He was feeling like a man who in a moment of passion has secretly wronged his life-long friend and can never look straight into his eyes again.
But the sense of a barrier between Gell and himself was soon wiped out by the memory of Fenella. He was free to love her at last! No more hypocrisy! No more self-denial! No more struggles between passion and duty! The past was dead. Life from that day forward was beginning again for all of them.
"Was that Alick Gell in the wood with you?" asked Janet, who had come to the door to call Stowell in to tea.
"Yes."
"Goodness me! He must be a happy boy. He was laughing enough, anyway."
III
Stowell went to bed early that night, slept soundly and was up with the coming of light in the morning.
The farm lads were not yet astir, but going round to the stable he saddled a horse for himself (a young chestnut mare that had been born on one of his own birthdays) and set off for a ride to relieve the intoxication of his spirits.
The air was keen, but both he and his horse sniffed it with delight. As they passed out of Ballamoar the sun rose and played among the red and yellow leaves of the plantation, for the summer was going out in a blaze of glory. They crossed the Curragh, dipped into the glen, and climbed the corkscrew path to the mountain.
Stowell thought he had never felt so well. And the little mare, catching the contagion of his high spirits, snorted and swung her head at every stride and dug her feet into the ringing ground.