Believing that Miss Nellie had diverged from the highway only as a momentary excursion into the shade, and that she would not dare to penetrate its more sombre and unknown recesses, he kept within sight of the skirting plain.

By degrees the sedate influence of the silent vaults seemed to depress him.

The ardor of the chase began to flag.

Under the calm of their dim roof the fever of his veins began to subside; his pace slackened; he reasoned more deliberately.

It was by no means probable that the young woman in a brown duster was Nellie; it was not her habitual traveling dress; it was not like her to walk unattended in the road; there was nothing in her tastes and habits to take her into this gloomy forest, allowing that she had even entered it; and on this absolute question of her identity the two witnesses were divided.