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They took him to the Bridge House. He was hurt more than he or they thought. The old man and the girl met them at the door. Judith gave a little cry when she saw the blood and Brydon’s bruised face. He lifted his head as though her eyes had drawn his, and, their looks meeting, he took his hat off. Her face flushed; she dropped her eyes. Her grandfather seized Brydon’s big hand, and said some trembling words of thanks. The girl stepped inside, made a bed for him upon the sofa, and got him something to drink. She was very cool; she immediately asked Pierre to go for the young doctor who had lately come to the place, and made ready warm water with which she wiped Brydon’s blood-stained face and hands, and then gave him some brandy. His comrades standing round watched her admiringly, she was so deft and delicate. Brydon, as if to be nursed and cared for was not manly, felt ashamed, and came up quickly to a sitting posture, saying, “Pshaw! I’m all right!” But he turned sick immediately, and Judith’s arms caught his head and shoulders as he fell back. His face turned, and was pillowed on her bosom. At this she blushed, but a look of singular dignity came into her face. Those standing by were struck with a kind of awe; they were used mostly to the daughters of habitants and fifty-acre farmers. Her sensitive face spoke a wonderful language: a divine gratitude and thankfulness; and her eyes had a clear moisture which did not dim them. The situation was trying to the river-drivers–it was too refined; and they breathed more freely when they got outside and left the girl, her grandfather, Pierre, and the young doctor alone with the injured man.

That was how the thing began. Pierre saw the conclusion of events from the start. The young doctor did not. From the hour when he bound up Brydon’s head, Judith’s fingers aiding him, he felt a spring in his blood new to him. When he came to know exactly what it meant, and acted, it was too late. He was much surprised that his advances were gently repulsed. He pressed them hard: that was a mistake. He had an idea, not uncommon in such cases, that he was conferring an honour. But he was very young. A gold medal in anatomy is likely to turn a lad’s head at the start. He falls into the error that the ability to demonstrate the medulla oblongata should likewise suffice to convince the heart of a maid. Pierre enjoyed the situation; he knew life all round; he had boxed the compass of experience.

He believed in Judith. The old man interested him: he was a wreck out of an unfamiliar life.

“Well, you see,” Pierre said to Brydon one day, as they sat on the high cross-beams of the little bridge, “you can’t kill it in a man–what he was born. Look, as he piles up the driftwood over there. Broken down, eh? Yes, but then there is something–a manner, an eye. He piles the wood like champagne bottles. On the raft, you remember, he took off his hat to death. That’s different altogether from us.”

He gave a sidelong glance at Brydon, and saw a troubled look.

“Yes,” Brydon said, “he is different; and so is she.”

“She is a lady,” Pierre said, with slow emphasis. “She couldn’t hide it if she tried. She plays the piano, and looks all silk in calico. Made for this?”–he waved his hand towards the Bridge House. “No, no! made for–“

He paused, smiled enigmatically, and dropped a bit of wood on the swift current.

Brydon frowned, then said: “Well, made for what, Pierre?”

Pierre looked over Brydon’s shoulder, towards a pretty cottage on the hillside. “Made for homes like that, not this,” he said, and he nodded first towards the hillside, then to the Bridge House. (The cottage belonged to the young doctor.) A growl like an animal’s came from Brydon, and he clinched the other’s shoulder. Pierre glanced at the hand, then at Brydon’s face, and said sharply: “Take it away.”