And this was the man he had discharged like a dishonest servant; the man
who had thrown what was (in Carlow's eyes) riches into his lap; the man
who had made his paper, and who had made him, and saved him. Harkless
wanted to see young Fisbee as he longed to see only one other person in
the world. Two singular things had happened that day which made his
craving to see Helen almost unbearable--just to rest his eyes upon her for
a little while, he could ask no more. And as they passed along that well-
remembered road, every tree, every leaf by the wayside, it seemed, spoke
to him and called upon the dear memory of his two walks with her--into
town and out of town, on show-day. He wondered if his heart was to project
a wraith of her before him whenever he was deeply moved, for the rest of
his life. For twice to-day he had seen her whom he knew to be so far away.
She had gone back to her friends in the north, Tom had said. Twice that
afternoon he had been momentarily, but vividly, conscious of her as a
living presence. As he descended from the car at the station, his eyes,
wandering out over the tumultuous crowd, had caught and held a picture for
a second--a graceful arm upraised, and a gloved hand pressed against a
blushing cheek under a hat such as is not worn in Carlow; a little figure
poised apparently in air, full-length above the crowd about her; so, for
the merest flick of time he had seen her, and then, to his straining eyes,
it was as though she were not. She had vanished. And again, as his
carriage reached the Square, a feeling had come to him that she was near
him; that she was looking at him; that he should see her when the carriage
turned; and in the same instant, above the singing of a multitude, he
heard her voice as if there had been no other and once more his dazzled
eyes beheld her for a second; she was singing, and as she sang she leaned
toward him from on high with the most ineffable look of tenderness and
pride and affection he had ever seen on a woman's face; such a look, he
thought, as she would wear if she came to love some archangel (her love
should be no less) with all of her heart and soul and strength. And so he