So she sat her down in the shade of a tree, and tried to eat some dinner.

The tears came again as she opened the pack which the man's strong hands had bound together for her.

How little she had thought at breakfast-time that she would eat the next meal alone! It was all well enough to tell him he must go, and say she was nothing to him; but it was different now to face the world without a single friend when one had learned to know how good a friend could be.

Almost it would have been better if he had never found her, never saved her from the serpent, never ridden beside her and talked of wonderful new things to her; for now that he was gone the emptiness and loneliness were so much harder to bear; and now she was filled with a longing for things that could not be hers.
It was well he had gone so soon, well she had no longer to grow into the charm of his society; for he belonged to the lady, and was not hers.

Thus she ate her dinner with the indifference of sorrow.
Then she took out the envelope, and counted over the money.