I've helped him considerably, if you please; I brought him the mysterious Echo moth from Ormond, and a wonderful little hornet moth from Jupiter Inlet." She was rattling on almost feverishly, never looking at him, restless in her saddle, shifting bridle, adjusting stirrups, gun-case, knotting and reknotting her neckerchief, all with that desperate attempt at composure which betrays the courage that summons it.
"Shiela, dear!" "What!" she said, startled into flushed surprise.
"Look at me." She turned in her saddle, the colour deepening and waning on her white skin from neck to temples; and sustained his gaze to the limit of endurance.

Then again in her ears sounded the soft crash of her senses; he swung wide in his stirrups, looking recklessly into her eyes.

A delicate sense of intoxication stilled all speech between them for a moment.

Then, head bowed, eyes fixed on her bridle hand, the other hand, ungloved, lying hotly unresponsive in his, she rode slowly forward at his side.

Face to face with all the mad unasked questions of destiny and fate and chance still before her--all the cold problems of truth and honour still to be discussed with that stirring, painful pulse in her heart which she had known as conscience--silently, head bent, she rode into the west with the man she must send away.
Far to the north-east, above a sentinel pine which marks the outskirts of the flat-woods, streaks like smoke drifted in the sky--the wild-fowl leaving the lagoons.