. As it passed from one to
another the holder said the words: "If Jack dies and dies in my hand a
forfeit I'll give." The game was quite exciting, and Gabrielle found
herself wondering in whose hand the glowing stick would go out; but
while she watched it her eyes became accustomed to the light of the
room and fell at last upon a spectacle of cold horror. The coffin in
which the dead man was to be buried had been reared up on one end
against the further wall, and within it the body stood erect, held in
this position by a cross-work of ropes. It was that of an old man with
grey untidy hair. He stood there bound, with his eyes closed, his head
lolling forward, and his mouth open. She couldn't stand it. She
wanted to cry out, but her voice would not come, and so she simply
turned and ran blindly along the dark road towards Oughterard.

She ran till she was out of breath and stood against a wall panting and
trembling. She hated the darkness, for it seemed vaguely threatening.
The thin music of the crickets made it feel as if it were charged with
some electric fluid in which the silence grew more awfully intense. It
came to her, with a sudden shock, that if she were to return to
Roscarna she must pass that dreadful spectacle again, and alone. The
only thing that she could possibly do to save herself from this
calamity, was to go on to Considine's house and beg him to take her
home again. She didn't want to do this, for she felt in her bones that
he would laugh at her.

She stood in the shadow of a white-thorn, and though she had now ceased
from her storm of trembling, her body gave a shudder from time to time,
like a tree that frees its storm-entangled branches when the wind has
fallen. She heard a slow step mounting the road. She prayed that the
new-comer might be Considine, for then her frightened condition would
spare her explanations. The steps came nearer. Out of the darkness a
shadowy form approached her. It seemed to her that it was that of a
man of superhuman size--one of the giants who, Biddy had told her, lay
buried in the long barrows on the edge of the bog. But this was
nonsense. She planned what words she would say to him. Abreast of her
he stopped, and stared at her white dress. Then suddenly he cried,
"Gabrielle!" in a voice that she remembered well. It was Radway's. In
a moment she found herself crying, beyond control, in his arms. She
clove to him, sobbing desperately, and he kissed h