"You wouldn't," Power said. "And no use if you could. She isn't there. We shan't see her again."
"Gawd! I must go across! I can't stay here!"
"It will do no good, Mick. She has escaped us."
Power drew his horse beside the other man, for the clamour of the river made speech difficult. He began to speak more intimately than ever he remembered doing.
"Once I loved her in a way it will be hard to love anyone else. Then passion seemed to go away—somewhere, I don't know where; but she taught me so much I shall never be out of her debt. She has made me look on life with new eyes.
"I have something to tell you. I was down here last night before the rain began. She had been alone all day, and she was quite strange—so serious. We talked about a lot of things, and I asked her which of us three she loved. She said it was you. The three of us fought over her, and in the middle she slipped away and it seems we have lost her; but because she loved you, she left you her best behind.
"We must go back and get dry. There is nothing else to do. To-morrow, if the storms keep away, we can look for her lower down; but we won't find her. Just now the world seems to have come to an end. Things will be straighter in a bit, and we'll find there is something to be got out of this. To reach for a thing and to get it may be good enough, but a man grows quicker by stretching for the thing beyond his hand. We shall always remember her as a fairy thing out of reach, and looking for her to come again will help a fellow to growl less in the summer, give him more patience to teach his dog manners, hurry him through the day's work. Come, we must get back."
Power brought his horse about. He heard O'Neill splash behind him. He went across to King, and King turned up a haggard face.
"We must get back. There is nothing to do."