"It was not you I expected to meet here this evening. It is so strange how we have met like this."
"I just came out for a walk," he stammered, at a loss for something better to say.
"I'm glad we have met," she said, "for this is the last time."
It was easy to see that her words held much meaning for herself and him.... He seemed to be nearer the brink as her eyes turned from him again to search the road.
"He will not come," she said, and there was a kind of wretched recklessness in her tones. "I know he will not come, for that possibility has never been." She grew more resigned of a sudden. She saw that John Brennan too was searching the road with his eyes.... Then he knew the reason why she was going away.
He was such a nice boy, and between his anxious watching now for her sake he was gazing with pity into her eyes.... He must know Ulick too as a man knows his friend, and that Ulick would not come to her in this her hour of trial.... The knowledge seemed the more terrible since it was through John Brennan it had come; and yet it was less terrible since he did not disdain her for what she had done. She saw through his excuse. He had come this way with the special purpose of seeing her, and if he had not met her thus accidentally he must inevitably have called at the house of Sergeant McGoldrick to extend his farewell. She was glad that she had saved him this indignity by coming out to her own disappointment.... She was sorry that he had again returned to his accustomed way of thinking of her, that he had again departed from the way into which she had attempted to direct him.
And now there loomed up for her great terror in this thought. Yet she could read it very clearly in the way he was looking so friendly upon her.... Why had he always looked upon her in this way? Surely she had never desired it. She had never desired him. It was Ulick she had longed for always. It was Ulick she had longed for this evening, and it was John Brennan who had come.... Yes, how well he had come? It was very simple and very beautiful, this action of his, but in its simple goodness there was a fair promise of its high desolation. It appeared that she stood for his ruin also, and, even now, in the mounting moments of her fear, this appeared as an ending far more appalling.... She was coming to look at her own fate as a thing she might be able to bear, but there was something so vastly filled with torture in this thought.... Whenever she would look into the eyes of the child and make plans for its little future she would think of John Brennan and what had happened to him.
She felt that they had been a long time standing here at this gate, by turns gazing anxiously up and down the road, by turns looking vacantly out over the sea of grass. Time was of more account than ever before, for was it not upon this very evening that she was being banished from the valley?
"I must go now," she said; "he will never come."
He did not answer, but moved as if to accompany her.... She grew annoyed as she observed his action.