On the boat she had slept, lulled by its rocking and swaying, but here in her home—in her accustomed routine—sleep had fled, and old thoughts and dreams came like the dead to haunt her. The paleness which had come upon her in London, and which the sea breeze had supplanted with fleeting roses, returned, and she moved about looking as if only her wraith had come back to its old haunts.
On the third day after Cassandra's return, David found himself climbing the laurel path a far different man from the one who, two years before, had slowly and wearily toiled up to the little house of logs which was to be his shelter. With strong, free step and heart uplifted and glad, he now climbed that winding path. He had conquered the ills of his body, and his spirit had lived and loved, and he had learned to know happiness from its counterfeit. He had gone out and seen men chasing phantoms and shadows thinking therein to find joy—joy—the need of the world—one in a coronet, one in a crown, and the beggar in a golden sovereign—while he—he had found it in his own heart and in Cassandra's eyes.
David had passed the Fall Place, seeing no one; for the widow had ridden over to spend the day with Sally Carew, her niece was in the spring-house skimming cream, while Cotton was dawdling in the corn patch whistling and pulling the ripened ears from the stalks. A cool breeze had dispelled the heat of the September afternoon, and the hills were already beginning to don their gorgeous apparel after the summer's drouth; their wonderful beauty struck him anew and steeped his senses with their charm.