"All this," he continued, waving his hand toward the evening sky and the quiet landscape, "all this reminds me of her. You know, Martha, when you look at the sun for a while you can see suns everywhere you look; that's the way it is with me."
The colour was fading from the sky; only the faintest trace of rose-pink tinged the gray clouds.
"I think I shall go home to England," Arthur said, after a long silence. "I shall go home for a while, and then, perhaps—pshaw! I don't know what I shall do." In the failing light he could not see the pallor of Martha's face, neither did he notice that she shivered as if with cold.
The sunset glory had all gone from the clouds; there was nothing left now but the ashes.
"I am sorry you are going," Martha said steadily. "We will miss you."
The schoolmaster, who was sitting by the kitchen window, noticed Martha's white face when she came into the house and guessed the cause. Looking after Arthur as he walked rapidly down the road to his own house, Mr. Donald shook his head sadly, murmuring to himself: "Lord, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
When Martha went up to her own room she sat before the mirror as she had done that at other night two years before, and looked sadly at her face reflected there. She recalled his words: "She is lovelier than ever"—this was what had won and held his love. Oh, this cruel, unjust world, where the woman without beauty has to go lonely, hungry, unmated—it was not fair; she stretched out her arms in an agony of longing.
"Thursa cares nothing for him, and I would gladly die to save him pain!" she whispered hoarsely.
She tore off her collar roughly and threw it from her; she took down her hair and brushed it almost savagely; then she went to the open window, and, leaning on the casement, listened to the rustling of the wheat. It no longer sang to her of peace and plenty, but inexorable, merciless as the grave itself, it spoke to her of heart-break and hopes that never come true.
* * *