As soon as I was sufficiently composed, within and without, Father Dan led me downstairs (praying God and His Holy Mother to strengthen me on my solitary way), and then stood at the door in his cassock to watch me while I walked up the road.
It was hardly more than half an hour since I had passed over the ground before, yet in that short time the world seemed to have become pale and grey—the sun gone out, the earth grown dark, the still air joyless, nothing left but the everlasting heavens and the heavy song of the sea.
As I approached the doctor's house Martin came swinging down the road to meet me, with his strong free step and that suggestion of the wind from the mountain-tops which seemed to be always about him.
"Hello!" he cried. "Thought you were lost and been hunting all over the place for you."
But as he came nearer and saw how white and wan my face was, though I was doing my best to smile, he stopped and said:
"My poor little woman, where have you been, and what have they been doing to you?"
And then, as well as I could, I told him.
ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVENTH CHAPTER
"It's all my fault," he said.