The events of yesterday go before him. He sees the procession come out of the church house, the women in one group and the men following in another, and he and she going hand in hand in the advance. He feels the sunshine of yesterday on his head and the misery in his heart.
Then it is night, and he sees the lights of the frolic at the cabin in the clearing. He is no longer the cheerful, happy Philip of other years, but a weakened, distracted shadow of that other Philip staggering on through the rain.
He has forgotten his soldier comrades and the meaning of his life on the mountain. He has forgotten even his patriotism and the existence of the flag with thirty-three stars. Sherman Territory is receding under his feet, and the grief that he has created for himself so industriously and nursed so patiently is leading him on.
A blotch of shadows to the right assumes the ghostly form of spreading trees, the naked branches blending softly in the blanket of the fog. The gnarled chestnuts, that looked like berry-bushes while they waited at the deserted cabin on that first night for the moon to go down, give no voice of warning, and Philip comes steadily on, with the telescope strapped to his back and the load in his heart. Under his heedless feet the dead weeds and the sodden leaves give way to the slippery rock.
[Illustration: PHILIP ON THE EDGE OF THE PRECIPICE.]
For a moment the slender figure crossed by the telescope is massed against the mist overhanging the Cove. Then there is a despairing cry and a futile clutching at the cruel ledge, and, in the silence that follows, the vertical rain, out of the blanket of the fog, goes on shivering its tiny lances on the slippery rocks.
WHICH SHOWS THAT A MISHAP IS NOT ALWAYS A MISFORTUNE
It was still early in the day when Philip fell over the boulder face of the mountain; and when the chopping which he had heard through the fog ceased at the house, Bromley had indeed gone in, but not for shelter from the rain. He had gone to warn Lieutenant Coleman of the absence of their half-demented comrade and of the peril he ran in wandering about on the mountain in the fog. They felt so sure of finding him near the point of rocks that they went together in that direction; but before they started Philip had wandered from the path, and by the time they reached the rocks he had put the house behind him and was walking in the direction of the Cove. Finding no trace of him there, and seeing the dense mist which covered the valley and made observation impossible, they separated and went off in opposite ways, calling him by name, "Philip! Philip!" and as they got farther and farther from each other, "Philip! Philip!" came back to each faintly through the fog and the rain. They made their way to such points as he might have found shelter under, but their calls brought no response. They knew that in his peculiar state of mind he might hear their voices and make no reply, and in this was at last their only hope of his safety as they continued their search.