We walked on in silence. There was, at the particular point we had now reached, a certain grandeur in the landscape, which even at that agitated moment impressed me with a sense of solemnity. From childhood I had imagined it――quite without historical foundation――as the scene of ancient Druidical worship. I thought of the dark soil as having drunk up the hot, sweet blood of human sacrifice, while the “pale-eyed priest” lifted his gaze to the clear autumn sky, and watched against it, just that same dark curving line of quiet hills that I was watching now. Yet, when we began to speak again it was of things about which we were both profoundly indifferent, and I had a sickening feeling that I was failing to interest my companion, and that while she was talking to me her thoughts were elsewhere. Somehow it appeared to be impossible to raise our conversation out of the rut of deadly commonplace into which it had fallen. It seemed to me almost as if Katherine were keeping it there on purpose, and before we came to Bryansford, I proposed trying to get tea at one of the cottages, for I felt that any interruption would be a relief. When we had finished, and paid for, our refreshment, instead of continuing our way round under the mountains, as I had intended, Katherine decided that we ought to start for home. “Let us at least go back through the woods,” I begged. “We don’t want to tramp along that dusty road again.” She yielded to my persuasion, and we entered the estate that lay beyond Derryaghy. It was strangely still in the late afternoon. Not a leaf stirred. On and on we walked, hardly speaking, and suddenly the dead silence, and our complete solitude, became, as it were, visible to me; and with that there rose in my mind, with intense vividness, a memory――the memory of Elsie at Owen’s party. The whole thing came back to me almost with the strength of hallucination: her lips on mine, my own kisses, her yielding body as she closed her eyes under my embrace. I was horribly nervous. I felt myself trembling and a faint mist swam before my eyes. I put out my hand and tried to take Katherine’s, but she drew away from me at once. I stopped short, facing her, on the narrow path. “I want to speak to you,” I said. “What have I done?” She made as if to pass me, but I barred the way. I was conscious once more, through other things, of a smouldering anger against her. “Why do you draw back when I touch you? You once told me you cared for me. You wrote to me that you did.” “So I do,” she answered quietly, though her face had altered. “I don’t know what you want, nor why you aren’t satisfied.” And, all the time, that other vision was acting like an hypnotic suggestion upon my mind. “You know that I love you,” I persisted, hoarsely, my voice sounding queer, though I tried to speak naturally. “Tell me, would you rather have Owen?” “I don’t think you should speak to me like this. I wish you would allow me to pass, please.”