the silence is! Ursula looked with hatred on the buffers of the
diminishing wagon. The gatekeeper stood ready at the door of his hut,
to proceed to open the gate. But Gudrun sprang suddenly forward, in
front of the struggling horse, threw off the latch and flung the gates
asunder, throwing one-half to the keeper, and running with the other
half, forwards. Gerald suddenly let go the horse and leaped forwards,
almost on to Gudrun. She was not afraid. As he jerked aside the mare's
head, Gudrun cried, in a strange, high voice, like a gull, or like a
witch screaming out from the side of the road:

'I should think you're proud.'

The words were distinct and formed. The man, twisting aside on his
dancing horse, looked at her in some surprise, some wondering interest.
Then the mare's hoofs had danced three times on the drum-like sleepers
of the crossing, and man and horse were bounding springily, unequally
up the road.

The two girls watched them go. The gate-keeper hobbled thudding over
the logs of the crossing, with his wooden leg. He had fastened the
gate. Then he also turned, and called to the girls:

'A masterful young jockey, that; 'll have his own road, if ever anybody
would.'

'Yes,' cried Ursula, in her hot, overbearing voice. 'Why couldn't he
take the horse away, till the trucks had gone by? He's a fool, and a
bully. Does he think it's manly, to torture a horse? It's a living
thing, why should he bully it and torture it?'

There was a pause, then the gate-keeper shook his head, and replied:

'Yes, it's as nice a little mare as you could set eyes on--beautiful
little thing, beautiful. Now you couldn't see his father treat any
animal like that--not you. They're as different as they welly can be,
Gerald Crich and his father--two different men, different made.'

Then there was a pause.

'But why does he do it?' cried Ursula, 'why does he? Does he think he's
grand, when he's bullied a sensitive creature, ten times as sensitive
as himself?'

Again there was a cautious pause. Then again the man shook his head, as
if he would say nothing, but would think the more.

'I expect he's got to train the mare to stand to anything,' he replied.
'A pure-bred Harab--not the sort of breed as is used to round
here--different sort from our sort altogether. They say as he got her
from Constantinople.'

'He would!' said Ursula. 'He'd better have left her to the Turks, I'm
sure they would have had more decency towards her.'