Leland smiled as she pressed a little clasp and then, dropping one hand smartly, caught the rifle as the sling fell apart. Carrie had changed suddenly and curiously. The pride that was in her had awakened, and she was at one with her husband and wholly practical.
"It is ever so much quicker than passing it over your shoulder; and, after all, you must go," she said.
She stretched up her arms and kissed him. When the man had swung himself into the saddle, she looked long after him, with eyes that were hazy. When he became a blur in the distance, she went slowly to the house, head proudly erect. There Eveline Annersly greeted her.
"My dear," she said, "you need not tell me. You have been trying to hold your husband back, and you have failed. The thing was out of the question. You might have known."
Carrie made a little half-wistful gesture, though there was a faint glow in her eyes. "Yes, I did what I could, and now I shall not rest until he comes back again. Still, I think I deserve it, and I'm not sure that I would have him different. I think nothing would change Charley. I used to wonder more than I do now how he, who was born on the prairie, came to have all the real essential things which were not in any of us at Barrock-holme."
Eveline Annersly's eyes sparkled, and her manner was sardonic. "It's not very explicit, but I think I know what you mean. Haven't you lost your faith in the old fetish yet? Men are men—good, bad, and indifferent—the world over, and, though it would be rather nice to believe it, we haven't, and never had, a monopoly in our own class of what you call the essentials. Indeed, I'm not quite sure one couldn't go a little further."
She was standing near the open window, with the light, which was low, some distance away from her. Turning, she drew Carrie within the heavy curtains. "The very old and the very new are apt to meet," she said. "There is an example yonder."
Carrie looked out into the soft moonlight, and saw a mounted figure cut against the sky on the crest of a low rise. It was indistinct and shadowy, but, as she gazed, she twice caught the gleam of the pale cold light on steel, and knew it for the flash of a rifle-barrel.
"Oh," she said, "since I came to this country I have felt it too. That was how the border spears rode out six hundred years ago. . . . Of course, you were right a little while ago. I think the things that are essential must always have been the same—primitive and unchangeable. Faith and courage have always been needed, as they are needed still. After all, we cannot get away from death and toil and pain."
The lonely figure vanished into the night, and, as her companion moved away, Carrie let the curtain fall behind her with a little sigh. "It is getting late, and I can only wait and try to think there is no danger, until he comes back to me. No doubt others have done it, back through all the centuries."