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He rose dizzy, bruised, and covered with dust. The team he held securely and soon quieted. He saw the cause of it all: the right forewheel had come off, letting the front of the buggy drop. He unhitched the excited team from the carriage, drove them to the fence and tied them securely, then went back to find the wheel and the "nut" whose failure to hold its place had done all the mischief. He soon had the wheel on, but to find the burr was a harder task. Back and forth he ranged, looking, scraping in the dust, searching the weeds.

He knew that sometimes a wheel will run without the burr for many rods before corning off, and so each time he extended his search. He traversed the entire half-mile several times, each time his rage and disappointment getting more bitter. He ground his teeth in a fever of vexation and dismay.

He had a vision of Agnes waiting, wondering why he did not come. It was this vision that kept him from seeing the burr in the wheel-track, partly covered by a clod.

Once he passed it looking wildly at his watch, which was showing nine o’clock. Another time he passed it with eyes dimmed with a mist that was almost tears of anger.

There is no contrivance that will replace an axle burr, and farmyards have no unused axle burrs, and so Will searched. Each moment he said: "I’ll give it up, get onto one of the horses, and go down and tell her. " But searching for a lost axle burr is like fishing: the searcher expects each moment to find it. And so he groped, and ran breathlessly, furiously, back and forth, and at last kicked away the clod that covered it, and hurried, hot and dusty, cursing his stupidity, back to the team.

It was ten o’clock as he climbed again into the buggy and started his team on a swift trot down the road. What would she think? He saw her now with tearful eyes and pouting lips. She was sitting at the window, with hat and gloves on; the rest had gone, and she was waiting for him.

But she’d know something had happened, because he had promised to be there at eight. He had told her what team he’d have. (He had forgotten at this moment the doubt and distrust he had given her on Monday. ) She’d know he’d surely come.

But there was no smiling or tearful face watching at the window as he came down the lane at a tearing pace and turned into the yard. The house was silent and the curtains down. The silence sent a chill to his heart. Something rose up in his throat to choke him.

"Agnes!" he called. "Hello! I’m here at last!"

There was no reply. As he sat there, the part he had played on Monday came back to him. She may be sick! he thought with a cold thrill of fear.

An old man came around the corner of the house with a potato fork in his hands, his teeth displayed in a grin.

"She ain’t here. She’s gone. "

"Gone!"

"Yes–more’n an hour ago. "

"Who’d she go with?"

"Ed Kinney," said the old fellow with a malicious grin. "I guess your goose is cooked. "

Will lashed the horses into a run and swung round the yard and out of the gate. His face was white as a dead man’s, and his teeth were set like a vise. He glared straight ahead. The team ran wildly, steadily homeward, while their driver guided them unconsciously. He did not see them. His mind was filled with a tempest of rages, despairs, and shames.

That ride he will never forget. In it he threw away all his plans. He gave up his year’s schooling. He gave up his law aspirations. He deserted his brother and his friends. In the dizzying whirl of passions he had only one clear idea–to get away, to go West, to get away from the sneers and laughter of his neighbors, and to make her suffer by it all.

He drove into the yard, did not stop to unharness the team, but rushed into the house and began packing his trunk. His plan was formed, which was to drive to Cedarville and hire someone to bring the team back. He had no thought of anything but the shame, the insult she had put upon him. Her action on Monday took on the same levity it wore then, and excited him in the same way. He saw her laughing with Ed over his dismay. He sat down and wrote a letter to her at last–a letter that came from the ferocity of the medieval savage in him: