her brain, and she is
cold--very cold, and sits aloof and will not talk, cannot talk. Ever the
patter of the horse's feet in the valley is borne upward by the wind,
and she feels in her soul the faltering of a little heart. She dares not
hope that it will start up again; she cannot bear the fear that it will
stop.

So she leaves the man who knew her inmost soul but an hour ago; hardly a
word she speaks at parting; hardly she turns to him as she slips into
the house, cold and shivering with the sound of every hoof-beat on the
road in the night, bringing her back to the helpless soul fluttering in
the little body that once she warmed in hers.

Thus the watchers watched the fighting through the night, the child
fighting so hard to live. For life is dear to a child--even though its
life perpetuates shame and brings only sorrow--life still is dear to
that struggling little body there under that humble roof, where even
those that love it, and hover in agony over it in its bed of torture,
feel that if it goes out into the great mystery from whence it came, it
will take a sad blot from the world with it. And so hope and fear and
love and tenderness and grief are all mingled in the horror that it may
die, in the mute question that asks if death would not be merciful and
kind. And all night the watchers watched, and the watcher who was absent
was afraid to pray, and as the daylight came in, wan and gray, the child
on the rack of misery sank to sleep, and smiled a little smile of peace
at victory.

Then in the pale dawn, a weary man, trudging afoot slowly up the hill
into Harvey, met another going out into the fields. The Doctor looked up
and was astonished to see Henry Fenn, with hard drawn features,
trembling limbs, hollow eyes and set lips. He too had been fighting hard
and he also had won his victory. The Doctor met the man's furtive,
burning eyes and piped out softly:

"Stick to it, Henry--by God, stick hard," and trudged on into the
morning gloaming.

CHAPTER VI

ENTER THE BEAUTY AND CHIVALRY OF HARVEY; ALSO HEREIN WE BREAK OUR FIRST
HEART

Towns are curiously like individuals. They take their character largely
from their experiences, laid layer upon layer in their consciousnesses,
as time moves, and though the experiences are seemingly forgotten, the
results of those experiences are ineffaceably written into the towns.
Four or five towns lie buried under the Harvey that is to-day, each one
possible only a