Chevenix, watching her, said, “He'll like you like this, I expect. May I tell you that you're a heady compound? Do be quiet. Remember that I'm holding the chain. I won't swear to every link.” She laughed, and pressed forward, the wind kissing her eyes.
They reached the racecourse, and had, behind them and before, two valleys. Their road lay now due west, keeping the ridge—a broad grass track belted rarely by woods on the north, but open on the south to hill and vale in diversity of sun and shade, a billowy sea of grass where no sign of man was to be seen. Sanchia's heart was so light she scarcely touched the ground. She swam the air, not flew. Chevenix pounded in her wake.
“You know,” he told her by and by, “he's alone here? A solitary figure? Doing the hermit? Crying in the Wilderness?”
She had guessed, but not known that. Caution set a guard upon her eyes and tongue. “Do you mean—that he's always alone?”
“Bless you, yes. His lady couldn't stick it. She fled. But she's quite fond of him—in her way. I found out his address from her. She was quite glad I was going to see him. But she never goes herself, I believe. She's married. Other views altogether, she has. Or he has—her husband, you know. It was a rum business altogether, her taking up with old Senhouse. I could have told her what would come of that, if she'd asked me. No malice, you know—now. They're good friends. Write to each other. As a fact, she's married. She was a widow. She married a man I know, a chap in the House, name of Duplessis. Sulky chap, but able. Keeps her in order. Old Senhouse will speak about it—you see if he don't.”
She was full of thought over these sayings. What had he been about when he mated with a woman of this sort? “A man don't live like that,” had been Nevile's explanation of part of his own history. Was this the meaning of her friend's vagary? Would he tell her? She would never ask him, but would give worlds to know.
Presently, and quite suddenly, as they pushed their way, now in silence broken only by Chevenix's cheerful whistling, upon that backbone of a broad hill-country—quite suddenly her heart leaped, and then stood fast. “Look, look!” she said softly. “There's Jack, close to us!” In a sheltered hollow some hundred feet below the level at which they were, a hooded figure in pure white was startlingly splashed upon the grey-brown of the dry hills. The peak of a cowl shot straight above his head, and the curtains of it covered his face. He sat, squatting upon the turf, with a lifted hand admonishing. About him, with cocked ears, and quick side-glances, were some six or seven hares, some reared upon their haunches, some, with sleek heads, intent upon the herbage, one lopping here and there in quest, but none out of range of a quick hand. Above his head, high in the blue, birds were wheeling, now up, now down. Peewits tumbling heavily, pigeons with beating wings, sailing jackdaws—higher yet, serene in rarity, a brown kestrel oared the sky.
Sanchia's soft eyes gleamed with wet. “Saint Francis and the hares! Oh, dearest, have I never known you?”
“What a chance for a rifleman!” said Chevenix. “That beats the cocks.”
They stood intent for a while, not daring to disturb the mystery enacting. Chevenix whispered, “He's giving 'em church, to-day being Sunday,” while Sanchia, breathless, said, “Hush! hush!” and felt the tears fret a way down her cheeks. Presently she put both hands to her breast and fell upon her knees. Chevenix, not insensible to her emotion, lit a pipe. Thus he broke the spell.