"Lean on me, Philip."

"No, no, I can walk."

"Do take my arm."

"Oh no, Kate, I'm strong enough."

"Just to please me."

"Well--very well."

Ross looked on with jealous rage. His horse, frightened by the fight, had twirled round and round till the reins were twisted into a knot about the gorse stump, and as he liberated the beast he flogged it back till it flew around him. Then he vaulted to the saddle, tugged at the curb, and the horse reared. "Down," he cried with an oath, and lashed brutally at the horse's head.

Meantime Kate, going past him with Philip on her arm, was saying softly, "Are you feeling better, Philip?"

And Ross, looking on in sulky meditation, sent a harsh laugh out of his hot throat, and said, "Oh, you can make your mind easy about _him_, if your other man fights for you like that you'll do. Thought you'd have three of them, did you? Or perhaps you only wanted me for your decoy?

Why don't you kiss him now, when he can know it? But he's a beauty to take care of you for somebody else. Fighting for the other one, eh?

Stuff and humbug! Take him home, and the curse of Judas on the brace of you."

So saying, he burst into wild, derisive laughter, flogged his horse on the ears and the nose, shouted "Down, you brute, down!" and shot off at a gallop across the open Curragh.

Philip and Kate stood where he had left them till he had disappeared in the mist rising off the marshy land, and the hud of his horse's hoofs could be no more heard. Their heads were down, and though their arms were locked, their faces were turned half aside. There was silence for some time. The girl's eyelids quivered; her look was anxious and helpless. Then Philip said, "Let us go home," and they began to walk together.

Not another word did they speak. Neither looked into the other's eyes.

Their entwined arms slackened a little in a pa.s.sionless asundering, yet both felt that they must hold tight or they would fall. It was almost as if Ross's parting taunt had uncovered their hearts to each other, and revealed to themselves their secret. They were like other children of the garden of Eden, driven out and stripped naked.

At the bridge they met Caesar, Grannie, Nancy Joe, and half the inhabitants of Sulby, abroad with lanterns in search of them.

"They're here," cried Caesar. "You've chastised him, then! You'd bait his head off, I'll go bail. And I believe enough you'll be forgiven, sir. Yonder blow was almost bitterer than flesh can bear. Before my days of grace--but, praise the Lord for His restraining hand, the very minute my anger was up He crippled me in the hip with rheumatics. But what's this?" holding the lantern over his head; "there's blood on your face, sir?"

"A scratch--it's nothing," said Philip.

"It's the women that's in every mischief," said Caesar.

"Lord bless me, aren't the women as good as the men?" said Nancy.

"H'm," said Caesar. "We're told that man was made a little lower than the angels, but about women we're just left to our own conclusions."

"Scripture has nothing to do with Ross Christian, father," said Grannie.

"The Lord forbid it," said Caesar. "What can you get from a cat but his skin? And doesn't the man come from Christian Ballawhaine!"

"If it comes to that, though, haven't we all come from Adam?" said Grannie.

"Yes; and from Eve too, more's the pity," said Caesar.

VI.

For some time thereafter Philip went no more to Sulby. He had a sufficient excuse. His profession made demand of all his energies. When he was not at work in Douglas he was expected to be at home with his aunt at Ballure. But neither absence nor the lapse of years served to lift him out of the reach of temptation. He had one besetting provocation to remembrance--one duty which forbade him to forget Kate--his pledge to Pete, his office as _Dooiney Molla_. Had he not vowed to keep guard over the girl? He must do it. The trust was a sacred one.

Philip found a way out of his difficulty. The post was an impersonal and incorruptible go-between, so he wrote frequently. Sometimes he had news to send, for, to avoid the espionage of Caesar, intelligence of Pete came through him; occasionally he had love-letters to enclose; now and then he had presents to pa.s.s on. When such necessity did not arise, he found it agreeable to keep up the current of correspondence. At Christmas he sent Christmas cards, on Midsummer Day a bunch of moss roses, and even on St. Valentine's Day a valentine. All this was in discharge of his duty, and everything he did was done in the name of Pete. He persuaded himself that he sank his own self absolutely. Having denied his eyes the very sight of the girl's face, he stood erect in the belief that he was a true and loyal friend.

Kate was less afraid and less ashamed. She took the presents from Pete and wore them for Philip. In her secret heart she thought no shame of this. The years gave her a larger flow of life, and made out of the bewitching girl a splendid woman, brought up to the full estate of maidenly beauty.

This change wrought by time on her bodily form caused the past to seem to her a very long way off. Something had occurred that made her a different being. She was like the elder sister of that laughing girl who had known Pete. To think of that little sister as having a kind of control over her was impossible. Kate never did think of it.

Nevertheless, she held her tongue. Her people were taken in by the episode of Ross Christian. According to their view, Kate loved the man and still longed for him, and that was why she never talked of Pete.

Philip was disgusted with her unfaithfulness to his friend, and that was the reason of his absence. She never talked of Philip either, but they, on their part, talked of him perpetually, and fed her secret pa.s.sion with his praises. Thus for three years these two were like two prisoners in neighbouring cells, very close and yet very far apart, able to hear each other's voices, yet never to see each other's faces, yearning to come together and to touch, but unable to do so because of the wall that stood between.

Since the fight, Caesar had removed her from all duties of the inn, and one day in the spring she was in the gable house peeling rushes to make tallow candles when Kelly, the postman, pa.s.sed by the porch, where Nancy Joe was cleaning the candle-irons.

"Heard the newses, Nancy?" said Kelly. "Mr. Philip Christian is let off two years' time and called to the bar."

Nancy looked grave. "I'm sure the young gentleman is that quiet and studdy," she said. "What are they doing on him?"

"Only making him a full advocate, woman," said Kelly.

"You don't say?" said Nancy.

"He pa.s.sed his examination before the Govenar's man yesterday."

"Aw, there now!"

"I took the letter to Ballure this evening."

"It's like you would, Mr. Kelly. That's the boy for you. I'm always saying it. 'Deed I am, though, but there's ones here that won't have it at all, at all."

"Miss Kate, you mane? We know the raison. He's lumps in her porridge, woman. Good-day to you, Nancy."

"Yes, it's doing a nice day enough, Mr. Kelly," said Nancy, and the postman pa.s.sed on.

Kate came gliding out with a brush in her hand. "What was the postman saying?"

"That--Mr.--Philip--Christian--has been pa.s.sing--for an advocate," said Nancy deliberately.

Kate's eyes glistened, and her lips quivered with delight; but she only said, with an air of indifference, "Was that all his news, then?"

"All? D'ye say all?" said Nancy, digging away at the candle-irons.

"Listen to the girl! And him that good to her while her promist man's away!"

Kate sh.e.l.led her rush, and said, with a sigh and a sly look, "I'm afraid you think a deal too much of him, Nancy."

"Then I'll be making mends," said Nancy, "for some that's thinking a dale too little."

"I'm quite at a loss to know what you see in him," said Kate.