He gazed, and gazed at the bright house till love and sorrow dimmed his eyes, and he could see the beloved place no more. Then his dogged will prevailed, and carried him away towards the sea, but crying like a woman now, and hanging all dislocated over his horse's mane.
Now about a mile farther on, as he crept along on a vile and narrow road, all woe-begone and broken, he heard a mighty scurry of horse's feet in the field to his left; he looked languidly up; and the first thing he saw was a great piebald horse's head and neck in the act of rising in the air, and doubling his fore-legs under him, to leap the low hedge a yard or two in front of him.
He did leap, and landed just in front of Griffith; his rider curbed him so keenly that he went back almost on his haunches, and then stood motionless all across the road, with quivering tail. A lady in a scarlet riding-habit and purple cap, sat him as if he had been a throne instead of a horse, and, without moving her body, turned her head swift as a snake, and fixed her great grey eyes full and searching on Griffith Gaunt.
He uttered a little shout of joy and amazement, his mare reared and plunged, and then was quiet. And thus Kate Peyton and he met—at right angles—and so close that it looked as if she had meant to ride him down.
How he stared at her! how more than mortal fair she shone, returning to those bereaved eyes of his, as if she had really dropped from Heaven.
His clasped hands, his haggard face channelled by tears, showed the keen girl she was strong where she had thought herself weak, and she comported herself accordingly, and in one moment took a much higher tone than she had intended as she came along.
"I am afraid," said she, very coldly, "you will have to postpone your journey a day or two. I am grieved to tell you that poor Mr. Charlton is dead."
Griffith uttered an exclamation.
"He asked for you: and messengers are out after you on every side. You must go to Bolton at once."
"Well a day!" said Griffith, "has he left me too? good kind old man, on any other day I had found tears for thee. But now methinks happy are the dead. Alas! sweet mistress, I hoped you came to tell me you had—I might—what signifies what I hoped—when I saw you had deigned to ride after me. Why should I go to Bolton after all?"