thoughts were full of gladness; and David's full of agony—they rushed tumultuously back and forth through his mind like contrary winds through a forest.
"Was it not enough that I should be an Adam, and fall? Must I also become a Cain and go forth with the brand of a murderer on my forehead?" he kept saying to himself.