Sure I'm glad I'm going into the town, for I'll be able to see
the poor thing. Is she much upset? But she is sure to be."

"It is a great trial for her. She will be very glad to see you, I should
think," he answered.

"Oh, well, well; what a funny thing life is, Mr. Durham. One never
knows. It's all a muddled-up sort of affair at the best. If only people
could do what is in them to do, instead of being placed in positions
where there is only sadness and trouble crowding in on them and crushing
them out of existence! It's a weary world, very, very weary."

"We can only take it as we find it, and make the best of it," he said.
"You must not allow this to worry you. Perhaps, after all, it is the
best thing that could have happened for him. There are worse things
than death. Think what it would have been for Mrs. Eustace had he been
captured and sent to penal servitude. Her whole life would have been
ruined. We see so much of that in cases where the husband gives way. It
is the wife who suffers most, Mrs. Burke."

"Oh, I know, I know," she exclaimed in a tone so full of sadness that he
feared he had touched on some secret grief.

He rode beside her in silence, not knowing what to say lest he added to
her distress, but yet tormented by the idea that he should speak out
what was in his heart and learn, once and for all, whether his hopes
were to be realised or shattered. Keeping slightly behind her, he was
able to watch her without her knowing it. She was staring between her
horse's ears, her lips tightly closed, her head erect, and her cheeks
pale. Lost, apparently, in the reverie his words had called up, she
seemed to have forgotten his presence as a mile went by without her
turning her head or opening her lips.

But she had not forgotten he was there. At a turn in the road she
uttered a sharp exclamation and held out her hand, pointing.

"Oh, it is too bad," she exclaimed bitterly. "It is too much for anyone
to bear. Look at that!"

Away down the road Durham saw a horse and rider. The horse was making
its own way, the rider having as much as he could do to keep in the
saddle. He was swaying from side to side, occasionally waving his arms
in the air and howling out a tuneless ditty in a strident cracked voice.

"Old Patsy," Durham said shortly.

"Oh, what will I do?" she exclaimed.

"Better let me take him back and give him a few days where he will have
time to recover his senses, I think," he said.

She flash