She rose slowly and he took her by the hand to lead her out.
When they came to the air by the door at which they went in he said: “Wait here by the wagon. I want to wash a bit.” She caught a white gleam of him in the moonlight as he got out of the puddler’s rig and heard him splashing under the tap at the water tank. He was not long, and returned carrying his coat on his arm, otherwise dressed as when he came, except that his collar was missing and the front of his shirt lay open. He offered to help her up.
“I’d like to walk,” she said.
One of the watchmen who had returned took charge of the horse and they departed on foot. Although dense smoke still issued from the stack there was very little of Enoch left in it, perhaps not a trace. When Thane last looked there was nothing on the incandescent bed of the oven but an ashy outline fainter than a shadow. The fire as it was would continue to burn for hours.
“Thought you might rather go to the hotel,” he said, when they were through the gate, and he had locked it again. “We’ve got rooms there.”
“I would,” she answered, “only I’ve no sleep in me and I’d like to walk.”
She was looking toward the mountain and they walked that way. Thane was stirred by an intuition, which he disbelieved, that if he were passive and let her choose they would come to a certain path. And they did. He had a further intuition, most unbelievable, that of her own accord she would stop at a certain place, turn in a certain way, and stand looking into the valley. And she did.
It was the spot at which they first met, the night of his battle with the Cornishman,—a night very like this one.
All the way she had been silent. If they touched, walking side by side, he made it clear without words that the contact was accidental. When they came to the path he stood aside and she went ahead. When at this spot she stopped and turned her face to the valley he went a few paces away, not to disturb her reverie, and stood with his face averted.
The summer night was cool; but the air he breathed was hot, tasteless and suffocating. Memory reconstructed the episode of their original meeting. It went on from there. He saw as in one picture the whole of his life with Agnes and feelings extremely inconsistent assailed him. There was one,—the one he thought he had got control of,—that rose higher and higher, for a reason he seemed painfully aware of and yet for a moment could not recall. Then he remembered. It referred to that moment in the mill when he kissed her for the first time in his life, and by force. He had forgotten it as one might momentarily forget having just committed a murder. He loathed himself for having done it. He wondered that she could tolerate him afterward, could walk with him alone, could speak to him with no sign of disgust. He wondered what she was thinking, so still in the moonlight. Probably thinking of that.