Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/281

 "I am not feeling very well. Please don't worry, but I am going home. I'll be all right after a day or two of rest. Kay."

When she gave it to the gatekeeper to be sent to Tom on the field, he smiled, and she knew instinctively that it was not the first note he had sent to Tom that day.

A mile or two along the road she began to weaken. What was she running from? Because a girl had been crying in Tom's arms. How silly! A thousand things, which had nothing to do with Tom and herself, might lie behind that scene. But she did not turn beck; Tom would have the note by then, and would know she was not ill. She would have to tell him, and she did not know which she dreaded more, his righteous anger or feeble explanations from him which would not explain.

She was quieter when she got home. She made some tea and drank it, and afterwards she sat on the porch and looked at the distant mountains. They gave her their own message, of the passing of time and the smallness of human affairs, and when she crawled into bed she had determined on her future course. She would never refer to Clare or to what she had seen, and Tom was to find no change in her.

But she had not counted on Tom himself. She had been asleep for an hour or so when she was roused by the rapid beat of a horse's hoofs, and a moment later she heard him at the door.

"Kay!"

"Yes. I'm coming."

He was dusty and wild-eyed, and almost reeling with weariness as he came in. Outside she could see his horse standing with heaving sides and drooping head, the reins hanging loose.

"God, Kay, you've scared me almost to death. Are you sick?"

"I'm better now. I felt queer for awhile. I never thought of your coming all this way."

"Of course I came," he said shortly. He surveyed her intently, and his anxiety suddenly gave way to suspicion. He caught her by the shoulders, not too gently. "Is that all?