questionable character, this secret burial, and he wondered and wondered
why the young man had been so earnest about it. Well; there was the grave;
and, moreover, on the leafy earth, where the dying youth had lain, there
were traces of blood, which no rain had yet washed away. Septimius
wondered at the easiness with which he acquiesced in this deed; in fact,
he felt in a slight degree the effects of that taste of blood, which makes
the slaying of men, like any other abuse, sometimes become a passion.
Perhaps it was his Indian trait stirring in him again; at any rate, it is
not delightful to observe how readily man becomes a blood-shedding
animal.

Looking down from the hill-top, he saw the little dwelling of Rose
Garfield, and caught a glimpse of the girl herself, passing the windows or
the door, about her household duties, and listened to hear the singing
which usually broke out of her. But Rose, for some reason or other, did
not warble as usual this morning. She trod about silently, and somehow or
other she was translated out of the ideality in which Septimius usually
enveloped her, and looked little more than a New England girl, very pretty
indeed, but not enough so perhaps to engross a man's life and higher
purposes into her own narrow circle; so, at least, Septimius thought.
Looking a little farther,--down into the green recess where stood Robert
Hagburn's house,--he saw that young man, looking very pale, with his arm
in a sling sitting listlessly on a half-chopped log of wood which was not
likely soon to be severed by Robert's axe. Like other lovers, Septimius
had not failed to be aware that Robert Hagburn was sensible to Rose
Garfield's attractions; and now, as he looked down on them both from his
elevated position, he wondered if it would not have been better for Rose's
happiness if her thoughts and virgin fancies had settled on that frank,
cheerful, able, wholesome young man, instead of on himself, who met her on
so few points; and, in relation to whom, there was perhaps a plant that