She wondered where she was, and how she came to be there. Then she saw the dead horse, and the gun that a cow smelt uneasily. She remembered that Pete had killed Ned, and that he had perhaps tried to kill her. She scrambled to her feet and the cattle jostled each other to get away from her. She staggered as she stood: for she had no strength, and all desire of life had gone out of her. And with that there came a sickness of the notion of revenge: it would only be trying to revenge herself on the inexorable destiny which was hers. Pete had killed her man and had gone. She would go back to her dead.
Overhead the sun burnt as she staggered on the road, the long, endless, wearying road, so like to life. She went at a foot pace, and the miles were weary endless spaces without hope. For her man was dead, and Pete was a cruel madman, and there was nothing left for her. Yet still she walked, like some painful hurt creature returning to its lair. She ached in every limb: her head seemed splitting: the physical torture of her being dulled her mind. And as it seemed to her only the sun of all things moved swiftly. It was drawing on towards evening when she came to her house and stood outside the door. Her knees trembled: she clutched at the latch and door-post to prevent herself falling.
Inside was her man dead: her man who had been so good and so cruel. She began to weep and opened the door, letting the westering sunlight in. The next moment she screamed dreadfully, for the place where she had left him was vacant!
"Oh, Ned, Ned!" she cried in a most lamentable voice. And yet within her murdered heart there sprang a faint poor flower of hope even as she cried. If he had been moved was it not that someone had come and taken him away? Then—then, oh, God, perhaps he was not dead! Her brain turned: she reeled again and clutched at the table and held to it.
"My God, listen to me, be merciful, where is my man, the man I love?"
She wrestled with the dark gods of fate whose blinded eyes knew not, nor cared, whom they trod down upon the dusty roads of earth.
And then she heard a rustle in the room, as of something stirring! She prayed that this was true: that she did not hear amiss and that when her eyes opened she would see Ned once more.
She heard a groan and ran to it blindly and found her man there, on the bed, their bed, still alive, though half blinded, blood-covered and hardly conscious!
"Ned, Ned!"
In her mad desire for revenge she had left him, believing him dead. She fell beside him with a scream that was no more than a sigh, and when she became conscious again after that awful shock of joy, she found his wounded hands seeking hers. She heard his hurt mouth whisper for water. For the little good that came with all the evil she thanked her God very humbly and brought the man water. He spoke to her and did not know that she had been away from him. He knew not how he had reached the bed, or come back to life and to her. He was very weak and gentle.