Then the horns sounded again, the huge vehicles
lumbered away, and the whole village relapsed into drowsiness and
inertia. Literally nothing to look at now.
But before tea time that afternoon she saw something in the street
that held her breathlessly attentive as long as it remained there. It
was Mr. Barradine, riding slowly toward her between the churchyard and
the Roebuck stables. She shrank back behind the muslin curtain of her
window, and, watching him, passed through an extraordinarily rapid
sequence of emotions.
The horse was a chestnut, and it stepped lightly and springily. As she
thought of how and when she had last seen its rider, she felt a
sensation that was like helplessness, shame, and fear all mingled. It
was as though her whole body, muscles, flesh and nerves, quailed and
grew weak at the mere sight of him; as though inherited instincts were
controlling her, and would always control her whenever she was in his
presence; as though she the descendant of serfs must infallibly submit
to the descendant of lords--must forever fear the man who had been her
master even when he was her lover. Rationally she hated him for the
harm that he had done her, but instinctively she feared him for the
further harm that he might yet have power to do.
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