sk help. The neighbor had to go
to Mrs. Douwill's as the only place where there was a chance of getting
any medicine, and it happened that on the way back she fell in with a
couple of soldiers, on horseback, who asked her a few questions. They
were members of a home and conscript guard just formed, and when she
left them they had learned her errand.

Fortunately, Darby's illness took a better turn next day, and by sunset
he was free from delirium.

Things had not fared well over at Cove Mills's during these days any
more than at Mrs. Stanley's. Vashti was in a state of mind which made
her mother wonder if she were not going crazy. She set it down to the
storm she had been out in that evening, for Vashti had not mentioned
Darby's name. She kept his presence to herself, thinking that--thinking
so many things that she could not speak or eat. Her heart was like lead
within her; but she could not rid herself of the thought of Darby. She
could have torn it out for hate of herself; and to all her mother's
questioning glances she turned the face of a sphinx. For two days she
neither ate nor spoke. She watched the opposite hill through the rain
which still kept up--something was going on over there, but what it was
she could not tell. At last, on the evening of the third day, she could
stand it no longer, and she set out from home to learn something; she
could not have gone to Mrs. Stanley's, even if she had wished to do so;
for the bottom was still a sea extending from side to side, and it was
over her head in the current. She set off, therefore, up the stream on
her own side, thinking to learn something up that way. She met the woman
who had taken the medicine to Darby that evening, and she told her all
she knew, mentioning among other things the men of the conscript guard
she had seen. Vashti's heart gave a sudden bound up into her throat.
As she was so near she went on up to the Cross-roads; but just as she
stepped out into the road before she reached there, she came on a small
squad of horsemen riding slowly along. She stood aside to let them pass;
but they drew in and began to question her as to the roads about them.
They were in long cloaks and overcoats, and she thought they were the
conscript guard, especially as there was a negro with them who seemed
to know the roads and to be showing them the way. Her one thought was
of Darby; he would be arrested and shot. When they questioned her,
therefore, she told them of the r