Eveline Annersly had little wish to go. The storm had left her shaken and unwilling to move, but she forced herself to get up, for it seemed that Carrie might have need of her. So they went out together. There was now a little light in the sky, and the bluff showed up black and sharp against it. The air was fresh and chill. Carrie, however, noticed nothing as she moved swiftly through the wheat, through the melting ice that lay thickly upon the sod. Other shadowy figures were also moving in the same direction, and there was a murmur of voices when at last she stopped. "It's Mrs. Leland," said somebody, and the group of men drew back a little. Then Carrie caught her breath with a sob, for the tall wheat had gone, and, so far as she could see, ruin was spread across the belt of ploughing. The green blades lay smashed and torn upon the beaten soil. The crop had vanished under the dread reaping of the hail. The light was growing clearer, and it seemed to Eveline Annersly, who remembered how the roar had suggested the beat of horses' hoofs, that instead of a brigade of cavalry, an army division, with guns and transport, had passed that way through the grain. Then something in the fancy struck her as especially apposite, and she turned to Carrie, who stood rigid, as though turned to stone. "Look!" she said; "it isn't everywhere the same." A man came up, and she recognised him as Gallwey. He apparently heard her, for he beckoned to them. "Will you come forward, Mrs. Leland?" he said. "We have a good deal to be thankful for." They went with him a hundred yards or so. Then Carrie gasped at what she saw in the growing light of dawn. "Oh," she cried joyously, "it hasn't reached the rest of it!" "No," said Gallwey, "we are on the dividing line. I don't know how many bushels it has reaped, but, by comparison, it is not enough to worry about. A little wonderful. Still, I believe it's not unusual, and I have seen very much the same thing once before." "Is there no more of the wheat damaged?" asked Carrie, and there was still a tension in her voice. "Not a blade," said Gallwey. "I've been all round." Then all the strength seemed to leave the girl. Moving shakily, with her hand on Eveline Annersly's arm, she turned towards the house, as the pearly greyness crept into the eastern sky. Eveline Annersly said nothing, for she could feel that her companion was trembling, and hear her catch her breath. Carrie stopped when they reached the homestead, and looked eastward with tear-dimmed eyes. "Ah," she said, "I wonder why this favour was shown me. I felt I had ruined Charley a little while ago." Then she pulled herself together. "Aunt Eveline," she said softly, "did you ever hate and despise yourself?" Eveline Annersly said nothing, but she smiled with comprehension in her eyes, for she understood what was in Carrie Leland's mind. CHAPTER XXIII GALLWEY'S ADVENTURE