I could not forget that poor woman plodding along the weary road and darkness not far away.

I went slower and slower, and at last I turned.
"It would not take me five minutes to help her," I said.

"I must be careful, but I need not be a churl." And I rode rapidly back.
I came in sight of her just as she was turning into the gateway of a pretty house yard.

Doubtless she lived there.

I turned again and spun away faster than I had gone that day.
For more than a month I journeyed and sojourned in a beautiful river valley and among the low foot-hills of the mountains.