Her new employer was a stranger, and the friends she had just left seemed to be receding very far away. She looked mentally back on them, as a traveller ferrying across to an unfamiliar shore looks back at the faces on the brink. She could see the roofs of Llangarth appearing in the green and blue of the landscape, and the smoke curling among the trees. She paused and laid down her bundle, leaning against a gate. A path which was a short cut to the town from the uplands of Crishowell, ran, a wavy line through the clover and daisies, towards her halting-place; and, though a man’s figure was coming along it, she was so much pre-occupied that she did not notice his approach. It was only when he stood not a yard from her that she moved aside to let him pass. The man was George Williams.
Mary had thought many times of their parting, and, as the wound in her mind began to ache less and her agonizing sensitiveness to abate, her judgment grew straighter. She began to see that she had done George a wrong, misjudging his impulses, and she sincerely wished her words unsaid; but, being one of those souls to whom explanation is torture, she had made no sign. Even now, though she longed to set it right, she could find no voice for a moment. He passed her with an indistinct word.
“George.”
He stopped immediately.
“George, I treated you bad when I shut the door on you. I didn’t understand. It’s hard to do right,” said Mary simply.
“Then you bean’t angry, Mary? Not now?”
“No, no.”
Facing each other, there seemed nothing more to say. In their state of life there are no small embroideries round the main subject.
“I’m going to Llangarth,” said the girl, with a clumsy attempt at ending the episode.
“So am I,” said he.