If that old saying (already quoted with reference to Dick
Talbot-Lowry) be true, when it asserts that "wise men live in the
present, for its bounty suffices them," then was Larry Coppinger, like
his cousin, indeed a wise man. Remorse, anxiety, the wonder of the
sunset, were swept from his mind, and Christian filled it like a
flood. She looked very tired, and he told her so, eyeing her so
closely that she turned her face from him.

"I won't be stared at and scolded! Why shouldn't I be tired if I
like?"

"If it were only tiredness--" said Larry, with more tenderness in
his voice than he knew. "Christian, they've been telling me that it
was my fault--the rows with the tenants, and that devil coming at you
this morning--and--and everything!"

He could not speak directly of Nancy's death; he knew what Christian
felt for her horses and dogs. "I've been looking for you everywhere. I
wanted to try and tell you what I felt--but since I've seen your
father and old Mangan, I feel too abject to dare to say I'm sorry--"

"Why should they think it was your fault? It was my own fault. I ought
to have gone back when Kearney warned me--"

"They meant the whole show. Beginning with Barty's selling to my
tenants, and then your father's people making trouble, and the
Carmodys burning the covert, and all the rest of it! They're quite
right! It's all my rotten fault! Christian, I'm going back to France!
I can't face you after what I've brought on you!"

In the bad moments of life, when the bare and shivering soul stands
defenceless, waiting for evil tidings, or nerving itself to endure
condolence, Christian had ever a gentle touch; and she knew too, when
it comforted wrong-doers to be laughed at.

"Oh, Larry! And you pretended you wanted to paint my picture!" she
said, looking at his miserable face with eyes that shone as the Pool
of Siloam might have shone after the Angel had troubled it; there were
tears in them, but there was healing, too.

Larry took her hand and held it tight.

"You don't mean it--how could you bear to look at me?"

"But I shan't look at you! You will have to look at me--that is, if
you can bear it! You must try and brace yourself to the effort!"

This, it may be admitted, was provocation on Christian's part, but, as
she told herself afterwards, desperate measures were necessary, or
they would both have burst into tears.

CHAPTER XXV

The resolution to return to France, announced, as has been s