“But Saunders was at the fair till afternoon,” said he, at the end of a long pause, during which neither had looked at the other.
“I heard that. I s’pose he came back.”
To the shepherd’s practical mind there were discrepancies of time in Susannah’s account that he could not adjust. When he had reached Talgwynne he had found the best part of the fair over; for noon saw business ebb in the little hillside place. His tardy appearance had been hailed with interest, and he was immediately secured to ride a horse for the inspection of a man who, he was told, had been all day in the town. The recollection of these facts sprang up to assort itself very ill with his companion’s words. He made up his mind to get to Talgwynne on the first possible chance of absenting himself from his work and to see what he could elicit from his father. He could not tell how far the old man might be in Susannah’s confidence. He did not speak of his intention to her, and it struck him, when he turned to take his way up the hill and they stood within sight of the waiting gig, that she made no suggestion of his coming. It was the first time in his recollection of her that she had seen him without pressing him to come soon.
They had reached a dip in the ground which hid the wayside cottage where the gig with Susannah’s friends was drawn up. She had looked for the expression of greater resentment from him, but he had cursed neither fate nor Saunders. He spoke of Catherine’s desertion of him almost as if it had happened to some one else. There was no excitement in his manner, even little concern; and, for a man who had so few scruples about strong measures when they suited him, he seemed to accept his defeat with curious calmness. If he had flung away from his father’s door with every sign of uncalculating bitterness, he was different now. She told herself with triumph that he had taken Catherine’s measure at last. Perhaps Susannah paid too little heed to those inconsistencies in him which surprised others.
As they parted she held out her hand and looked up at him with half-closed, half-mocking eyes.
“Ah—you’ll forget her in time, Heber,” she said, her fingers clinging to his as he touched them. She raised her face till it was close to his own.
He thrust her away with one short, frightfully definite word.
When she got into the gig a few minutes afterwards she was as white as a sheet.