HAPTER XXII.

There is nothing of which men take less heed than the infection of
emotion, a thing as real as that mysterious influence which in some
diseases leaps forth from one to another till all are in the same pain.
With the exception, perhaps, of the infection of fear, which societies
have learnt to dread by tragic experience, man still fondly supposes
that his emotions are his own, that they must rise and fall within
himself, and does not know that they can be taken in full tide from
another and imparted again without decrease of force. May God send a
healthful spirit to us all! for good or evil, we are part of one
another.

There were a good many people who went up the mountain that night to
find the enthusiasts, each with some purpose of interference and
criticism. They went secure in their own sentiments, but with minds
tickled into the belief that they were to see and hear some strange
thing. They saw and heard not much, yet they did not remain wholly their
own masters. Perhaps the idea that Cameron's assembly would be well
worth seeing was gleaned partly from the lingering storm, for an
approaching storm breeds in the mind the expectation of exciting
culmination, but long before the different seekers had found the meeting
place, which was only known to the loyal-hearted, the storm, having
spent itself elsewhere, had passed away.

There was an open space upon a high slope of the hill. Trees stood above
it, below, around--high, black masses of trees. It was here old
Cameron's company had gathered together. No woodland spot, in dark, damp
night, ever looked more wholly natural and of earth than this. Sophia
Rexford and Alec Trenholme, after long wandering, came to the edge of
this opening, and stopped the sound of their own movements that they
might look and listen. They saw the small crowd assembled some way off,
but could not recognise the figures or count them. Listening intently,
they heard the swaying of a myriad leaves, the drip of their moisture,
the trickle of rivulets that the rain had started again in troughs of
summer drought, and, amidst all these, the old man's voice in accents of
prayer.

Even in her feverish eagerness to seek Winifred, which had sustained her
so long, Sophia chose now to skirt the edge of the wood rather than
cross the open. As they went through long grass and bracken, here and
there a fallen log impeded their steps. A frog, disturbed, leaped before
them in the grass; they