When the same afternoon had worn to evening, Power rode down to the river. His comings and goings at the hut passed unremarked. Gregory kept always ready his loud welcome, and his wife asked no questions and made no difficulties.  
Power arrived every evening at sunset, and spent by the Pool the first hours of dark. For this end he endured the remainder of the day. He walked now on the very bottom of the valley into which he had . He rode no more to Surprise, and, on calamity, he was losing Mick O'Neill, his friend. Gloom bestrode a third horse when they rode together on the work of the run, until by one accord they sought each other out as little as need be; and in mute agreement came to visit here, the one when the other should be gone.
 
The sun had gone down on the edge of the plain when Power reached the Pool. As he entered the trees darkness was falling, and the[Pg 265] stars were coming out. When the horse brought him into the clearing the lamplight looked from the of the hut in a broad beam and voices met him from indoors. He tethered the beast in an old place and put the saddle on end at the foot of a tree. Before he had done Moll Gregory was in the doorway of the hut.
 
"Is that you, Jim?"
 
"Yes, Molly."
 
He went across to her. Father and mother were within. Gregory swung on his seat in anxious welcome, and the woman nodded good-night. The four of them talked together for a little while.
 
"Round agen to see us?" cried Gregory. "Been about the run to-day I reckon from the look of you. Hot work moving about in the middle of the day. It don't seem to cool off at night now. The rains must be coming."
 
"It looks like it," Power answered.
 
"Have you heard what's happened?" said the woman. "The boss here ran into Mr. King yesterday. Mr. King won't touch the show since it went into the hard stuff, and says the boss owes him twenty quid or something and has a paper to show it." She turned bitterly on Gregory. "You always was a fool rushing to sign things."
 
"I had to keep going somehow, mother."
 
Moll raised her head. "I'll fix it, dad, when he's round next."
 
"I suppose things aren't too good lately?" Power said.
 
"I reckon they aren't. Since the show turned out a fake, there's not a bob to be raised anywhere. They're turning up tick at the store; too. They if you ask for a tin of dog."
 
"I reckon, Dad, Mr. Power might give us a hand until things was better, if it was put to him," said the woman.
 
"Is that what you are after?" Power answered.
 
"A-haw, haw, haw! We wouldn't say no if you made the offer," said Gregory, showing his dirty teeth.
 
"I'll think about it."
 
"There's a gentleman for you, mother! Put it here, Mr. Power." Gregory pushed out a dirty hand.
 
"It's early yet," Power answered from the doorway.
 
Presently Power and Molly were wandering among the trees—the night fallen upon them, dark, hot and with tiny voices.
 
They wandered along old ways, and said again old sayings, and did again old deeds. Who shall answer why she was ready to wander with him night by night through these ways, taking his kisses, lying within his arms, and caring nothing for him? Lips set upon lips—no more could his kisses mean to her. Perhaps she had grown so lonely that she could bid no one begone. Perhaps twenty years of that hot land had set in flames her little heart. Perhaps it was her to fan fever and make men mad. Why did he come and come again, a threadbare lover, the despised even of himself? Why was he so unwearying with his embraces, unless it was because he had become an wandering Jew, who had once at pure lips, and must now kiss for ever, and for ever fail to set passion afire.
 
They sat down presently on a fallen tree lying among the climbing grasses at the upper end of the Pool. Night by night he and she from their seat there had remarked the of the water shrink from them. To-night they sat down again—he to wonder at his madness, she to do a hundred wanton acts—to tease the dog, to toss upon the water and hark to the sudden splash.
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