The Wild Fawn by Mary Imlay Taylor

DANIEL CARTER, having left the family conclave so abruptly, descended the steps to the garden-path and walked slowly -- almost painfully, it appeared -- to the gate.

He was a tall young man of twenty-five, thin from long suffering, and a little angular, and he was lame. He was not using a crutch now. Dr. Barbour had succeeded in alleviating the old trouble and Daniel could do very well with a walking-stick. But his face, pale and hollow-cheeked, showed the lines of old suffering, and to-day there were dark rings around his fine eyes. The fact was that, at that moment, his heart was beating so heavily that its clamor seemed to fill his ears. A strange thing had befallen him. He had been stricken with horror and anguish at an insult to one he loved, and -- almost at the same instant -- he had felt a wild, unreasoning relief. It would not do, he must not let his mind dwell upon it. The habit of repression, the habit of endurance, the older habit of suffering, came to his aid. He set his teeth and walked straight out of the front gate and down to the end of the street. Then he paused almost unconsciously, because this spot, at the side of a hill, gave him a wide view of the town, and he often stopped here a moment on his way to and from Judge Jessup's office, just to catch this glimpse of his native hills. The poet in Daniel loved this view.