I was paying dearly for a few hours of happiness; very dearly for the belief which had lasted no more than a few hours, that she loved me. I wondered now on what I had founded it. On the fact that she had drawn back when it had come to hazarding my life? On that moment when she had turned to me for help? On that other when she had clung to me? On a blush, a look? Oh, fool! These were nothings, I saw now; things imponderable, intangible, evasive as the air, fugitive as the wind. She had not loved me. She had only made her market of me. She had only made use of me. She had drawn me into her plans with others, with Tom, with Levi, with her god-father, with Rawdon, with Paton! She had made her market of us all—and saved her father’s life.
Well, I was glad she had! I would not for the world have had it otherwise. If my love for her held anything that was good and honest and unselfish—and I thought it did—I must rejoice with her, and I would. She owed me nothing, while I owed her father my life. And so at worst we were quits.
By this time the sun had drunk up the last of the fog, and showed the flats in all their ugliness. Well, I would be going. There was no more to be done here. It was all over.
I went into the mill and stood staring at the troop-horses. I saw that with only one arm I should find it no easy matter to saddle them, but it had to be done. First, however, I went upstairs to get my cloak, and I found not mine only—on a box beside the expiring fire lay hers. So she had left it as lightly as she had left me! Beside it, cast heedlessly on the floor lay the pistol that had done so much for us. She had not given a second thought to that either. I took it, and hid it in my breast. It had lain in hers when she had been unhappy, when the heart, against which it had pressed, had throbbed to bursting with the pain of fear and of suspense. I would never part with it.
I went down, carrying the cloaks, and began to deal with the horses. With some difficulty I saddled and bridled the one I had ridden, but the gray proved to be a rogue. As often as I forced the bit between its teeth it flung up its head and got rid of it before I could secure the cheekstrap. Thrice I tried and thrice the brute baffled me and once hit me heavily on the chin. A fourth time I tried and failing gave over with an oath, and laid my face against the saddle. It was her saddle, and heaven knows whether it was that which overcame me, or my helplessness, or the feeling that they had left me to do this, but—
“You must let me help you with that.”
I started. The rush of joy was so over-powering, the shock of hearing her voice so unexpected, that it dazzled me as if a flame had passed before my eyes. On that instant of rapture followed another—of unreasoning and unreasonable shame. How long had she been there? What had she seen—she who had once called me a milksop? “I was tightening a girth,” I mumbled, keeping my head lowered.
“Yes,” she said, “but it has slipped again, I think.”
I groped for it—it was indeed hanging under the horse’s barrel. I murmured that the stable was so dark that it was almost impossible—
“You must let me help you.”