Before the horse was put into the wagonette and the trunk brought
down-stairs, Dale had left the house and gone some distance along the
road in the direction of the Barradine Arms. Even if Norah had not
said that he need not be there at the moment of departure, he would
have been unable to remain. He could not stand by and see her piteous
face, her slender figure, her forlorn gestures, while they carried her
off--the poor little weak thing sent away from hearth and home, cast
out among strangers because any spot on the earth, however bare or
hard, had become a better shelter for her than the place that should
have been sacredly secure.
He walked heavily, with a leaden heart and leaden feet; his eyes
downcast, not glancing at the dark trees on one side or the bright
fields on, the other. But after passing the first of the woodland
paths and before coming to the second, he looked up. He had heard the
sound of many footsteps and the murmur of many voices. All those
blue-cloaked orphans, two and two, an endless procession, were
advancing toward him.
Never had the sight and the sound of them been so horribly distasteful
to him. They were still a long way off, and he thought he could dodge
them, at any rate avoid meeting them face to face, if he hurried on to
the second footpath and dived into the wood there.
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