Kate had dropped back on the pillow, and was sobbing as if her heart would break, and seeing this, Nancy fell on Pete with loud reproaches, took the man by the shoulders and his dog by the neck, and pushed both out of the room. “Out of it,” cried Nancy. “Didn't I tell you to be quiet? You great blethering omathaun, you shall come no more.” Abashed, ashamed, humiliated, and quiet enough now, Pete went slowly down the stairs. XIII. Late that night Kate heard Cæsar and her mother talking together as they were going to bed. Cæsar was saying-- “I got him on the track of a good house, and he went off to Ramsey this morning to put a sight on it.” “Dear heart alive, father!” Grannie answered, “Pete isn't home till a week come Saturday.” “The young man is warm on the wedding,” said Cæsar, “and he has money, and store is no sore.” “But the girl's not fit for it, 'deed she isn't,” said Grannie. “If she's wake,” said Cæsar, “shell be no worse for saying 'I will,' and when she's said it she'll have time enough to get better.” Kate trembled with fear. The matter of her marriage with Pete was going on without her. A sort of supernatural power seemed to be pushing it along. Nobody asked if she wished it, nobody questioned that she did so. It was taken for granted that the old relations would stand. As soon as she could go about she would be expected to marry Pete. Pete himself would expect it, because he believed he had her promise; her mother would expect it, because she had always thought of it as a thing understood; her father would expect it, because Pete's prosperity had given him a new view of Pete's piety and pedigree; and Nancy Joe would expect it, too, if only because she was still haunted by her old bugbear, the dark shadow of Ross Christian. There was only one way to break down these expectations, and that was to speak out. But how was a girl to speak? What was she to say? Kate pretended to be ill. Three days longer she lay, like a hunted wolf in its hole, keeping her bed from sheer dread of the consequences of leaving it. The fourth day was Sunday. It was morning, and the church bells were ringing. Cæsar had shouted from his bedroom for some one to tie his bow, then for some one to button his black gloves. He had gone off at length with the footsteps of the people stepping round to chapel. The first hymn had been started, and its doleful notes were trailing through the mill walls. Kate was propped up in bed, and the window of her room was open. Over the droning of the hymn she caught the sound of a horse's hoofs on the road. They stopped at a little distance, and then came on again, with the same two voices as before.