ost,
so that it could recall no images of what had happened, but lay against
its black corner a shuddering bundle of nerves. The varying fields and
woods and waters offering themselves to her in the swiftness, were as
wine dashed to her lips, which could not be dead to it. The wish to be
of some worth began a painful quickening movement. At first she could
have sobbed with the keen anguish that instantaneously beset her.
For--"If I am of worth, who looks on me?" was her outcry, and the
darkness she had previously coveted fell with the strength of a mace on
her forehead; but the creature's heart struggled further, and by-and-by
in despite of her the pulses sprang a clear outlook on hope. It struck
through her like the first throb of a sword-cut. She tried to blind
herself to it; the face of hope was hateful.

This conflict of the baffled spirit of youth with its forceful flood of
being continued until it seemed that Emilia was lifted through the
fiery circles into daylight; her last cry being as her first: "I have my
voice!"

Of that which her voice was to achieve for her she never thought. She
had no thought of value, but only an eagerness to feel herself possessor
of something. Wilfrid had appeared to her to have taken all from her,
until the recollection of her voice made her breathe suddenly quick and
deep, as one recovering the taste of life.

Despair, I have said before, is a wilful business, common to corrupt
blood, and to weak woeful minds: native to the sentimentalist of the
better order. The only touch of it that came to Emilia was when she
attempted to penetrate to Wilfrid's reason for calling her down to Devon
that he might renounce and abandon her. She wanted a reason to make him
in harmony with his acts, and she could get none. This made the world
look black to her. But, "I have my voice!" she said, exhausted by the
passion of the night, tearless, and only sensible to pain when the keen
swift wind, and the flying squares of field and meadow prompted her
nature mysteriously to press for healthy action.

A man opposite to her ventured a remark: "We're going at a pretty good
pace now, miss."

She turned her eyes to him, and the sense of speed was reduced in her at
once, she could not comprehend how. Remembering presently that she had
not answered him, she said: "It is because you are going home, perhaps,
that you think it fast."

"No, miss," he replied, "I'm going to market. They can't put on steam
too