CHAPTER V.
Later Carley leaned back in a comfortable seat, before a blazing fire that happily sent its acrid smoke up the chimney, pondering ideas in her mind.
There could be a relation to familiar things that was astounding in its revelation.

To get off a horse that had tortured her, to discover an almost insatiable appetite, to rest weary, aching body before the genial warmth of a beautiful fire--these were experiences which Carley found to have been hitherto unknown delights.

It struck her suddenly and strangely that to know the real truth about anything in life might require infinite experience and understanding.

How could one feel immense gratitude and relief, or the delight of satisfying acute hunger, or the sweet comfort of rest, unless there had been circumstances of extreme contrast?
She had been compelled to suffer cruelly on horseback in order to make her appreciate how good it was to get down on the ground.

Otherwise she never would have known.