Wilder dashed off down the forest-road by which Bart and Julia had approached his house.

Bart went listlessly into the house.  His energy and excitement had suddenly died out, with the exigency which called them forth; his mental glow and physical effort, both wonderful and long-continued to an intense strain, left him, and in the reaction he almost collapsed.  Mrs. Wilder offered him one of her husband’s coats.  He was not cold.  She placed a smoking breakfast before him.  He loathed its sight and fragrance, and drank a little milk.

She knew he was a hero; so young and so handsome, yet a mere boy; his sad, grave face had a wonderful beauty to her, and his manners were so high, and like a gentleman born.  She asked him some questions about his finding Julia, and he answered dreamily, and in few words, and seemed hardly to know what he said.

“Is Miss Markham asleep?—­is she quiet?”

Mrs. Wilder stepped to the inner room.  “She is,” she answered; “nothing seems to ail her but weariness and exhaustion.  She will not suffer from it.”

“Is she alone?”

“She is in bed with my daughter Rose.”

“May I just look at her one moment?”

“Certainly.”

One look from the door at the sweetly-sleeping face, and without a word he hurried from the house.  He had felt a great heart-throb when he came upon her in the woods, and now, when all was over, and no further call for action or invention was on him, the strong, wild rush of the old love for a moment overwhelmed him.  It would assert itself, and was his momentary master.  But presently he turned away, with an unspoken and final adieu.

Two hours later the Judge, on his smoking steed, dashed up to the cabin, followed by the Doctor and two or three others.  As he touched the ground, Julia, with a cry of joy, sprang into his arms.

She had murmured in her sleep, awoke, and would get up and dress.  She laughed, and said funny little things at her looks and dress, and examined the “wamus” with great interest, with a blush put it on, and tied it coquettishly about her waist, then seemed to think, and took it off gravely.  Next she ran eagerly out to the other room, and asked for Bart, and looked grave, and wondered, when Mrs. Wilder told her he had gone, and she wondered that Mrs. Wilder would let him go.

She kissed that good woman when she first got up, and was already in love with sweet, shy, tall, comely Rose, who was seventeen, and had made fast friends with Ann and George, the younger ones.  Then she ran out into the melting snow and bright soft air.  How serene it all was, and how tall and silent stood the trees, in the bright sun!  How calm and innocent it all was, and looked as if nothing dreadful had ever happened in it, and a robin came and sang from an old tree, near by.

And she talked, and wondered about her mother and father, and, by little bits, told much of what happened the night before; and wondered—­this time to herself—­why Bart went off; and she looked sad over it.