e cried.

When Gregory reached her she had fallen with her face against the sharp
foot of the wardrobe and cut her forehead. Very tenderly he raised the
little crushed heap of muslin and ribbons, and laid it on the bed. Doss
climbed up, and sat looking down at it. Very softly Gregory's hands
disrobed her.

"You will be stronger tomorrow, and then we shall try again," he said,
but she neither looked at him nor stirred.

When he had undressed her, and laid her in bed, Doss stretched himself
across her feet and lay whining softly.

So she lay all that morning, and all that afternoon.

Again and again Gregory crept close to the bedside and looked at her;
but she did not speak to him. Was it stupor or was it sleep that shone
under those half-closed eyelids. Gregory could not tell.

At last in the evening he bent over her.

"The oxen have come," he said; "we can start tomorrow if you like. Shall
I get the wagon ready tonight?"

Twice he repeated his question. Then she looked up at him, and Gregory
saw that all hope had died out of the beautiful eyes. It was not stupor
that shone there, it was despair.

"Yes, let us go," she said.

"It makes no difference," said the doctor; "staying or going; it is
close now."

So the next day Gregory carried her out in his arms to the wagon which
stood inspanned before the door. As he laid her down on the kartel she
looked far out across the plain. For the first time she spoke that day.

"That blue mountain, far away; let us stop when we get to it, not
before." She closed her eyes again. He drew the sails down before and
behind, and the wagon rolled away slowly. The landlady and the niggers
stood to watch it from the stoep.

Very silently the great wagon rolled along the grass-covered plain. The
driver on the front box did not clap his whip or call to his oxen, and
Gregory sat beside him with folded arms. Behind them, in the closed
wagon, she lay with the dog at her feet, very quiet, with folded hands.
He, Gregory, dared not be in there. Like Hagar, when she laid her
treasure down in the wilderness, he sat afar off:--"For Hagar said, Let
me not see the death of the child."

Evening came, and yet the blue mountain was not reached, and all the
next day they rode on slowly, but still it was far off. Only at evening
they reached it; not blue now, but low and brown, covered with long
waving grasses and rough stones. They drew the wagon up close to its
foot for the night. It was a