Late on the fourth day he climbed the cliff upon which his house stood, not because it was the cliff upon which his house stood, but because it was an obstacle in his way. His house might be a month's journey beyond, for all he knew.
At the top of the cliff, among the pines was a young woman. She was by no means the first he had seen that day. But her face was clearer than the other faces had been, and when she darted behind a tree and tried to escape without being seen or spoken to, he ran after her, not knowing why he ran nor why he called her Joy—Joy—Joy! And he did not understand why she in her turn kept calling, "Martha—Martha—come quick—come quick!"
He knew best that she suddenly stopped running, and turned and waited for him, and that as he fell forward she caught him in her arms and began to drag him toward a bright light.
It was a most vivid hallucination. And when he woke in his bed, so warm and all, and Martha bending over him, the first thing he told her—smiling sleepily—was that he had mistaken her for Miss Jocelyn Grey.
"It was the realest sort of an hallucination," he said, "she caught me as I was falling—and of course she was you."
She suddenly stopped running, and turned and waited for him.
"How do you feel, Deary? We—I had a devil of a time with ye."
But the Poor Boy's mind was still upon the vision of Miss Grey.