CHAPTER XXIX
"So you're goin' to Steve's, Deirdre?"
It was Thad McNab who spoke. He stood on the doorstep in the sunshine, his yellow face thrust through the doorway, the pale eyes in it, smiling.
Deirdre was putting the last of her ribbands, handkerchiefs and little personal belongings into a small canvas saddle-bag. McNab's voice startled her. She glanced across at him.
"Yes," she said. The sight of his crooked figure there, in the doorway, with the sunlight playing across it, brought her a sense of uneasy wondering.
Quite suddenly, the night before, Farrel had decided to go up to the hills with Conal in the morning. He had told Deirdre to follow them as soon as she had set the cottage in order and collected her clothes. She wanted to go with them, but there were a hundred and one things to keep her busy in the house—dishes to scour, floors to sweep, covers and crockery to lock away in the cupboards. She had just quenched the fire. The ashes were smoking behind her, under the water she had poured over them, when McNab appeared. The township was well astir by this time. The Schoolmaster had talked of going to Steve's for long enough; she did not expect anyone to be surprised at it. He did not seem to expect that anyone would be surprised either, though he had made up his mind rather suddenly the night before, and had told her to ride out quietly and without chattering to anyone in the morning.
Yet McNab seemed surprised and annoyed. She wondered how he knew so soon that the Schoolmaster had gone with Conal. It was very early. The sunshine was still of an untarnished brilliance. Mrs. Mary Ann's ducks and geese were making their first trip in wavering white and mottled lines to the shallow pools left by the tide beside the river. Deirdre could see them through the open doorway.
"Mighty sudden the Schoolmaster made up his mind, eh, my blackbird?" Thad said, with, what for him was geniality, though geniality on his voice had a sour sound.
He shuffled into the room and stood near her.
Deirdre folded a ribband and packed it into her bag. She made a great appearance of being busy, going to and from the kitchen and the cupboards, wrapping up and putting into the bag all manner of things that she had not meant to take, in order that she might not be still to look at, or to talk to McNab. She did not want him to see how the sight of him had set her heart throbbing, a little nervous pulse fluttering in her throat. His nearness filled her with a sick fear, but she would not have had McNab guess it. She knew the shrewd sharpness of those pale, shifty eyes of his. Her eyes met his clearly. There was not a flicker of the smooth, white lids above them.