The woman who had opened the gate for her Betty saw had red eyes. She
knew why.

"A year ago they all thought of him as an outcast. They would have
believed any evil they had heard connected with his name. Now, in every
cottage, there is weeping--weeping. And he lies deaf and dumb," was her
thought.

She did not wish to pass through the village, and turned down a side
road, which would lead her to where she could cross the marshes, and
come upon lonely places. The more lonely, the better. Every few moments
she caught her breath with a hard short gasp. The slow rain fell upon
her, big round, crystal drops hung on the hedgerows, and dripped upon
the grass banks below them; the trees, wreathed with mist, were like
waiting ghosts as she passed them by; Childe Harold's hoof upon the
road, made a hollow, lonely sound.

A thought began to fill her brain, and make insistent pressure upon it.
She tried no more to thrust thought away. Those who lay deaf and dumb,
those for whom people wept--where were they when the weeping seemed to
sound through all the world? How far had they gone? Was it far? Could
they hear and could they see? If one plead with them aloud, could they
draw near to listen? Did they begin a long, long journey as soon as they
had slipped away? The "wonder of the world," she had said, watching life
swelling and bursting the seeds in Kedgers' hothouses! But this was a
greater wonder still, because of its awesomeness. This man had been, and
who dare say he was not--even now? The strength of his great body, the
look in his red-brown eyes, the sound of his deep voice, the struggle,
the meaning of him, where were they? She heard herself followed by the
hollow echo of Childe Harold's hoofs, as she rode past copse and hedge,
and wet spreading fields. She was this hour as he had been a month
ago. If, with some strange suddenness, this which was Betty Vanderpoel,
slipped from its body----She put her hand up to her forehead. It was
unthinkable that there would be no more. Where was he now--where was he
now?

This was the thought that filled her brain cells to the exclusion of all
others. Over the road, down through by-lanes, out on the marshes. Where
was he--where was he--WHERE? Childe Harold's hoofs began to beat it out
as a refrain. She heard nothing else. She did not know where she was
going and did not ask herself. She went down any road or lane which
looked empty of life, she took strange turnings, without caring;