Some little pointed birds in a flock twitted from branch to branch in the sun, and the road went up a hilltop and lay along a ridge where a woman standing by a great gate stopped to watch them pass, her hand stayed on the latch pin. A woman sat before the door of her house among withering hollyhock stems where the road fell gently down to the valley again, and beside the bridge a kingfisher flew from a limb and darted behind the white of a plane tree, the departure of the bird standing out upon the air as something never seen before by man. Ellen looked at her hands as they lay before the folds of her cloak, her hands acutely recognised and the cloak, hardly her own, folded strangely about her, her body stilled and muffled under the strangeness of the old cloak and the kindness of Jasper whose hand touched her sleeve. The day lay outstretched laterally, no marks upon it, and she greeted herself intently. Sometimes Jasper held her hand and then the edge of her sleeve touched the worn edge of his and in that moment became more real. The strange road went over hills and through valleys, winding between farms or stretching along ridges, the dust red or sandy, or Jasper leaned nearer to kiss her as they passed before a grapevine tree and a great hawk flew over with wide frayed wings. A smoke lay along the sky in a long design, and then a band of colour, grey and dull purple, gathered, and the town began to appear beneath the smoke. Many travellers were met in wagons or carriages. Then the old driver turned the horses down a long hill into the town, the white stones of the graves off to the right spreading about widely in the sun. The houses seemed very near together. The railroad was a black path leading straight away in a long strange line that turned outward from the hill, and beyond the railroad came the street with store windows, where wagons were drawn up to the curb or went quickly by. They passed through the court square without a stop, but Ellen saw the red wall of the courthouse and the grey wall of the jail. Then Jasper was pointing back to the jail and she saw its oblong windows set with one iron bar.

‘That-there second window. I tried all night to get outen there, but the bar was fast. Then the next night the jailer he locked me inside a cage, and every night after.’

The fear of the jail settled on Ellen for a space as they went quickly up the hill leading from the town, going north, and she wondered what stood in Jasper’s mind as his eyes stared at the moving fencerow and what as they turned to the floor of the wagon or fixed upon the back of the driver. She noticed that the man on the seat before them was more than old, a being now the black of whose hair was thickly grizzled where it brushed against his coat collar and his neck was weathered and seamed, the thick skin burnt with age, and what did he have and what was his wish about the world? The road was stony beyond the town and a great flock of grackles were gathering above a thin wood, as if it were evening.