Carroll's smile showed that he could guess what was in his comrade's mind.
"I shouldn't worry too much about the thing. The girl probably understands the situation. It's not altogether pleasant, but I dare say she's more or less resigned to it. She can't help herself."
Vane gazed at him with anger.
"Does that make it any better? Is it any comfort to me?"
"Take her out of it. If she has any liking for you, she'll thank you for doing so."
Vane strode away, and nobody saw him again for an hour or two. In the afternoon, however, at Mrs. Chisholm's suggestion, he and Carroll set out with the girls for a hill beyond the tarn.
It was a perfect day of late autumn. A pale golden haze softened the rugged outlines of crag and fell, which towered in purple masses against a sky of stainless azure. Warm sunshine flooded the valley, glowing on the gold and crimson that flecked the lower beech sprays and turning the leaves of the brambles to points of ruby flame. Here and there white limestone ridges flung back the light, and the tarn gleamed like molten silver when a faint puff of wind traced a dark blue smear athwart its surface. The winding road was thick with dust, and a deep stillness brooded over everything.
By and by, however, a couple of whip-cracks rose from beyond a dip of the road and were followed by a shout in a woman's voice and a sharp clatter of iron on stone.
"Oh!" cried Mabel, when they reached the brow of the descent, "the poor thing can't get up! What a shame to give it such a load!"
The road fell sharply between ragged hedgerows, and near the foot of the hill a pony was struggling vainly to move a cart. The vehicle was heavily loaded, and while the animal strained and floundered, a woman struck it with a whip.