At last, however, she was there, and we at once saw that she was alone. She came on, breasting the hill with quick steps, and when she drew near we could see that there was a frown as of injured majesty on her brow. Mackinnon and his wife went forward to meet her. If she were really in trouble it would be fitting in some way to assist her, and of all women Mrs. Mackinnon was the last to see another woman suffer from ill usage without attempting to aid her. “I certainly never liked her,” Mrs. Mackinnon said afterward, “but I was bound to go and hear her tale when she really had a tale to tell.”
And Mrs. Talboys now had a tale to tell—if she chose to tell it. The ladies of our party declared afterward that she would have acted more wisely had she kept to herself both O’Brien’s words to her and her answer. “She was well able to take care of herself,” Mrs. Mackinnon said; “and after all the silly man had taken an answer when he got it.” Not, however, that O’Brien had taken his answer quite immediately, as far as I could understand from what we heard of the matter afterward.
At the present moment Mrs. Talboys came up the rising ground all alone and at a quick pace. “The man has insulted me,” she said aloud, as well as her panting breath would allow her, and as soon as she was near enough to Mrs. Mackinnon to speak to her.
“I am sorry for that,” said Mrs. Mackinnon. “I suppose he has taken a little too much wine.”
“No; it was a premeditated insult. The base-hearted churl has failed to understand the meaning of true, honest sympathy.”
“He will forget all about it when he is sober,” said Mackinnon, meaning to comfort her.
“What care I what he remembers or what he forgets?” she said, turning upon poor Mackinnon indignantly. “You men grovel so in your ideas—” (“And yet,” as Mackinnon said afterward, “she had been telling me that I was a fool for the last three weeks.”) “You men grovel so in your ideas that you cannot understand the feelings of a true-hearted woman. What can his forgetfulness or his remembrance be to me? Must not I remember this insult? Is it possible that I should forget it?”
Mr. and Mrs. Mackinnon only had gone forward to meet her, but nevertheless she spoke so loud that all heard her who were still clustered round the spot on which we had dined.
“What has become of Mr. O’Brien?” a lady whispered to me.
I had a field-glass with me, and, looking round, I saw his hat as he was walking inside the walls of the circus in the direction toward the city. “And very foolish he must feel,” said the lady.