The expected rain had not come, though the air was heavy and damp with the promise of it. It hung unshed, above the thirsty country, looking down gloomily upon the dusty roads, and the soft and straight young grass in the meadows; waiting for the night, when the wind would moan and cry for it, and the newborn leaves would shudder in the dark at its coming.

At three o’clock Francie was sure that the afternoon would be fine, and soon afterwards she came downstairs in her habit, and went into the drawing-room to wait for the black mare to be brought to the door. She was going to ride towards Gurthnamuckla to meet Lambert, who had gone there some time before; he had made Francie promise to meet him on his way home, and she was going to keep her word. He had become quite a different person to her since the morning, a person who no longer appealed to her admiration or her confidence, but solely and distressingly to her pity. She had always thought of him as invincible, self-sufficing, and possessed of innumerable interests besides herself; she knew him now as dishonest and disgraced, and miserable, stripped of all his pretensions and vanities, but she cared for him to-day more than yesterday. It was against her will that his weakness appealed to her; she would have given worlds for a heart that did not smite her at its claim, but her pride helped out her compassion. She told herself that she could not let people have it to say that she ran away from Roddy because he was in trouble.

She felt chilly, and she shivered as she stood by the fire, whose unseasonable extravagance daily vexed the righteous soul of Eliza Hackett. Hawkins’ note was in her hand, and she read it through twice while she waited; then, as she heard the sound of wheels on the gravel, she tore it in two and threw it into the fire, and, for the second time that morning, ran to the window.

It was Christopher Dysart again. He saw her at the window and took off his cap, and before he had time to ring the bell, she had opened the hall door. She had, he saw at once, been crying, and her paleness, and the tell-tale heaviness of her eyes, contrasted pathetically with the smartness of her figure in her riding habit, and the boyish jauntiness of her hard felt hat.

“Mr. Lambert isn’t in, Sir Christopher,” she began at once, as if she had made up her mind whom he had come to see; “but won’t you come in?”

“Oh—thank you—I—I haven’t much time—I merely wanted to speak to your husband,” stammered Christopher.

“Oh, please come in,” she repeated, “I want to speak to you.” Her eyes suddenly filled with tears, and she turned quickly from him and walked towards the drawing-room.

Christopher followed her with the mien of a criminal. He felt that he would rather have been robbed twenty times over than see the eyes that, in his memory, had always been brilliant and undefeated, avoiding his as if they were afraid of him, and know that he was the autocrat before whom she trembled. She remained standing near the middle of the room, with one hand on the corner of the piano, whose gaudy draperies had, even at this juncture, a painful subeffect upon Christopher; her other hand fidgeted restlessly with a fold of the habit that she was holding up, and it was evident that whatever her motive had been in bringing him in, her courage was not equal to it. Christopher waited for her to speak, until the silence became unendurable.

“I intended to have been here earlier,” he said, saying anything rather than nothing, “but there was a great deal to be got through at the Bench to-day, and I’ve only just got away. You know I’m a magistrate now, and indifferently minister justice—”

“I’m glad I hadn’t gone out when you came,” she interrupted, as though, having found a beginning, she could not lose a moment in using it. “I wanted to say that if you—if you’ll only give Roddy a week’s time he’ll pay you. He only meant to borrow the money, like, and he thought he could pay you before; but, indeed, he says he’ll pay you in a week.” Her voice was low and full of bitterest humiliation, and Christopher wished that before he had arraigned his victim, and offered him up as an oblation to his half-hearted sense of duty, he had known that his infirmity of purpose would have brought him back three hours afterwards to offer the culprit a way out of his difficulties. It would have saved him from his present hateful position, and what it would have saved her was so evident, that he turned his head away as he spoke, rather than look at her.

“I came back to tell your husband that—that he could arrange things in—in some such way,” he said, as guiltily and awkwardly as a boy. “I’m sorry—more sorry than I can say—that he should have spoken to you about it. Of course, that was my fault. I should have told him then what I came to tell him now.”

“He’s gone out now to see about selling his horses and the furniture,” went on Francie, scarcely realising all of Christopher’s leniency in her desire to prove Lambert’s severe purity of action. Her mind was not capable of more than one idea—one, that is, in addition to the question that had monopolised it since yesterday afternoon, and Christopher’s method of expressing himself had never been easily understood by her.

“Oh, he mustn’t think of doing that!” exclaimed Christopher, horrified that she should think him a Shylock, demanding so extreme a measure of restitution; “it wasn’t the actual money question that—that we disagreed about; he can take as long as he likes about repaying me. In fact—in fact you can tell him from me that—he said something this morning about giving up the agency. Well, I—I should be glad if he would keep it.”

He had stultified himself now effectually; he knew that he had acted like a fool, and he felt quite sure that Mr. Lambert’s sense of gratitude would not prevent his holding the same opinion. He even foresaw Lambert’s complacent assumption that Francie had talked him over, but he could not help himself. The abstract justice of allowing the innocent to suffer with the guilty was beyond him; he forgot to theorise, and acted on instinct as simply as a savage. She also had acted on instinct. When she called him in she had nerved herself to ask for reprieve, but she never hoped for forgiveness, and as his intention penetrated the egotism of suffering, the thought leaped with it that, if Roddy were to be let off, everything would be on the same footing that it had been yesterday evening. A blush that was incomprehensible to Christopher swept over her face; the grasp of circumstances relaxed somewhat, and a jangle of unexplainable feelings confused what self-control she had left.

“You’re awfully good,” she began half hysterically. “I always knew you were good; I wish Roddy was like you! Oh, I wish I was like you! I can’t help it—I can’t help crying; you were always too good to me, and I never was worth it!” She sat down on one of the high stiff chairs, for which her predecessor had worked beaded seats, and hid her eyes in her handkerchief. “Please don’t talk to me; please don’t say anything to me—” She stopped suddenly. “What’s that? Is that anyone riding up?”

“No. It’s your horse coming round from the yard,” said Christopher, taking a step towards the window, and trying to keep up the farce of talking as if nothing had happened.

“My horse!” she exclaimed, starting up. “Oh, yes, I must go and meet Roddy. I mustn’t wait any longer.” She began, as if unconscious of Christopher’s presence, to look for the whip and gloves that she had laid down. He saw them before she did, and handed them to her.

“Good-bye,” he said, taking her cold, trembling hand, “I must go too. You will tell your husband that it’s—it’s all right.”

“Yes. I’ll tell him. I’m going to meet him. I must start now,” she answered, scarcely seeming to notice what he said, and withdrawing her hand from his, she began hurriedly to button on her gloves.

Christopher did not wait for further dismissal, but when his hand was on the door, her old self suddenly woke.

“Look at me letting you go away without telling you a bit how grateful I am to you!” she said, with a lift of her tear-disfigured eyes that was like a changeling of the look he used to know; “but don’t you remember what Mrs. Baker said about me, that ‘you couldn’t expect any manners from a Dublin Jackeen.’?”

She laughed weakly, and Christopher, stammering more than ever in an attempt to say that there was nothing to be grateful for, got himself out of the room.

After he had gone, Francie gave herself no time to think. Everything was reeling round her as she went out on to the steps, and even Michael the groom thought to himself that if he hadn’t the trap to wash, he’d put the saddle on the chestnut and folly the misthress, she had that thrimulous way with her when he put the reins into her hands, and only for it was the mare she was riding he wouldn’t see her go out by herself.

It was the first of June, and the gaiety of the spring was nearly gone. The flowers had fallen from the hawthorn, the bluebells and primroses were vanishing as quietly as they came, the meadows were already swarthy, and the breaths of air that sent pale shimmers across them, were full of the unspeakable fragrance of the ripening grass. Under the trees, near Rosemount, the shadowing greenness had saturated the daylight with its gloom, but out among the open pastures and meadows the large grey sky seemed almost bright, and, in the rich sobriety of tone, the red cattle were brilliant spots of colour.

The black mare and her rider were now on thoroughly confidential terms, and, so humiliatingly interwoven are soul and body, as the exercise quickened the blood in her veins, Francie’s incorrigible youth rose up, and while it brightened her eyes and drove colour to her cheeks, it whispered that somehow or other happiness might come to her. She rode fast till she reached the turn to Gurthnamuckla, and there, mindful of her husband’s injunctions that she was not to ride up to the house, but to wait for him on the road, she relapsed into a walk.

As she slackened her pace, all the thoughts that she had been riding away from came up with her again. What claim had Roddy on her now? She had got him out of his trouble, and that was the most he could expect her to do for him. He hadn’t thought much about the trouble he was bringing on her; he never as much as said he was sorry for the disgrace it would be to her. Why should she break her heart for him and Gerald’s heart too?—as she said Hawkins’ name to herself, her hands fell into her lap, and she moaned aloud. Every step the mare was taking was carrying her farther from him, but yet she could not turn back. She was changed since yesterday; she had seen her husband’s soul laid bare, and it had shown her how tremendous were sin and duty; it had touched her slumbering moral sense as well as her kindness, and though she rebelled she did not dare to turn back.

It was not till she heard a pony’s quick gallop behind her, and looking back, saw Hawkins riding after her at full speed, that she knew how soon she was to be tested. She had scarcely time to collect herself before he was pulling up the pony beside her, and had turned a flushed and angry face towards her.

“Didn’t you get my note? Didn’t you know I was coming?” he began in hot remonstrance. Then, seeing in a moment how ill and strange she looked, “What’s the matter? Has anything happened?”

“Roddy came home yesterday evening,” she said, with her eyes fixed on the mare’s mane.

“Well, I know that,” interrupted Hawkins. “Do you mean that he was angry? Did he find out anything about me? If he did see the note I wrote you, there was nothing in that.” Francie shook her head. “Then it’s nothing? It’s only that you’ve been frightened by that brute,” he said, kicking his pony up beside the mare, and trying to look into Francie’s downcast eyes. “Don’t mind him. It won’t be for long.”

“You mustn’t say that,” she said hurriedly. “I was very wrong yesterday, and I’m sorry for it now.”

“I know you’re not!” he burst out, with all the conviction that he felt. “You can’t unsay what you said to me yesterday. I sat up the whole night thinking the thing over and thinking of you, and at last I thought of a fellow I know out in New Zealand, who told me last year I ought to chuck the army and go out there.” He dropped his reins on the pony’s neck, and took Francie’s hand. “Why shouldn’t we go there together, Francie? I’ll give up everything for you, my darling!”

She feebly tried to take her hand away, but did not reply.

“I’ve got three hundred a year of my own, and we can do ourselves awfully well on that out there. We’ll always have lots of horses, and it’s a ripping climate—and—and I love you, and I’ll always love you!”

He was carried away by his own words, and, stooping his head, he kissed her hand again and again.

Every pulse in her body answered to his touch, and when she drew her hand away, it was with an effort that was more than physical.

“Ah! stop, stop,” she cried. “I’ve changed—I didn’t mean it.”

“Didn’t mean what?” demanded Hawkins, with his light eyes on fire.

“Oh, leave me alone,” she said, turning her distracted face towards him. “I’m nearly out of my mind as it is. What made you follow me out here? I came out so as I wouldn’t see you, and I’m going to meet Roddy now.”

Hawkins’ colour died slowly down to a patchy white.

“What do you think it was that made me follow you? Do you want to make me tell you over again what you know already?” She did not answer, and he went on, trying to fight against his own fears by speaking very quietly and rationally. “I don’t know what you’re at, Francie. I don’t believe you know what you’re saying. Something must have happened, and it would be fairer to tell me what it is, than to drive me distracted in this sort of way.”

There was a pause of several seconds, and he was framing a fresh remonstrance when she spoke.

“Roddy’s in great trouble. I wouldn’t leave him,” she said, taking refuge in a prevarication of the exact truth.

Something about her told Hawkins that things were likely to go hard with him, and there was something, too, that melted his anger as it rose; but her pale face drew him to a height of passion that he had not known before.

“And don’t you think anything about me?” he said with a breaking voice. “Are you ready to throw me overboard just because he’s in trouble, when you know he doesn’t care for you a tenth part as much as I do? Do you mean to tell me that you want me to go away, and say good-bye to you for ever? If you do, I’ll go, and if you hear I’ve gone to the devil, you’ll know who sent me.”

The naÏve selfishness of this argument was not perceived by either. Hawkins felt his position to be almost noble, and did not in the least realise what he was asking Francie to sacrifice for him. He had even forgotten the idea that had occurred to him last night, that to go to New Zealand would be a pleasanter way of escaping from his creditors than marrying Miss Coppard. Certainly Francie had no thought of his selfishness or of her own sacrifice. She was giddy with struggle; right and wrong had lost their meaning and changed places elusively; the only things that she saw clearly were the beautiful future that had been offered to her, and the look in Roddy’s face when she had told him that wherever he had to go she would go with him.

The horses had moved staidly on, while these two lives stood still and wrestled with their fate, and the summit was slowly reached of the long hill on which Lambert had once pointed out to her the hoof-prints of Hawkins’ pony. The white road and the grey rock country stretched out before them, colourless and discouraging under the colourless sky, and Hawkins still waited for his answer. Coming towards them up the tedious slope was a string of half-a-dozen carts, with a few people walking on either side; an unremarkable procession, that might have meant a wedding, or merely a neighbourly return from market, but for a long, yellow coffin that lay, hemmed in between old women, in the midmost cart. Francie felt a superstitious thrill as she saw it; a country funeral, with its barbarous and yet fitting crudity, always seemed to bring death nearer to her than the plumed conventionalities of the hearses and mourning coaches that she was accustomed to. She had once been to the funeral of a fellow Sunday-school child in Dublin, and the first verse of the hymn that they had sung then, came back, and began to weave itself in with the beat of the mare’s hoofs.

“Francie, are you going to answer me? Come away with me this very day. We could catch the six o’clock train before any one knew—dearest, if you love me—” His roughened, unsteady voice seemed to come to her from a distance, and yet was like a whisper in her own heart.

“Wait till we are past the funeral,” she said, catching, in her agony, at the chance of a minute’s respite.

At the same moment an old man, who had been standing by the side of the road, leaning on his stick, turned towards the riders, and Francie recognised in him Charlotte’s retainer, Billy Grainy. His always bloodshot eyes were redder than ever, his mouth dribbled like a baby’s, and the smell of whisky poisoned the air all around him.

“I’m waitin’ on thim here this half-hour,” he began, in a loud drunken mumble, hobbling to Francie’s side, and moving along beside the mare, “as long as they were taking her back the road to cry her at her own gate. Owld bones is wake, asthore, owld bones is wake!” He caught at the hem of Francie’s habit to steady himself; “be cripes! Miss Duffy was a fine woman, Lord ha’ maircy on her. And a great woman! And divil blasht thim that threw her out of her farm to die in the Union—the dom ruffins.”

As on the day, now very long ago, when she had first ridden to Gurthnamuckla, Francie tried to shake his hand off her habit; he released it stupidly, and staggering to the side of the road, went on grumbling and cursing. The first cart, creaking and rattling under its load of mourners, was beside them by this time, and Billy, for the benefit of its occupants, broke into a howl of lamentation.

“Thanks be to God Almighty, and thanks be to His Mother, the crayture had thim belonging to her that would bury her like a Christian.” He shook his fist at Francie. “Ah—ha! go home to himself and owld Charlotte, though it’s little thim regards you—” He burst into drunken laughter, bending and tottering over his stick.

Francie, heedless of the etiquette that required that she and Hawkins should stop their horses till the funeral passed, struck the mare, and passed by him at a quickened pace. The faces in the carts were all turned upon her, and she felt as if she were enduring, in a dream, the eyes of an implacable tribunal; even the mare seemed to share in her agitation, and sidled and fidgeted on the narrow strip of road, that was all the space left to her by the carts. The coffin was almost abreast of Francie now, and her eyes rested with a kind of fascination on its bare, yellow surface. She became dimly aware that Norry the Boat was squatted beside it on the straw, when one of the other women began suddenly to groan and thump on the coffin-lid with her fists, in preparation for a burst of the Irish Cry, and at the signal Norry fell upon her knees, and flung out her arms inside her cloak, with a gesture that made her look like a great vulture opening its wings for flight. The cloak flapped right across the mare’s face, and she swerved from the cart with a buck that loosened her rider in the saddle, and shook her hat off. There was a screech of alarm from all the women, the frightened mare gave a second and a third buck, and at the third Francie was shot into the air, and fell, head first, on the road.