He offered his arm. She took it in a stiff clutch. They walked down the road; she was holding the long riding skirt by its braided loop, and the shadows of their bodies dissolved in a grotesque pool beside them.

“You despise me,” Dan said. “Probably it’s natural that you should.”

“Natural?” she repeated, as if she were very tired.

He tried to speak without emotion. “I was the aggressor. Whatever wrong has been managed, you can charge against me.”

“I have tried to charge you with a great many things,” the girl said, “but—I’ve been so hideously mixed up, body and soul.”

He halted, and seized her hands. “If you knew how I felt, would it be any easier?”

Her laugh was a brief, hopeless pleading. “Mr. Bale, are you going to tell me of your great love for me?”

“It may be that. I don’t know. You’ve been with me—my mind, ever since. And before.”

She went on, dully: “You tried to fling me out of your mind, and failed. That is a greater compliment than I could have expected.”

They were walking again. “And because you are a gentleman—a sensitive one—your conscience has been active. If you are a Christian, you may consider both of us utterly damned, and hate me for it.”

“That’s not true. Not a word of it.” He swore softly.

“I wonder,” Irene Fanning said. Her eyes lifted, holding a steady question.

Beneath the shade of the big beech tree, Dazzle nickered inquisitively. A slow rumble of wheels came in a rising echo, not far up the road … The girl pressed her hands nervously. “We must not be seen here, Mr. Bale. Not this way. At least no one knows about—about— No one else.”

“They’ll see the horse.”

“I could have left him tied—and gone for a stroll—”

“In here,” he whispered quickly. He pushed the branches of elderberry aside, opening a tunnel into the thick shrubbery. The woman crowded through; Bale followed, drawing the green leaves together. There was a low ditch behind the matted bulwark; clover hay grew tall and unclipped, spilling past the broken bars of a fence. The approaching wagon joggled closer. “Down,” the man whispered. He drew her into the cushioned jungle of hay; her throat was hot against his wrist.

The wheels and hoofs stopped for a moment as the driver paused to gaze at the bay colt. Then the vehicle creaked again; it rolled past the elderberry ambush, a rusty team, a faded old Stanhope with the bearded driver mumbling to himself. Dan thought: that old man Truckenmiller again—I would have thought him too shaky to drive alone … The wheels muttered out of hearing.

Dan whispered, “Das Alter wägt, die Jugend wagt.”

“What?” she asked.

“Youth ventures—starts ahead—while old age considers. That villain of a Truckenmiller—he quoted it in town yesterday.”