ady's intentions. Some of us strolled into the buildings and some of us
got out on to the road, but we all of us were thinking that O'Brien
was very slow a considerable time before we saw Mrs. Talboys reappear
through the gap.

At last, however, she was there, and we at once saw that she was alone.
She came on, breasting the hill with quick steps, and when she drew near
we could see that there was a frown as of injured majesty on her brow.
Mackinnon and his wife went forward to meet her. If she were really in
trouble it would be fitting in some way to assist her, and of all women
Mrs. Mackinnon was the last to see another woman suffer from ill usage
without attempting to aid her. "I certainly never liked her," Mrs.
Mackinnon said afterward, "but I was bound to go and hear her tale when
she really had a tale to tell."

And Mrs. Talboys now had a tale to tell--if she chose to tell it. The
ladies of our party declared afterward that she would have acted more
wisely had she kept to herself both O'Brien's words to her and her
answer. "She was well able to take care of herself," Mrs. Mackinnon
said; "and after all the silly man had taken an answer when he got it."
Not, however, that O'Brien had taken his answer quite immediately, as
far as I could understand from what we heard of the matter afterward.

At the present moment Mrs. Talboys came up the rising ground all alone
and at a quick pace. "The man has insulted me," she said aloud, as
well as her panting breath would allow her, and as soon as she was near
enough to Mrs. Mackinnon to speak to her.

"I am sorry for that," said Mrs. Mackinnon. "I suppose he has taken a
little too much wine."

"No; it was a premeditated insult. The base-hearted churl has failed to
understand the meaning of true, honest sympathy."

"He will forget all about it when he is sober," said Mackinnon, meaning
to comfort her.

"What care I what he remembers or what he forgets?" she said, turning
upon poor Mackinnon indignantly. "You men grovel so in your ideas--"
("And yet," as Mackinnon said afterward, "she had been telling me that I
was a fool for the last three weeks.") "You men grovel so in your ideas
that you cannot understand the feelings of a true-hearted woman. What
can his forgetfulness or his remembrance be to me? Must not I remember
this insult? Is it possible that I should forget it?"

Mr. and Mrs. Mackinnon only had gone forward to meet her, but
nevertheless she spoke so loud that