disabled; now the fact flashed upon me, and with it the perception that I
had been thinking only of myself: I was fast ceasing to care for him! And
then, horrible to tell! a flash of joy went through me, that he would not
be home that day, and therefore I _could_ not tell him anything!

The moment Martha left me I threw myself on the floor of the desert room.
I was in utter misery.

"Gladly would I bear every pang of his pain," I said to myself; "yet I
have not asked one question about his accident! He must be in danger, or
he would not have sent for Martha instead of me!"

How had the thing happened, I wondered. Had Death fallen with
him--perhaps on him? He was such a horseman, I could not think he
had been thrown. Besides, Death was a good horse who loved his
master--dearly, I was sure, and would never have thrown him or let him
fall! A great gush of the old love poured from the fountain in my heart:
sympathy with the horse had unsealed it. I sprang from the floor, and ran
down to entreat Martha to take me with her: if my uncle did not want me,
I could return with Dick! But she was gone. Even the sound of her wheels
was gone. I had lain on the floor longer than I knew.

I went back to the study a little relieved. I understood now that I was
not glad he was disabled; that I was anything but glad he was suffering;
that I had only been glad for an instant that the crisis of my perplexity
was postponed. In the meantime I should see John Day, who would help me
to understand what I ought to do!

Very strange were my feelings that afternoon in the lonely house. I had
always felt it lonely when Martha, never when my uncle was out. Yet when