"Miss Smith--!" he gasped, and then--darkness.

The years of the days of her dying were ten. The boy that entered the
darkness and the shadow of death emerged a man, a silent man and grave,
working furiously and haunting, day and night, the little window above
the door. At last, of one gray morning when the earth was stillest, they
came and told him, "She will live!" And he went out under the stars,
lifted his long arms and sobbed: "Curse me, O God, if I let me lose her
again!" And God remembered this in after years.

The hope and dream of harvest was upon the land. The cotton crop was
short and poor because of the great rain; but the sun had saved the
best, and the price had soared. So the world was happy, and the face of
the black-belt green and luxuriant with thickening flecks of the coming
foam of the cotton.

Up in the sick room Zora lay on the little white bed. The net and web of
endless things had been crawling and creeping around her; she had
struggled in dumb, speechless terror against some mighty grasping that
strove for her life, with gnarled and creeping fingers; but now at last,
weakly, she opened her eyes and questioned.

Bles, where was he? The Silver Fleece, how was it? The Sun, the Swamp?
Then finding all well, she closed her eyes and slept. After some days
they let her sit by the window, and she saw Bles pass, but drew back
timidly when he looked; and he saw only the flutter of her gown, and
waved.

At last there came a day when they let her walk down to the porch, and