Page:Arminell, a social romance (1896).djvu/309

Rh seemed to be but one yellow flower, and on them the evening sun rested lovingly. Above, ghost-like in the blue sky, was a filmy disc—the moon, only perceivable from the deep valley, unseen by those who stood in the sunlight. The rooks were congregating in the wood at the bottom of the valley. That wood was a favourite resort to which the birds from several rookeries came every evening before set of sun, and chattered incessantly, and made as much noise as if they were members of the House of Commons discussing Irish matters. The sound issuing from that wood was strident like the rattle of a lawn-mower.

A blue-bottle fly was buzzing round the dead man. Saltren saw it, it made him uneasy; he let go one of his wife's hands and with his disengaged hand drew his kerchief from his throat, a black silk one, and whisked it to and fro, to drive away the insect. "I cannot tell," he said, "heaven knows. If it had not been for what you said, for your amusing joke, he might now be living. I cannot tell. The ways of Providence are dark. We are but instruments used, and not knowing for what purposes used. I cannot tell."

He put the kerchief to his face and wiped it.

"I was yonder," he pointed upwards with his chin, and then whisked his kerchief in the direction of the top of the cliff. "I was on the down, and when I least expected it, and at the moment when I was not thinking of him, I saw him striding towards me, and when he came up with me, he was out of breath. I was standing then at the edge of the cleave. I was looking down into the coombe at my house, and I was in a dream. When I saw him, I did not stir. I would not go to meet him. I let him come to me. And when I saw him turn out of his path and cross the down to me, then I knew the hand out of the clouds pointed the way, and he followed not knowing to what it pointed. He came close to me, to the very edge of the rock, and I