and surroundings come back
to her in vivid colours when she closes her eyes. The great horse in
every conceivable pose, with veins standing out and knotty muscles
twisting in his legs and neck and thighs. Once, when he dashed into the
apple trees, she gave a cry; a branch snapped, and Chiltern emerged,
still seated, with his hat gone and the blood trickling from a scratch
on his forehead. She saw him strike with his spurs, and in a twinkling
horse and rider had passed over the dilapidated remains of a fence
and were flying down the hard clay road, disappearing into a dip. A
reverberating sound, like a single stroke, told them that the bridge at
the bottom had been crossed.

In an agony of terror, Honora followed, her head on fire, her heart
pounding faster than the hoof beats. But the animal she rode, though a
good one, was no match for the great infuriated beast which she pursued.
Presently she came to a wooded corner where the road forked thrice, and
beyond, not without difficulty,--brought her sweating mare to a stand.
The quality of her fear changed from wild terror to cold dread. A hermit
thrush, in the wood near by, broke the silence with a song inconceivably
sweet. At last she went back to the farm-house, hoping against hope
that Hugh might have returned by another road. But he was not there. The
farmer was still nonchalantly whittling.

"Oh, how could you let any one get on a horse like that?" she cried.

"You're his wife, ain't you?" he asked.

Something in the man's manner seemed to compel her to answer, in spite
of the form of the question.

"I am Mrs. Chiltern," she said.

He was looking at her with an expression that she found
incomprehensible. His glance was penetrating, yet here again she seemed
to read compassion. He continued to gaze at her, and presently, when he
spoke, it was as though he were not addressing her at all.

"You put me in mind of a young girl I used to know," he said; "seems
like a long time ago. You're pretty, and you're young, and ye didn't
know what you were doin,' I'll warrant. Lost your head. He has a way of
gittin' 'em--always had."

Honora did not answer. She would have liked to have gone away, but that
which was stronger than her held her.

"She didn't live here," he explained, waving his hand deprecatingly
towards the weather-beaten house. "We lived over near Morrisville
in them days. And he don't remember me, your husband don't. I ain't
surprised. I've got considera