Kate went up for her cloak and hat, and in the interval between her departure and reappearance, Grannie and Nancy Joe, both glorified beings, Nancy with her unaccustomed cap askew, stood in the middle of a group of women, who were deferring, and inquiring, and sympathising.
“I don't know in the world how she has kept up so long,” said Grannie.
“And dear heart knows how I'm to keep up when she's gone,” said Nancy, with her apron to her eyes.
Kate came down ready. Everybody followed her into the road, and all stood round the gig with flashes from the gig-lamps on their faces, while Pete swung her up into the seat, lifting her bodily in his great arms.
“You wouldn't drown yourself to-night for an ould rusty nail, eh, Capt'n?” cried somebody with a laugh.
“You go bail,” said Pete, and he leapt up to Kate's side, twiddled the reins, cracked the whip, and they drove away.
XXIV.
Philip had stood at the door of the porch, struggling to command his soul, and employing all his powers to look cheerful and even gay. But as Kate had passed she had looked at him with an imploring look, and then he had seemed to understand everything—that she had made a mistake and that she knew it, that her laughter had been bitterer than tears, that some compulsion had been put upon her, and that she was a wretched and miserable woman. At the next moment she had gone by with an odour of lace and perfume; and then a flood of tenderness, of pity, of mad jealousy had come upon him, and it had been as much as he could do to restrain himself. One instant he held himself in hand, and at the next the wheels of the gig had begun to move, the horse had started, the women had trooped into the house again, and there was nothing before him but the broad back of Cæsar, who was looking into the darkness after the vanishing gig-lamps, and breathing asthmatical breath.
“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife,” said Cæsar. “You're time enough yet, sir; come in, come in.”