"To see poor Kitty Maloney, his widow. Last year she was my servant. This year she married; and now—here is the end of everything—for her."
"May I go with you?" asks he, anxiously. "These are lawless times, and I dare say Maloney's cabin will be full of roughs. You will feel happier with some man beside you whom you can trust."
At the word "trust" she lifts her eyes and regards him somewhat steadfastly. It is a short look, yet a very long one, and tells more than she knows. Even while it lasts he swears to himself an oath that he never to his life's end breaks.
"Come, then," she says, slowly, "if you will. Though I am not afraid. Why should I be? Do you forget that I am one of themselves? My father and I belong to the people."
She says this steadily, and very proudly, with her head held high, but without looking at him; which permits Geoffrey to gaze at her exhaustively. There is an unconscious meaning in her words, quite clear to him. She is of "the people," he of a class that looks but coldly upon hers. A mighty river, called Caste, rolls between them, dividing him from her. But shall it? Some hazy thought like this floats through his brain. They walk on silently, scarcely exchanging a syllable one with the other, until they come within sight of a small thatched house built at the side of the road. It has a manure-heap just in front of it, and a filthy pool to its left, in which an ancient sow is wallowing, whilst grunting harmoniously.
Two people, a man and a woman, are standing together some yards from the cabin, whispering and gesticulating violently, as is "their nature to."
The man, seeing Mona, breaks from the woman, and comes up to her.
"Go back again, miss," he says, with much excitement. "They've brought him home, an' he's bad to look at. I've seed him, an' it's given me a turn I won't forget in a hurry. Go home, I tell ye. 'Tis a sight not fit for the eyes of the likes of you."
"Is he there?" asks Mona, pointing with trembling fingers to the house.
"Ay, where else?" answers the woman, sullenly who has joined them. "They brought him back to the home he will never rouse again with step or voice. 'Tis cold he is, an' silent this day."