o
pack her things, say good-bye to Miss Pinckney and take her departure
before Richard returned to luncheon--if he did return.

It did not take her long to pass through the negro quarter, and now, out
in the open country, out amidst those great flat lands in the broad day
and under the lonely blue sky her mood changed.

Phyl was no patient Grizel, the very last person to be trapped in the bog
of love's despondency. Abstract melancholy produced by colours, memories,
or sounds was an easy enough matter with her, but she was not the person
to mourn long over the loss of a man snatched from her by another woman.

As she walked, now, breathing the free fresh air, a feeling of anger and
resentment began to fill her mind. Anger at first against Frances Rhett
but spreading almost at once towards Richard Pinckney. Soon it included
herself, Maria Pinckney, Charleston--the whole world. It was the anger
which brings with it perfect recklessness, akin to that which had seized
her the day in Ireland when in her rage over Rafferty's dismissal she had
called Pinckney a Beast. Only this anger was less acute, more diffuse,
more lasting.

The sounds of wheels and horses' hoofs on the road behind her made her
turn her head. A carriage was approaching, an English mail phaeton drawn
by two high-stepping chestnuts and driven by a young man.

It was Silas Grangerson. Returning to Grangerson's to make plans for the
capture of Phyl, here she was on the road before him and going in the same
direction.

For a moment he could scarcely believe his eyes. Then reining in and
leaving the horses with the groom he jumped down and ran towards her.

After the affair of last night one might fancy that he would have shown
something of it in his manner.

Not a bit.

"I didn't expect to come across _you_ on the road," said he. "Won't you
speak to me--are you angry with me?"

"It's not a question of being angry," said Phyl, stiffly.

She walked on and he walked beside her, silent for a moment.

"If you mean about that affair last night," said he, "I'm sorry I lost my
temper--but he hit me--you don't understand what that means to me."

"You tried to--"

"Kill him, I did, and only for you I'd have done it. You can't understand
it all. I can scarcely understand it myself. He _hit_ me."

"I don't think you knew what you were doing," said Phyl.

"I most surely did not. I was rousted out of myself. I reckon he didn't
know what he was doing either w