Then, all at once, she saw the horse lying near. Again she shivered, and her hand was thrown out in a gesture of pain.
“Oh, see-see!” she cried. “His leg is broken.” She loved animals far more than human beings. There were good reasons for it. She had fared hard in life at the hands of men and women, because the only ones with whom, in her seclusion, she had had to do, had sacrificed her, all save one-the man beside her. Animal life had something in it akin to her own voiceless being. Her spirit had never been vocal until Orlando came.
“Oh, how wicked I’ve been!” she cried.... “I couldn’t bear it any longer. He wouldn’t let me ride alone, go anywhere alone. I had to do it. I’d never ridden this horse before. My own mare wasn’t fit.
“See-see. It’s my ankle that ought to be broken, not his.”
Orlando got to his feet. “Look the other way,” he said. “Turn round, please. I’ll put him out of pain. He bolted with you, and he’d have killed you, if he could; but that doesn’t matter. He can’t be saved. Turn round, don’t look this way.”
She had been commanded to do things all her life, first by her mother, tyrant-hearted and selfish, and then by her husband, an overlord, with a savage soul; and she had obeyed always, because she always seemed to be in the grasp of something against which no pressure could avail. She was being commanded now, but there was that in the voice which, while commanding her, made her long to do as she was bid. It was an obedience filled with passion, resigning itself to the will of a force which was all gentleness, but oh, so compelling!
She buried her face in her hands, and presently Orlando had opened a vein in the chestnut’s neck, and its life-blood slowly ebbed away.
As he turned towards her again, Orlando was startled by a sudden action on the part of his broncho. Whether it was the smell of blood which frightened it, or death itself, which has its own terrors to animal life, or whether it was as though a naked, shivering animal soul passed by, the broncho started, shied and presently broke into a trot; then, before Orlando could reach it, into a gallop, and was away down the prairie in the direction of Slow Down Ranch.
“That’s queer,” he said, and he gave a nervous little laugh. “It’s the worst of luck, and—and we’re twelve miles from Tralee,” he added slowly.
“It’s terrible!” Louise said, her fingers twisting together in an effort at self-control. “Don’t you see how terrible it is?” she asked, looking into Orlando’s troubled face but cheerful eyes.