Just now her eyes were being filled by the receding pageant of the valley, that place of all earth's places which had so powerfully arrayed its villainy against her.... And to think that he had not come.... It was the Valley of Hinnom.... Yes, to think that he had not come after all she had been to him, after all the love of her heart she had given him. No word could ever, ever pass between them again. They were upon the very brink of the eternity of separation. She knew now that for all the glory in which she had once beheld him, he must shrivel down to the bitter compass of a little, painful memory. Oh, God! to think he had not replied to her letter, and the writing of it had given her such pain.
They were at the station of Kilaconnaghan. Charlie Clarke had not spoken all through the journey, but now he came up to her indignantly, as if very vexed for being compelled to speak to her at all, and said: "The fare is one pound!"
The words smote her with a little sense of shock. She had been expecting something by way of climax. She was very certain in her consciousness that the valley would not let her slip thus quietly away.—A pound for the journey, although it was Father O'Keeffe who had engaged the car.—She must pay this religious robber a huge price for the drive. There rushed through her mind momentarily a mad flash of rebellion. The valley was carrying its tyranny a little too far.... She would not pay.... But almost immediately she was searching for a note in her purse.... There were so very few of them now. Yet she could not leave the valley with any further little stain upon her. They would talk of a thing like this for years and years.
With a deadly silence hanging over him and fearful thoughts coming into his mind Myles Shannon had kept himself and his nephew Ulick at work all through the day. After tea in the lonely dining-room he fetched in his inky account books, which had been neglected for many a month. His nephew would here have work to occupy him for the remainder of the evening and probably far into the night. Ulick was glad of the task, for his mind was very far from being at ease.
Then Mr. Shannon took £100 from the old-fashioned bureau in the parlor, which held, with the other things, all his papers and accounts, and while the evening was yet high went down towards the house of Sergeant McGoldrick to see Rebecca Kerr. Around a bend of the road he encountered Charlie Clarke on his way back from Kilaconnaghan, where he had been delayed upon bazaar business.
The saintly chauffeur at once put on the brakes. This was Mr. Myles Shannon and some one worth speaking to. He bowed a groveling salute.
"You're out pretty late?" said Mr. Shannon.
"Oh, yes!" And then he went on to describe his work of the evening. He felt inclined to offer his condolence to Mr. Shannon in a most respectful whisper, but thought better of it at the last moment.
"And no one knows where she has gone?"
"No one. She has disappeared from the valley."