their characters. There are other tragedies, less scandalous and of a
subtler poignancy, arising from irreconcilable differences and from that
fear of the Incomprehensible that hangs over all our heads--over all our
heads. . . ."

The tired chestnut dropped into a walk; and the rim of the sun, all red
in a speckless sky, touched familiarly the smooth top of a ploughed
rise near the road as I had seen it times innumerable touch the distant
horizon of the sea. The uniform brownness of the harrowed field glowed
with a rosy tinge, as though the powdered clods had sweated out in
minute pearls of blood the toil of uncounted ploughmen. From the edge
of a copse a waggon with two horses was rolling gently along the ridge.
Raised above our heads upon the sky-line, it loomed up against the red
sun, triumphantly big, enormous, like a chariot of giants drawn by two
slow-stepping steeds of legendary proportions. And the clumsy figure of
the man plodding at the head of the leading horse projected itself on
the background of the Infinite with a heroic uncouthness. The end of his
carter's whip quivered high up in the blue. Kennedy discoursed.

"She's the eldest of a large family. At the age of fifteen they put
her out to service at the New Barns Farm. I attended Mrs. Smith, the
tenant's wife, and saw that girl there for the first time. Mrs. Smith,
a genteel person with a sharp nose, made her put on a black dress every
afternoon. I don't know what induced me to notice her at all. There
are faces that call your attention by a curious want of definiteness
in their whole aspect, as, walking in a mist, you peer attentively at
a vague shape which, after all, may be nothing more curious or strange
than a signpost. The only peculiarity I perceived in her was a slight
hesitation in her utterance, a sort of preliminary stammer which passes
away with the first word. When sharply spoken to, she was apt to lose