She walked up the road to her mother's, and she hardly saw the fields or the mountains, though she knew she would never look upon them again. And her mother was sweeping out the house. She had the chairs out in the pathway. She had heard that the rector was coming down that afternoon, and she wanted to show him how beautifully clean she kept the cabin.
"I've come, mother, to give you this," and she took the wedding ring off her finger and threw it on the ground. "I don't want it; I shut the door on him last night, and I'm going to America to-day. You see how well the marriage that you and the priest made up together has turned out."
"Going to America," said Mrs. Kavanagh, and it suddenly occurred to her that Kate might be going to America with Pat Connex, but she did not dare to say it.
She stood looking at the bushes that grew between their cottage and the next one, and she remembered how she and her brother used to cut the branches of the alder to make pop guns, for the alder branches are full of sap, and when the sap is expelled there is a hole smooth as the barrel of a gun. "I'm going," she said suddenly, "there's nothing more to say. Good-bye."
She walked away quickly, and her mother said, "She's going with Pat Connex." But she had no thought of going to America with him. It was not until she met him a little further on, at the cross roads, that the thought occurred to her that he might like to go to America with her. She called him, and he came to her, and he looked a nice boy, but she thought he was better in Ireland. And the country seemed far away, though she was still in it, and the people too, though she was still among them.
"I'm going to America, Pat."
"You were married yesterday."
"Yes, that was the priest's doing and mother's and I thought they knew best. But I'm thinking one must go one's way, and there's no judging for one's self here. That's why I'm going. You'll find some other girl, Pat."
"There's not another girl like you in the village. We're a dead and alive lot. You stood up to the priest."
"I didn't stand up to him enough. You're waiting for someone. Who are you waiting for?"