sense of remote
abstraction, of vague dreaminess, was overcoming him. He resented it,
and fought against it, but in vain; he was only half conscious that his
host had bathed his head and given him some slight restorative, had said
something to him soothingly, and had left him. Jeff wondered if he had
fainted, or was about to faint,--he had a nervous dread of that womanish
weakness,--or if he were really hurt worse than he believed. He tried to
master himself and grasp the situation by minutely examining the room.
It was luxuriously furnished; Jeff had but once before sat in such an
arm-chair as the one that half embraced him, and as a boy he had dim
recollections of a life like this, of which his father was part. To
poor Jeff, with his throbbing head, his smarting hands, and his lapsing
moments of half forgetfulness, this seemed to be a return of his old
premonition. There was a vague perfume in the room, like that which he
remembered when he was in the woods with Miss Mayfield. He believed he
was growing faint again, and was about to rise, when the door opened
behind him.

"Is there anything we can do for you? Mr. Wilson has gone to seek your
friend, and has sent Manuel for a doctor."

HER voice! He rose hurriedly, turned; SHE was standing in the doorway!

She uttered a slight cry, turned very pale, advanced towards him,
stopped and leaned against the chimney-piece.

"I didn't know it was YOU."

With her actual presence Jeff's dream and weakness fled. He rose up
before her, his old bashful, stammering, awkward self.

"I didn't know YOU lived here, Miss Mayfield."

"If you had sent word you were coming," said Miss Mayfield, recovering
her color brightly in one cheek.

The possibility of having sent a messenger in advance to advise Miss
Mayfield of his projected visit did not strike Jeff as ridiculous.
Your true lover is far beyond such trivialities. He accepted the rebuke
meekly. He said he was sorry.

"You might have known it."

"What, Miss Mayfield?"

"That I was here, if you WISHED to know."

Jeff did not reply. He bowed his head and clasped his burned hands
together. Miss Mayfield saw their raw surfaces, saw the ugly cut on his
head, pitied him, but went on hastily, with both cheeks burning, to say,
womanlike, what was then deepest in her heart:

"My brother-in-law told me your adventure; but I did not know until I
entered this room that the gentleman I wished to help was one who had
once rejected