to give him no reason except that she did not like them.
It was spread about the district that Shiana was in some trouble of mind, but when people saw all those women married, and that he did not take a bit of notice of it, the tattlers were in a desperate fix. They would have liked to say he was losing his wits about some one of those women, but they could not say that. He was at the two other weddings as well as at Sive's wedding, and it was very easy to see that he was not a bit interested in any of the other two women any more than he was in Sive. It could not be said that he was losing his wits about Short Mary, because there was no one taking her away from him. The talkers would have liked to say that his reason was giving way, that he was suffering from some mental derangement that he had inherited. But they could not say that, because there was not a man in the parish of more decisive judgment than he, nor one who could give shrewder advice, nor one more clear-sighted upon an arbitration than he. The end of it was that the talkers had to give up the pursuit, for they failed to reach the truth from any point.
Shiana himself knew right well, though, what was the matter with him. The last year of the thirteen years was going at a hand-gallop. According as he was moving on towards the end of the time the poor fellow used to be thinking more closely and more constantly upon what was before him, until the thought hardly ever left his mind. There used to be such a strain and such an oppression upon his heart and upon his mind from constantly dwelling upon that one thought, that he used to
