Only a few old negroes were astir when I stepped from the house the next morning. Even the master had not arisen. The stars and the sun's forerunners were having a battle on the broad field overhead; one by one the stars were vanquished and their lamps extinguished. I stood upon the lowest step of the flight in front of the house, and watched the misty, uncertain shapes of trees and bushes gradually evolve themselves into distinguishable outlines. The process was slow, because a kind of vapor lay upon everything, and it resisted strenuously the onslaught of the sun. But it gave way, as darkness ever must before light, and, as if by magic, the curtain which night had placed was rolled away, and little by little the landscape was revealed. Along the creek, which ran just beyond the pike, and parallel with it, hung a dense wall of fog, against which it seemed the arrows of day fell, blunted. The air was cool and fresh, and I drew it deep down into my lungs, feeling the sluggish blood start afresh with each draught.
With the dawning of that day came the dawning of a new life for me. I realized that I had been living in a darkened room, and that a window had suddenly been thrown open, letting in upon me a shower of golden light, with the songs of birds and the incense of flowers. My old life had been a contented one, had known the pleasures to be derived from association with books and God's great out-door miracles. The new life, whose silver dawn was beginning to tip my soul with a strange radiance, held untold joys which belong rightly to heaven, and which numbed my mind as I strove blindly after comprehension. I was as a little child left all at once alone upon the world. I stood, helpless, trying to centralize my disordered thoughts, with a strange oppressed feeling in my breast which deep respirations could not drive away. I was deeply, deeply troubled, and my mind was in a maze. But one idea possessed me, and that doggedly asserted itself, overriding the tumult in my brain. I was longing, madly longing, to see again her whom I loved. The word in my mind was like the touch of a white-hot iron, and I started as if stung, and fell to pacing nervously up and down. It could not be; it could not be! That child of nineteen,—I a man of forty-five! The idea was monstrous! What an old fool I had been! I did not know my own mind, that was all. I would be all right in a day or two. But still that sinking feeling weighed above my heart, and my usually calm pulse was rioting with something other than exercise.
"Let it be love!" I cried at last, in my troubled soul. "The painful bliss of this half hour's experience is worth the cost of denial, for she shall never know!"
Thus did I, poor worm, commune in my fool's heaven, recking not, nor knowing, that I was setting at naught the plans of my Creator.
At breakfast I was myself, although my hand trembled when I conveyed food to my mouth, and I felt my cheeks coloring when she came in a little late, arrayed in a pink-flowered, flowing gown, and looking as fresh as though she had just risen, bathed in dew, from the blue-and-crimson cup of a morning-glory.
"How did you rest after your night ride?" she smiled, sitting by me and resting her elbows on the edge of the table, then pillowing her round chin in her pink palms.
"I slept better for my outing," I answered promptly, lying with the ease of a schoolboy. The truth was, my sleep had been broken and poor.
"It's a good thing for Stone that you're back," thundered Mr. Grundy. "You're so everlastingly fond of running over all creation, and he has the rovingest disposition I ever saw. Goin' down to salt those sheep this mornin', S'lome?"
"Yes, sir. I made a compact with Mr. Stone last night to act as my esquire on all my expeditions. You've often said I should have some one to go along with me."
"Don't let her impose on you, Stone," responded the old gentleman, throwing a quick wink in my direction. "She's young, you know, and don't know as much as mother. She'll have you climbing an oak tree to get a young hawk out of its nest likely as not."