Front matter (continued 5)

Anne Macree replied fierily in a voice of complete good-humour that it was Cragsbread his likes should be gettin', same as the Germans, and that there was a few cakes in the oven for the upstairs breakfast which he could have if he'd hurry up, himself an' his Macrees.

A shaft of light came through the grey clouds, making a bar of silver on the steely sea; the sky, travelling quickly, now showed little flecks of blue and flaws of pearly white. Yesterday's cold wind had gone.

"It's heavenly," Psyche whispered. "It is nearly ten, and at the Larches Miss Eva would now be seeing which fish was the cheapest, and ordering a warm joint which would go out to the kitchen for luncheon. And it would be batter-pudding day."

"You love it, Sprite!" Gheena came running round from the stables, her clear brown skin flushed, her bare head ruffled.

"I want to live here." The English girl looked out with her pale bluey-green eyes. "I want never to leave. I want to learn the difference between squirrels and foxes, and how to sit on at jumps, and why the hounds yowl for a time and then don't say anything."

"And I"—Gheena looked out—"I want to live here sometimes, but I want to travel, and to see France and Italy and further away still, and hunt somewhere else where it's flat going, and just be here in the summer or in the autumn, but not always."

Dearest George, who came from hermetically-sealed rooms, and was consequently very chilly in the mornings, now called out that Mona would catch a bad chill if she did not at once come in.

A roaring fire mocked at economy in the long dining-room. Anne's preparations for a visitor smoked in various forms. She had what she called loosed her hand at hot bread and produced three varieties.

Psyche ate an unsprite-like breakfast, listening thoughtfully to her host's prophetic warnings of financial downfall and the general muddle of England at war.

"At present," said Mr. Freyne, coquetting between cold game-pie and hot kidneys on toast, "we are like candles alight at both ends. Everything costs more and we have less money to pay for it with."

"Why not go back to the pie, Dearest George?" advised his wife affectionately, "and not think of the kidneys, because they'll get cold."

Mr. Freyne, saying pettishly that by now Matilda might remember how delicate his appetite was, took kidneys and returned to his seat.

Gheena was creaming and sugaring her cousin Lancelot's tea. The wounded hero was growing puffy and taking on a greenish hue from constant food and no exercise.

He wished to know pettishly—it is an invalid's privilege to be pettish—if Gheena would drive him to the village in the pony cart to see if his new socks had come to the shop.

Psyche, thrusting this aside, said quickly that Gheena had promised to go over to the kennels, so that the names of the hounds could be learnt.

"You can't call these things hounds," said Lancelot, "terriers and boar-hounds; and my leg won't fit in the trap with three other people." The complete absence of sadness at this announcement caused a fretful outburst—how when a fellow couldn't wash no one wanted him, and if he hadn't gone to fight——

"The wagon would never have rolled over your toe," said Gheena absently. Things leaked out curiously in Ireland. "To-morrow, Lance, the car is going to the station and we take tea with Mrs. Keane. Here are your sticks."

"Your arm," was what Lancelot whispered amorously, as he extended a well-covered hand.

With a welcome opening of the door, Miss O'Toole came in, apologizing for an early intrusion; but it was on the important subject of a concert for the Belgians which they wanted Mrs. Freyne to help with.

"We have been mapping it out," said the young lady vigorously. "Miss Freyne will sing the recruiting song, and Mr. Freyne, I hear, is inimitable as John Peel and the Meynill Hunt."

George Freyne made modest mention of advancing years and a declining voice. His wife, who was a musician and played his accompaniments, wondered mildly what key he would commence in.

He generally tried two or three before he rushed away on a fourth, so flat that to follow melodiously was a difficulty.

"And we thought if our wounded hero would recite—his khaki and the crutches, you know—something quite simple, of course—cheery."

Lancelot, swaying on his sticks, dived in the recesses of his mind, and remembered that he had done the "Burial of Sir John Moore" in red velvet and a lace collar at home when he was ten.

When Psyche said that she was interested in such a burial, Mrs. Freyne explained at some length that, of course, Lance did not mean Sir John Moore had put on a red velvet frock to be interred in, but that was what Lancelot had worn to show off in.

"The seven-thirty from Cortra will be in time," said Miss O'Toole eagerly, "and we'll have crowds. Then light refreshments, sandwiches and so on given, and charged a shilling each for it; they'll catch the eleven-thirty back—the people I mean—or have a special, or perhaps everyone will motor."

Mrs. Freyne thought it would be dreadful if the concert dragged on and people had to run away in the middle of God Save the King or a sandwich.

The glittering brightness of the morning was increasing. It was almost summerlike when they opened the door again and stood in the soft air.

"You might drive me in for those stockings, Gheena," said Lancelot. "Any day will do for old hounds, and I may have twinges to-morrow."

"You'll open with the Marseillaise, and Mrs. Brady is learning the Russian anthem on the harmonium. It will be magnificent! I'll put you down to help with the supper, Mrs. Freyne—cake and sandwiches and anything else. And—I'll drive you to the village, Mr. Freyne. It will only do the stubborn pony good."

Gheena said "Splendid!" in relieved tones. Lancelot had hobbled in; he disliked too much fresh air.

"Lancelot, you can go to the village," called his aunt loudly.

Lancelot appeared again with Naylour behind him adjusting a British warm—a Balaclava helmet under his cap, and thick gloves completing his entrenchment against the advance of a chill. Gheena's pony came rattling wickedly round at the moment, poking out its stubborn head while responding gleefully to whacks from Phil with thuds of iron against the floor of the trap.

Lancelot advanced dubiously,

"Oh, it's Miss O'Toole who is going to take you," said Gheena. "She says she won't mind the extra work for her pony, and you can talk about the recitation. Don't bury Sir John Moore."

With a glance which Anne from the kitchen reported to be as bither as weasels, Lancelot got into the inside trap.

The two girls drove off behind Topsy and turned inland, crawling along the narrow fuchsia-bordered road which led to Dillon's Court.

"You can only see the sea from the hills there," Gheena said; "but it's a dear old home."

The long, dull red house stood against a background of dark wood and mountain. The wide lawn was dotted with big trees, walnuts, oaks, huge beeches; one could hear the hoarse splutter and gurgle of the trout stream which tore on to commit suicide in the lake. In summer, to the left of the house, a mass of copper beeches passed to tender tinted pinky green, to sullen splendour of coppery crimson, glowing in every gleam of sun.

The wide hall door, standing open, was of panelled oak.

"You can see the sea from the gardens, Psyche. There's poor Darby!"

Hobbling down the four shallow steps before the door, a cripple, the last perhaps of a long line of sportsmen, the old place which he loved round him, a glorious frame, enclosing a defaced portrait. It was bitter to remember how he had leapt the sunk fence there so lightly once, swung up those copper beeches up to the topmost boughs, until he looked through a red cloud up to spatches of blue, shining down. Whole-limbed, disregarding torn clothes, jumping on the ponies' backs, looking forward to life spelt with a capital L, as his father's had been, a man's life with his son to follow him. And now—he shuffled agilely up to meet the two—brown-skinned Gheena and the white stranger, whose eyes were full of something which he had forgotten—admiration. To Psyche he was the magician who made the hounds go.

"It is even more beautiful than Castle Freyne," she said, as she jumped from the trap lightly, her eight stone of humanity perfectly balanced. "Oh, what a dear old place!" she almost whispered. "You can see the ghosts of other days here."

"I can," said Darby drearily, his face changing.

"And see the spirits of days to come," she said gently.

"Days I shall go dot and go one through—yes—alone!" His eyes were on Gheena, who was romping with two sprawling joyous terrier pups.

"And the place cries for company." As lightly as the sprite they had nicknamed her after, Psyche stepped up the shallow step wall into the dim cool hall.

The hideous furniture of Victoria's reign had not been put into it by the Dillon bride of that period. It was full of mellow satinwood and darker mahogany of earlier days. Fine priceless china jostled collections of shells in a large cabinet, and a moulting flight of stuffed birds flaunted gaudily in another.

"My grandmother put the Worcester in the pantry to make two shelves for her shells," grinned Darby, his stick strafing the polished floor. "My mother then worked her artistic will in the drawing-room. She enamelled the mantel-shelf."

A wide room, with big windows looking on the lake, with exquisite pieces of old furniture here and there, but overshadowed by stiff strips of fancy-work wrought on black satin, by red plush triangles hung with china, by plates and dishes gone to ground in red velvet mounts, by black and gold cabinets, almost smiling because they took places of honour, while precious pieces of Chippendale were stowed into corners.

"I never altered it"—Darby looked at the big room in its ugliness—"but there are enough old things about to make it a treasure house if anyone bothered. I believe the marble can be cleaned. My father, I am told, regretted there being no divorce obtainable in Ireland, and wished himself an American citizen, when he came in and saw the Aspinall's enamel pot. Come into my den," he said. "I never sit here."

A low room, oaken beams, the ceiling and the walls hung with old pictures and sporting prints, tobacco and turf smoke a reminiscence in the present.

Man's deep chairs of comfort, thick rugs for dogs to doze on and bow-wow spectrally in pursuit of dream-rats; and here among them Darby dreamt awake, as his terriers and big Scotch deerhound basked. Dreamt of what he had been, and of some wondrous bone-setters who could straighten twisted muscles, patch up broken bones, and send one Darby Dillon out again walking evenly, no longer a shuffling cripple, but a man who would have the right to go to the girl he cared for and offer himself to her.

Here, alone, he saw pictures in the fire and felt the ache and throb of hopelessness.

Psyche flitted round, looking at the pictured likenesses of men who had once sat in the room—from silken-clad cavaliers to the men painted in the present-day tweeds.

"This boy"—Psyche swung round—"your brother?"

It was Darby, painted on the steps, a great hound by his side.

"Oh, no—myself!" he said.

"Oh, then it was an accident; you weren't born——"

Psyche stopped and became a lively poppy colour.

"I thought Gheena would have told you. It was at polo, a bad smash-up, two ponies all rolling together with Mr. Dillon as a pivot. Don't look distressed; that hurts. Come and see the pack."

They went out a back way, along cavernous passages, through which in bygone days huge dishes of roasts and boiled had had to be galloped up to the big dining-room. Darby showed a kitchen in which a range lurked coyly in the vastness, and through which all the draughts of the world seemed to rush.

The yards were also built for giants, from the neat square where the coach-houses showed great black mouths, to the second stable yard, with its endless range of boxes, a few of them modernized, and again the cow yards full of buildings and lofts and barns.

Here Gheena, the puppies in her arms and Crabbit at her heels, joined them.

The scratch pack were getting used to the cleanliness and internment by now. Grandjer had abandoned as almost hopeless his desire to dig his way out, but he still howled unmelodiously, remembering happy days of freedom at the farm. Home Ruler had lost weight, and in consequence could go farther. She was a vast feeder.

Psyche almost leapt through the door on to the flags as she endeavoured to master the hounds' names.

"Grandjer, him with no tail, Miss," said little Andy. "Ye can call that to mind. He is Beauty's son. An' Daisy here with the two sphots near his axther."

Psyche took her hat off.

"An' Spinsther, him with one ear yelly and one white, an' Home Ruler he is the big dog, an' Greatness that's all black one side. An' Beauty he is nearly all yally. He is Grandjer's mother, didn't I tell ye, Miss?"

"It isn't quite as easy as playing Bridge," said Darby, listening. "There, Andy, not any more now."

Miss Delorme was persistent. She did not leave the kennels until she had got four hounds off by heart as she said. "So that I can call up any of those lot," she said contentedly, "if they are near me."

"That being, of course, the usual procedure for the Field," observed Darby with unabated gravity, "to call the hounds to them. Now there are the nags."

Psyche revelled in a sight of sleek coats and gentle snuggling heads, of soft muzzles nibbling at her hands. Legs Miss Delorme looked upon as merely things which were necessary to a horse to travel on; but heads and necks were to pet.

She tore herself away to eat mutton chops and cold pheasant off a little table drawn close to the fire in the big dining-room, after which she showed a distinct desire to return to the kennels and learn more about hounds.

Instead she was driven home, leaving Darby alone on his steps, his eyes wistful as the pony galloped off.

The silence of the big house seemed to sob to him as he went in to the fire, his dogs at his heels, the loneliness to become something tangible and almost evil and alive, until he got out the car and followed the two girls to Castle Freyne.

Castle Freyne was occupied by the committee of the concert, headed by Miss O'Toole, with Lancelot drooping sulkily alone in the library, his foot full of twinges.

He was only a poor wounded creature, and, of course, they were right to leave him alone and not bother about him, and he was going home next day, he said.

Gheena's easily-pricked conscience felt the pangs of remorse; she fetched Lancelot his tea herself, ministering to his growing weight with honey sandwiches and heavily-buttered potato scones and chocolate cakes.

"Where he do put it all an' he never to give it a shake down with a minnit's walk even, 'd make ye wondther," Naylour had muttered once audibly in the door.

This was after an invalid's luncheon of beef-tea, a chop, a partridge, and a sponge pudding, had completely disappeared from the tray. Lancelot's foot held twinges which only nourishment could assuage.

When the subject of songs had been fully discussed and a selection, marked by tepid affection and absence of much air, chosen by several singers, the war, of course, swept aside even the discussion of the music which its stern necessity was to evoke.

None of the people were really anxious about it, but they quoted prophecies to make them thrill, fears of invasion, of submarines, tales of spies.

"You know it really brought it home to us when dear Mrs. De Burgho Keane was attacked by them—no, by the bees which Philip had put ready for them. That was a dreadful scare. It is all owing, no doubt, to Mr. Keefe's promptness"—Mrs. Brady flashed a smile which blended appreciation with the respect due to the official in authority upon Mr. Keefe—"that we are all sleeping in our beds now."

Darby looked at the large sofa and coughed thoughtfully.

Mr. Keefe, who was wrangling with Miss O'Toole because she thought "Violets" rather an old song, and he was determined to sing it, looked round nervously.

"He warned the Germans by wireless," said Darby earnestly, "that if they dared to come here he'd be waiting on the Seals Rock with his sword on.... He had time to gallop home for it ... and they put the Fleet's head nor'-east-south-south-west immediately."

Mrs. Brady replied absently that it must be nice to know exactly how they would alter things, and really now with this wireless to send messages by—they were regularly up to date at Kildrellan.

"If it's illness," said Darby, looking severely at Psyche, who was choking and weeping close by, "we also have a doctor, and if you're good, I'll tell you about the bees and Dearest's nose."

Miss O'Toole's spectacles glimmered severely at Mr. Keefe.

"I say sing something new," she said, "something from an opera. 'Violets' is full of sickly sentimentality—tarity—tallity—that's it, tallity. Now, say, 'The Honeysuckle and the Bee.'"

"They died of frostbite when I was a boy," said Darby. "Try forrard, Miss O'Toole."

"Well, something from, say, Betty or Bric-à-Brac—'They never believe Me' or 'My Old Pal.'"

Mr. Keefe's underlip looked faintly obstinate, and he hummed 'Violets' in an apologetic tenor. He meant to sing it.

George Freyne trilled the "Meynell Hunt" over the tea-cups blithely, and with variety as to keys.

Mrs. Brady would, of course, give "The Harp that Once" in the faint echo of a one-time tuneful little voice, and the Vicar would recite "The Bells."

"We can put those two just about train time, can't we?" said Miss O'Toole, "when everyone's fussy. And Mrs. Weston?"

Mrs. Weston said that she would sell programmes and violets. She was not musical. "Unless a fiddle," she said lightly; "if anyone's got one, I can play that."

Miss O'Toole thought that one might be found. It would be a variety, as no one fiddled, except in the village at weddings. And the Vicar, of course, remarked upon one being at the conflagration of Rome and waited for his laugh expectantly.

"He has made the same jokes for years," whispered Psyche, hysterically. "You can kind of fancy that it's always the same here, with no one growing older or changing."

Darby looked down at his stick, stifling a quiet sigh. Lancelot Freyne was duly taken home next day, his expression one of puffy peevishness. Even the wielding of the sword in France had not taught him how to advance his suit with Gheena. He left a gap which let in sunshine behind him, but with this clearness came frost.

Dearest George grew openly disagreeable. He growled over money. He hinted at the complete suppression of hunting.

Gheena was twenty. Five long years of dependence stretched before her—five years, during which the horses she loved would grow stout and shapeless upon grass, and she would fret and fume under the burden of authority. The two-seater which she had hoped for was out of the question now.

Mr. Freyne could be disagreeable. He could look over his wife's accounts and growl over Gheena's new clothes. He had not the greatness of any open aggression. To have fired off a big gun and borne the recoil would have been beyond him. He was one of the small bird shooters, peppering with No. 10, firing from behind hedges, nagging with a patient smile.

Sympathetic friends learnt, from reasons which a kind stepfather suppressed, how difficult Gheena was to get on with. She went to bed in a room where the grate would have gleamed with cold blacklead if she had not gone out and cut up branches and lighted a fire of wood and turf—the turf smuggled by Phil up the back stairs.

As the English held on grimly in their ditches of frozen mud, Mr. Freyne saw no reason to believe in the end of the war, so anticipated a poverty which he was never likely to see. He reproved Anne's limitless kitchen hospitality, the stout old cook sending away blind Barney ostentatiously, and then garnishing a humble piece of cod with several expensive things out of bottles.

Barney went no further than the harness-room, where a meal concealed in a stable bucket was carried to him.

"The war is above in the Masther's head," said Anne pleasantly. "An' I have all them trifles that he's so sot on emptied out over the cod, that he hates too, but me Darby loves thim."

"He has taken to ordering me about," said Gheena a little bleakly to Darby and Psyche—"to making things disagreeable for me. He wants to know my plans for the day, and tells me he wants Topsy himself so as to spare the car, and then he offers to drive me to see Lance. He wants me"—Gheena lifted a mutinous face—"to marry Lance. He hints at it with the subterfuge of a—a——"

"A charging bull," suggested Darby, "or a liner coming out of harbour." His eyes watched Gheena wistfully.

"If he is not careful," said Gheena, "I'll marry just to have the place. I'll marry——"

"Mr. Stafford, Miss," said old Naylour, opening the door.

Gheena's look of gloom deepened as she eyed the offender's grey tweed suit.

"I came to tell you news," Stafford said. "A submarine sighted off Cortra harbour last night, and again not far from here."

"Someone here is supplying them with petrol," said Gheena—"someone."

"There are tales of strange motor-cars seen about at night," said Darby thoughtfully.

Psyche's grey was a little lame; she remembered it now, jumping up to drag Darby out to know what was wrong. "Because there will be a meet to-morrow and I want to go," she whispered.

Gheena, left alone with Stafford, remarked intelligently that the evening was chilly.

"You are very down on me, Miss Freyne"—he looked down at her, his arm on the old marble mantelshelf—"because I don't join the army."

Gheena said "Then why don't you?" her cheeks fiery.

"Well, at present I can't. There are the drains, and other reasons."

"To prepare potato ground for Germans," said Gheena, "ought not to be one. As for other reasons——" Her eyes flashed.

"That's one way of referring to the drains," he said good-humouredly, his eyes twinkling. "And I run messages to the Wireless Station and up to the coastguards, and take out Mrs. Weston to drive. It's not all drains."

Gheena sat silent, pulling Crabbit's ears. Her suspicions were deepening; she grew suddenly white.

"You can't even forgive me for being a slacker, I suppose?" Basil Stafford's eyes lost their twinkle. "Perhaps I don't approve of fighting?"

"Of fighting Germans," snapped Gheena.

Mr. Stafford feared that she would never be taken on as a diplomatist. He walked to the window and added that no lights were to be used now at night near the sea; the coastguards were on the alert for offenders.

"So if the pups stray you are not to look for them with the stable lantern," he advised.

"Or with an electric torch," said Gheena, her cheeks fiery again.

"Miss Freyne," he said gravely, rather angrily, "if a man can't help himself——" He stopped suddenly, came back from the window, and said irrelevantly that he was changing his car for a new one, or perhaps he would keep both.

Psyche returned at a run to shout out that the grey horse could hunt and they'd got the second post.

It included a letter from Miss Eva Delorme, who wrote a firmly-pointed hand and could fill two sheets of notepaper with ease.

"A Mr. Stafford, you say, on the drainage works," she wrote. "I knew Staffords of Old Hall in Worcestershire, very poor people, had lost everything. Don't judge hastily; these drains may be for home defence."

Psyche gave Gheena the letter; Miss Freyne read it carefully.

"And the new car is coming—when?" she said to Basil Stafford.

"Next week, I think. What's that, Miss Delorme? Did we live at Old Hall in Worcester? Yes, that was our place. It's let. My mother's in London. She was in a sky-scraping flat before her operation, but now I've taken a nice house for her, and she won't leave for any Zeps. It's so hard to get a chauffeur, two of hers have gone. I gave her a car last June."

Gheena's lips came together. Riches had sprung up swiftly for this young man.

Basil Stafford left, looking tired, lines round his pleasant mouth.

The scratch pack hunted a fox with leisurely determination next day from Green Gorse Hill and through a nice hunt. Psyche rode close to Darby. She got in his way several times; she chattered at moments when she should have been silent; but the small face was so rapturously happy that he said nothing. Dearest George remonstrated fussily with his guest.

"You must keep quiet at the checks, Mona," he said, "and let Darby alone. He is my colleague, remember, a Master, as I am."

"He rides in front, and do you stay behind to make the lazy dogs keep up?" asked Psyche with interest. "Is that why there are two Masters?"

Amid a clarity of silence, broken only by Darby choking, George Freyne rode away.

"My! but that was the bither remark ye threw at him," murmured Rourke softly, "an' he always tryin' to conceal the way he lies back. My! but——" Mr. Rourke suddenly abandoned himself to uncontrolled laughter while Pysche mentally pigeon-holed this new piece of knowledge. She nearly fell off over a piece of timber; she rode straight on top of Darby at a drop into the road, all with serene joy. They closed on their fox, pace improved, and as they ran fast over a fair country the glow on the girl's face was as of moonlight. The small hands clenched on the reins, her little body swaying to the gallop; the extreme pleasure of it was almost pain.

They put the fox to ground at the outskirts of Longfield Wood, Darby getting off to see what the hole was like.

"To think of being you," gasped Miss Delorme, holding Darby's horse insecurely, "to direct it all, and make those cooing noises, and to have people get out of your way, and to whistle to them with that lovely hunting-horn! And oh, would you change with anybody on earth?"

"With heaps of 'em," said Darby, looking into her pale face—"the bodies, not the men. Here is my rear-guard fellow-Master coming now, looking malignant."

"I shall hunt all my life," announced Psyche earnestly, "and over here. I want to stay here always."

They rode down through the long wood. Darby's servants were sufficiently Irish to produce hot cakes almost as soon as everyone got in. The old library was warm and homelike, and Darby's dogs politely allowed guests to occupy the hearth-rug.

Admiration is a pleasant medicine. Darby felt less lonely and out of life than he had for months. He seemed to step from his horse with scarcely any difficulty, and he only used his riding-whip to steady him as he went into the house. He even forgot to look grimly at the scarred side of his face in the glass. The stir of the gallop was still in his blood—his horse's jumping, the movement of perfect shoulders, the keenness of a good hunter, unfaltering, how seldom visibly tired. And how well Grandjer, Beauty and Daisy, and the rest of them had hunted, plodding along on relentless foes.

"It's fun, anyhow," he said gaily, watching with man's carelessness precious Crown Derby cups being put out for tea.

Mrs. De Burgho Keane took off her gloves to pour out graciously. The tea-table was such an excellent stronghold to hear all news from. People had to wait for cream and sugar, and could not run away.

But it was the two girls who made tea, recklessly giving cream to everyone, splashing in water much too late, and looking dubiously at the straw-coloured second cups which were the result. Lancelot's mother and sister, who had driven to-day in a pony cart, stood close to Gheena, both looking unhappy, and presenting the expression of people who expect to be questioned, so that Gheena hoped politely that Lance was out walking as he was not driving.

To which his mother replied that Lance was either in bed or on the library sofa, she could not say which, suffering from depression and twinges.

"He does not pick up," said Lancelot's mother. "Gheena, that is only hot water; ring for more tea. Now yesterday we had to coax him to take a second meringue, and the roast beef he began with was not half eaten. He is unhappy, dear Gheena, my poor wounded boy, and for a remedy..."

"Soda mints," said Gheena absently. "I see, I must keep on filling up with hot water and not wait till it's only tea leaves. I never pour out at home. Yes, try soda mints. It's never moving about and such a lot to eat. I'll come to see him soon, I'll promise."

Mrs. Freyne got up, telling her daughter that Gheena was impossible and rather rude.

Miss O'Toole worked hard at her concert. She was a person of high ambitions, so flags of various nationalities had to be produced to festoon above the raised stage in the schoolhouse. The walls she decorated with anything which she could get, and the platform was such a nest of greenery that performers had to dive in amongst it to get into full view, and even then were hemmed in by palms and boughs. The harmonium, clasped in the Union Jack, crouched among a nest of palms in one corner; the piano, its back covered with the Tricolour, and a toy lion and a bear on the top, stood out below the platform.

The performers, when finished, fell off steep wooden steps at the back, generally noisily, so that the encores were marred by sundry rubbings of injured limbs, Dearest George, in pink, handing the singers on and off vaguely.

A congested house sat in intense heat to listen to the first important item. They had opened with a piece on the piano, the doctor's daughter clawing out concerted airs of the nations, and quite forgetting to omit Germany's which was somewhere in the middle, so that the General commanding in Cortra entered to the strains of the "Watch on the Rhine" and sat down extremely surprised as it changed to "Deutschland über Alles." Joan Flynne could not in any case read German, and had learnt the piece at school. The first song was then given by Mr. O'Gorman, its opening bars being interfered with by his nervous wonder as to what on earth was crawling down the back of his neck.

"'Steadily, shoulder to shoulder'"—Mr. O'Gorman moved and a second palm spike tickled his ear—"'Steadily'"—he caught at the ear, dropped his music and missed a bar—"'blade—by——' We're out, Miss O'Toole. What!" Miss O'Toole was looking up and almost wailing "Palm fronds"—"'blade—by——' Damn the things!"

Mr. O'Gorman wheeled and clutched.

"Palm fronds!" shrieked Miss O'Toole.

Mr. O'Gorman nodded happily, the bars were successfully adjusted, and the "Old Brigade" marched to a tuneful ending.

When everyone encored and a response was being made, Mr. O'Hara could be heard at the side.

"Right! I'll give 'em 'Toreador.' 'Toreador,' Miss O'Toole. Sorry I put you out, but in a place like this no one knows, does one? A sash on? Good gracious! why should I dress up like a bull?"

"Get on with it. Now then."

Mr. O'Gorman was nervous but a favourite. He swayed a stout body energetically, and his last magnificent effort of "a-do-or" was faintly marred by an audible "Damn!" and a clasp at his ear as a palm frond got him again.

Certain young ladies then warbled of loves and kisses, sweetly and fairly audibly.

Gheena sang the "Recruiting Song" with extreme energy, fixing her eyes alternately upon Mr. Stafford and a local butcher, who sometimes spoke vaguely of "giving them Germans a 'slice' with his chopper, th' ould divils."

The General commanding the district was still upset by his musical reception, and sat by his pretty wife listening absently, even to Gheena's appeal for recruits, her hands outstretched as if to gather up men.

There was a pause after this, Miss Freyne fleeing from an encore. The stage was empty until the thrilling strains of the Russian National Anthem were beaten from the harmonium, and some of the audience who recognized it shot to their feet because they thought they ought to, the rest following suit and wondering why.

To this massed enthusiasm Lancelot Freyne, upon crutches, made entry alone, bowing gracefully to an outburst of cheers and honours. Miss O'Toole pounded more anthem, everyone sat down, and George Freyne, with a whisky and soda in his hand, rushed in tardily to announce the item—"The Charge of the Light Brigade."

"'Half a league, half a league,'" said Lancelot casually, then proceeding with the "Charge of the Light Brigade."

The General commanding the district rubbed his head hard.

"But why—for this—the Russian anthem?" he whispered. "For this!"

"'Cossack and Russian reeled from the sabre's stroke—shattered and sundered,'" said Lancelot pleasantly, Miss O'Toole continuing the music with the soft pedal down, and just a boom when big drums were mentioned.

"Why?" remarked the General hopelessly. "And the beginning when I came in!" Then—he had a sense of humour—he looked at his wife, and the rest of his evening was spent in laudable endeavours to check unseemly laughter and to subdue his wife's.

"'Into the valley of Hell, into the mouth of Death,'" said Lancelot, and paused to look for his sister at the wings—"that is—'mouth of Hell.'" She was prompting.

Boom! went chords in the bass.

"It's the damn piano puts one out!" murmured Lancelot over his shoulder to his sister. "What's next?"

"Make some action," hissed his prompter.

The General buried his face in his pocket-handkerchief, overcome, as Mrs. De Burgho Keane said.

"'They rode back again, but not—not the six hundred,'" remarked Lancelot casually, and waved one crutch swiftly. The principal effect of the belated action was to upset the lion on to Miss O'Toole and make her last piece of Russian anthem a discord.

Lancelot hobbled off amid loud clapping of hands, and his mother thought with rapture of how he would look if he did it in London.

Mr. Keefe and Mrs. Keane were both upset by the fall of the lion, considering it to be a bad omen for the war.

The interval for sandwiches and liquid refreshment proved a brilliant success. Mrs. Weston showed a bag full of silver collected for programmes. She had charged all the men a shilling for programmes.

"And it was worth it," said Darby, "with such a lot thrown in—the 'Watch on the Rhine' and Lancelot's recitation."

"I would not," observed the General, "have missed it for a fiver, especially if the second half is as good and as funny and as er ... patriotic as to tunes."

Lancelot's mother wandered up and down for plaudits for her boy, discussing the "Charge."

"No exaggerations," she said, "no undue emphasizing, just the beauty of the thing—the one swing of the crutch when they were all killed, and my wounded boy doing it."

Sir Abel replied that he had never in his life been so touched by a recitation.

Just then Mrs. Freyne took off her gloves and made nervous way to the piano.

She played the prelude to "John Peel" loudly, lifting her hands then to endeavour to follow her husband on his devious paths.

He had put on his velvet cap.

"'D'ye ken John Peel?'" roared Dearest George, and found it was too high.

"'D'ye ken John Peel?'" he boomed loudly.

Mrs. Freyne struck a chord softly, and without hope. The General, who was musical, grew quite anxious.

But by the time he had got to the "Break of day," George Freyne was, so to speak, in his stride, with his wife following delicately, afraid to show marked preference to any key.

Having been loudly encored, Mr. Freyne asked his wife to play the tune and give him some help, and gave the "Meynell Hunt" with as much variety, as Darby said, as if the pack was in full cry.

A song and dance by Miss Delorme made the audience wonder if it was quite right for them to be there, for Psyche in costume gave them a song about the moon, and her dancing was as if a sprite floated over earth. By this time all the men were yelling "Encore!" and Mrs. Keane wished audibly that she had left Estelle and Maria at home.

Psyche was back again to give "A Little Bit of String," out of the Circus Girl, and another dance of fairy-like lightness. Then Mr. Keefe, pink and moist, was bustled on after his song had been given out.

Miss O'Toole played a prelude emphatically, unnoticed by the nervous performer.

"'Every morning I bring thee violets,'" trilled Mr. Keefe, with the piano vamping "My Old Pal" loudly.

"'Every morning I bring thee'—— Oh, look here, hang it!" said Mr. Keefe. "I can't bring them to that music, Miss O'Toole. I told you so. I said——"

Mrs. Weston threw a bunch on to the stage.

When there was a possibility of hearing him, and Miss O'Toole had changed her music gloomily, Mr. Keefe brought violets very irately, and flounced off in obvious ill-humour, declining his encore.

"To start like that when I told her time after time," he said, as he sought solace in a whisky and soda.

Then, fetched by the M.C., Violet Weston went on to the platform; very brilliant stockings gleamed under her white skirt. She was somewhat garishly handsome as she stood in the light; but as she took up the violin her expression changed. She cuddled it down, her fingers loving on the strings; she bent to Miss O'Toole, who shook her head hopelessly, as she looked at the score.

Matilda Freyne was called on; she listened, and took up the music.

Next moment the violin was rippling out wild Hungarian dances, spirits of elves, patter of breathless witches, rustle of feet on dead leaves, on polished boards, evil in merriment—they were all in the elfish music. Only two people in the audience realized what a master hand played to them—the General from Cortra leaning forward entranced, and another listener, the old Professor, sitting hidden in a corner.

With a sigh as of tired dancers it ended.

The Professor leaned forward listening. He leant back frowning, searching for something half forgotten. When had he heard this rendered before, with the same skill, the same feeling? The memory brought with it recollection of crowds, of a town.

He left his corner to waddle to the platform where Mrs. Weston was giving now a selection of Irish airs to vociferous applause.

"I have to thank you," he said simply, holding out his hand. "Music—music is all to me. But ... somewhere ... once I have heard someone else play that just as you do."

"Everyone plays it much the same, I should think," said Violet Weston, a little abruptly, moving away.

Miss O'Toole made seven pounds clear and had given, as she said, a wonderful musical treat to everyone. In fact Sir Abel Huntley had assured her that if it was a choice between another concert in Kildrellan and one at the Queen's Hall, he would come to hers.

CHAPTER XIV

"Not tired again, Violet?" said Gheena reproachfully. "And we began a mile on to-day?"

Mrs. Weston explained that she had twisted her ankle coming down the stony little lane, and she really could not go on. She said acidly that they had come miles, and one could see all the caves on the shore, and she did not believe anyone could hide things in them.

"There are one or two ledges," said Gheena thoughtfully, "and I've heard the water gurgling inside the rocks. I shall go on looking with Crabbit if you can't come."

They were close to the little fishing village of Leeshane. It crouched in the hollow of a shingly bay with the rocks poking out on either side, the cliffs gradually rising to the point, where ships swung into the calm water of the harbour.

They had been along the cliffs quite often, searching through the gorse bushes and trails of bramble and stunted fuchsias, until Violet Weston grew tired; high-heeled shoes soon caused twinges of pain on the rough ground.

March had come in weeping to brighten to a promise of spring. Primroses shone pale gold in more than one sheltered hollow; the wild anemones were blue in the woods; green grass was nosing through the rusty fronds of yesteryear. The catkins danced over the banks of the little trout stream.

In France, men wearying of bitter cold, welcomed the first warmth of the spring, for there they had frost in their very bones, and the cold chill of mud had clung to them as day by day they held on doggedly and waited for the advance which they were told was to be. The wild interest in the day's papers had died to a dull endurance. People got fewer wires.

While the great monster War went on drinking blood and swelling hideously, March would see the end of the hunting, and a dreary summer only enlivened by constant hopes that something must happen to end it all would be before them.

Gheena generally went away from home. This year her friends were fighting or in mourning, and she meant to stay at Castle Freyne.

"Well, if you can't go any further," said Gheena, "I'll come out myself."

"When?"

Gheena said that she did not know, because she meant to search by herself or with Psyche the sprite.

"I'll look down here now," said Gheena, dropping over the cliff.

Mrs. Weston, left alone, kicked off one shoe and rubbed her brilliant foot ill-humouredly. Then she sketched idly on a small block, a neat little sketch absolutely devoid of any claim except that of neatness; and she put that away and yawned and moved her released toes.

Gheena and Crabbit were scrambling in and out of caves, swinging along the cliff, with the tide nosing in sluggishly close to high-water mark. The sea was silvery grey under a silver sky, lapping and gurgling calmly. When a voice close by remarked that it was "airly to be lookin' for, say, birds' eggs," she turned to see Guinane, a particularly intelligent-looking youth, with bright blue eyes and a cunning mouth.

Gheena said briefly that it was. "But you never know in war times what a bird might do. It must upset them greatly, Mike, when they find they're roosting on a submarine instead of swimming," she said gravely.

Mike Guinane observed that he saw a submarine above in the big harbour, and it looked like a ship and nothin' else. Himself he doubted their powers of running down undther the wather, and thought it was mostly chat.

In fact, after a brief pause, he thought that all the war was mostly newspaper chat entirely, and got up too, to make labour scarce and dear.

Mr. Mike Guinane, Gheena noticed, was dressed in a new and completely unsuitable bewaisted blue serge suit, and sported a watch and silver chain. Evidently he was paid well.

"Supposing you stay here for a bit, Violet?" Gheena saw Mrs. Weston hobbling on over the rough ground. "I'll get on past the village."

Mrs. Weston looked at her feet and sighed.

"If I was not so dreadfully vain!" she said cheerfully. "Let's look at the Dower House instead, Gheena."

Gheena immediately thought of something brilliant. The neglected gardens of the Dower House stretched in melancholy confusion down to the water's edge. Box trees endeavoured to look forest-like as they stretched in unclipped luxuriance; spring bulbs made patches of colour here and there on the edges of the walks. The shuttered windows blinked blindly at the sunshiny world. They would have tea at Girtnamurragh—send Guinane to the village for provisions and have a picnic.

"I told Dearest that I could not be back to entertain Lance, because I was obliged to attend a meeting at the school-house," said Gheena thoughtfully. "He'll never know. And Psyche said that she was coming with me, and she slipped out the back avenue for a ride. Dearest is so cross nowadays. Then we might get a car somehow to take us home."

Mrs. Weston considered it an excellent plan. She begged Gheena to come back from the cliffs. It would take ages to get beyond the village, and if they went up to the road they might find a boy to take a message to Darby or Mr. Keefe—or even see someone.

Gheena paused irresolutely on the cliffs, which in summer would be fragrant with wild thyme and bright with trailing trefoil and sea-pinks. Now the gorse bushes dotted them and the air blew chilly.

The little fishing village crouched in the hollow, men shaking out nets to dry, tarring boats and getting ready for the summer.

War seemed a vague thing, far off and almost impossible.

They went in to the flat garden with its high hedges of fuchsia planted for shelter. It was a gloomy place. A thick belt of yew trees looking down at the drawing-room windows, had been planted for further shelter; the house was squat and inornate and built of weeping stone, oozing clammily in damp weather.

Stone men, battered and peevish from neglect, guarded either side of the wide entire garden walk, their faces pimpled with green patches.

At the back the usual vastness of old yards stood grass-grown and half ruinous.

A short avenue ran to the twisty lane coming down to Girtnamurragh, a lane bordered by low banks and gorse bushes, sprinkled with gold and sweetness.

Up this, abandoning her quest for caves, Gheena walked. Mrs. Weston hobbled, abusing the ruts and stones.

They reached the narrow ribbon of the coast road, to find its only occupants at the moment Looney Rooney and his ass car, and an old man going to the village for provisions.

Looney Rooney stopped to listen while Gheena spoke to Flaherty, who was pleased to talk of the sad state of affairs.

"Sugar risin', Miss, an' flour. All cakes, I suppose, the soldjers ates beyant near Mons, an' it terrible hard to live, but gran' times for shops. Hasn't Guinane taken over Rooney's old house next to this own to store all the supplies he brings in? Faix, the aisy time he has with yourself, Ma'am."

"Not looking after my cabbages," said Violet, sitting down and again kicking off one shoe.

"A big slhated house for all his supplies, no less. God save us, Mr. Stafford, but you were there as silent as a Roosian!"

Basil Stafford had appeared suddenly, coming over a gap on to the road.

"A slated house he's taken, has he?" he said to old Flaherty. "Are you hunting for submarines, Miss Freyne?"

Violet Weston said that she was, personally, hunting for a drive home, and must get it somehow, as her shoes were hurting her.

She grew radiant when Stafford pointed out the long grey nose of his new car, standing in the shelter of the hedge some way down the road. Return being made simple, they must ask Stafford to the picnic tea, and Gheena did so lamely just as hoofs sounded and Miss Delorme took a narrow bank on to the road with complete confidence and loose reins.

"Over ye'll be, Miss, if ye will not lay a howlt to his head," said Phil's voice warningly.

"Also, if Looney Rooney had been at his own side of the road, you would have jumped upon him and his ass," said Darby mildly.

Mrs. Weston remarked that it was quite a party now, and someone must get more bread and butter from the village. Rooney volunteered obligingly for a bribe of sixpence.

Psyche jumped off; she was riding in her everyday tweed skirt, having been afraid to put on a habit, and Phil led the horses down the lane, receiving promises of rugs from Stafford.

The wind was cold; they were all gathered in the shelter of the hedges when the clip-clop of a horse sounded coming down from Castle Freyne.

The bright sunshine flickered on a white horse's coat.

"It's Dearest!" Gheena leapt through the gap off the road. "He's coming here. He must see us if he passes before we have time to hide behind that gorse, and he'll never forgive me. Hide the horses. Darby, get up; call back Phil!"

Darby said hastily that Mr. Freyne might be going to the village. "And, in any case, he can see over the low bank, and there's no time to get to the yard," he added hopefully.

They all crouched closely in the warm spring sunshine, Gheena leaning against the bank, peeping over.

"And I told him I could not come to look over trout-flies, because I had business," said Darby. "And he's here, so I'm caught too."

Dearest George rode along airily, at peace with the world and secure in a good track, the white horse walking quickly.

"My horse," said Psyche.

"You couldn't flash a foot at him and blind him, I suppose?" suggested Darby, looking at Mrs. Weston's green stockings.

Gheena raised her head. Mr. Freyne was not going to the village, he was turning down to the Dower House to see how many stalls must be replaced after the winter's wind. Shrilly and decidedly Gheena whistled the quick "One—two—three" which Whitebird had learnt so thoroughly.

He cocked his ears and turned his big docile head. The whistle rang again.

Then just on the edge of the turn where it was muddy, the white horse folded up and died obediently, pinning his rider's foot quite securely under him.

The yell which reft the air did not disturb him in the least. He died, got up again, and saluted at his own time.

With a rush on hands and knees, Gheena explaining as they fled, the crouchers scrambled past the open gap, and round behind a thick clump of gorse on the hill in the field, from which they could get through a gate and into the yard, or be hidden where they were.

"You—something—something brute! You German!" came in staccato from the road.

"Do you think he's hurt?" whispered Stafford in Gheena's ear. They were crouched close together under the prickly shelter.

Gheena replied briefly that she was not going to see.

"He's up," hissed Darby, "and quite annoyed."

The white horse arose and saluted, looked for a rewarding carrot, and saw instead a threatening whip, so backed faster towards home, wondering what he had done wrong.

"You Hun! You Hindenburg!" foamed Dearest George, scraping off the mud. "You stand still, will you?"

The white horse retreated solemnly at a jog, now pursued by a lame and irate man.

"He'll go home in any case now to Mumsie," said Gheena composedly. "He's all muddy. It was the only thing I could think of. Now we'll have tea."

"Resourceful but heartless," said Stafford quietly. "Supposing he'd been hurt?"

"He folds up so gently, that horse," replied Gheena equably.

The getting into Girtnamurragh by opening a window—there were heaps of panes broken—proved quite simple. The long dark room gushed damp at them, so that they moved hurriedly to the kitchen, where turf and wood soon blazed hotly and the usual difficulties of pioneering commenced.

The pump would not pump for ages—they had forgotten to send for a teapot. But the afternoon was long, and they all laughed over rebuffs, until mounds of buttered toast and well-smoked tea stood ready on the wooden table.

"I thought of smugglers," said the Professor mildly, peeping in, "so I came up."

"You were out along the cliffs, Professor," said Stafford a little sharply.

"Upon the rocks. I saw you upon the cliffs," said the Professor affably. "Now that one may see a periscope on the sea, it is interesting."

Mike Guinane and Phil hung upon the outskirts of the tea-party, getting fresh water and toasting more bread, until Phil declared the horses 'd get their deaths and almost ordered a start.

"I am going out again in a day or two," Gheena remarked, as they drove home—"off far away on the cliffs."

"Keep off the cliffs"—Stafford had packed them both in his two-seater and Gheena was close to him—"keep off them." There was a ring of authority in his voice.

"Oh, no doubt you'd like me to," said Gheena icily.

She felt rather than heard a quick sharp sigh and the new car swerved a little.

They found Mr. Freyne, immersed in ill-humour, resting in the library with one foot in an old slipper.

With voluble anger he poured out his story—the horse tripping and falling quite suddenly and running away for a mile and more, and the mud, and his severe pain. Lancelot, pale and unsympathized with, was sitting in a corner without even a cushion for his foot.

"Someone whistled just as I fell," stormed Mr. Freyne, "but no one came to my assistance. Oh, doubtless some ruffian using the stables at Girtnamurragh and whistling warning."

"Horrid trick to play you!" said Stafford sympathetically.

At the word "trick" Dearest George looked thoughtful.

"It is just possible," he said, "but he only does that old trick for a signal. Gheena knows it. But she was at the school-house this afternoon."

Gheena and Mrs. Weston stood together in the doorway, talking earnestly.

"Why is he always upon those cliffs?" said Gheena. "Why always out alone?"

"These are things which make one thoughtful," said Violet. "But I can't believe in much real mischief down here. It's so out of the way."

The spring slipped on before Gheena went out again to the cliffs. She hurt her foot out hunting, knocking it against a gate, and was too lame to scramble over rough ground.

Psyche had learnt to sit on at her jumps now, but custom brought no abatement of her joy in the chase.

She still glowed and cried out, and still as a shadow followed the Master.

He got used to the little white face close behind him, to shining eyes filled with admiration.

"It's so wonderful! You just blew the horn and squiggled them along and they bow-wowed again," was one of Psyche's happy remarks.

"Gave tongue," said Darby politely.

Psyche replied unabashed that it was all the same noise, and glowed again.

She had learnt how to steady her horse at a fence, how to hold him together galloping.

"And I want to hunt ever and always," she said—"always. I'll never live in Kent again."

There had been unguarded moments when Darby, riding home with his never-weary follower, had even told her how he felt his crippling.

"I had dreamt," he said one evening, "of a different life, little sprite, of someone that I cared for being with me—through it."

Psyche knew—the white glow faded a little and her eyes darkened.

"If one cared," she began, "nothing would matter."

"But that is it. She was too young, too. And now it's not my place to try to make her care. Go alone for all time, Psyche. I've thought that Stafford——" he added after a long pause.

"She thinks him a spy," said Psyche slowly, "and despises him for not joining."

"In the name of God, Grandjer—the foxy Tom that I lambasted ye for this morning—Grandjer, howld on!"

Little Andy darted after the disappearing Grandjer, cracking a whip, as a comet-like streak of red dashed through the hedge.

"The Widow Casey's Tom," said Andy, returning, "an' I only just to save the craythur. There is some sort of a purry sthrain in him, an' she sets the divil's sthore by him for it."

Psyche suggested Persian, and Andy replied that it was maybe "Purry Shan," and patted the erring Grandjer fondly.

Confidences were broken off, and crippled Darby said good-bye at the next cross-roads.

To ride on with the pain of his loneliness biting him hard—his way was to the emptiness of his big house, to the long dull evening, with the paper to read over and over and the fire to stare into, with the pictured Dillon men, vigorous and whole-limbed, staring down at him contemptuously. There were girls, perhaps, who might marry him for his place and his income, but Darby knew that he would never ask them.

Directly her foot mended, Gheena asked Darby to drive her to the cliffs beyond the village.

"I don't want to take Violet any more," she said decidedly. "Her shoes begin to pinch after a mile or so, and I want to explore for holes and caves. You can wait for me," she said, seeing him look at his leg. "It's quite warm, and we'll get tea from old Maria Delaney."

Darby came obediently, waiting outside the gates, because Gheena found that it was better to do all things secretly and not get scolded. Hints of Lancelot coming to spend the afternoon or of being driven to see him made her rush blithely through the wood, Crabbit at her heels. Fast as she went, lighter feet pursued and caught her—Psyche Delorme, hatless and breathless.

"Gheena, Dearest is looking for you, and your mother is asking his advice as to where you are likely to be, and I don't want to drive in the car with them."

Gheena looked hard at the blue wash of waves seen through the tree-trunks, then she swore Psyche to silence and they ran on together.

"The sprite followed me," Gheena explained to Darby. "She has got no hat. Do drive on, Darby, because Dearest has got the car at the door, and he might come down to see if I'd walked to Cassidy's."

The car swept along the narrow road, bordered by a screen of fuchsias along the edge of the cliffs. They tore down the slope into Leeshane, scattering dogs and hens, took the steep ascent, and were out on the exposed road, which wound round eventually by the open sea.

It ran between low banks, never going down close to the cliffs, but Darby knew of a tortuous lane, which he dived into fearlessly, scraping the sides with his mudguards, bumping and crawling, until he reached an open close-turfed plateau with the sea growling just beyond it.

Gheena swung away, diving in and out among the clumps of gorse, peering behind boulders, looking down rabbit holes.

She noticed how in one spot the ground was trampled, and a path led away towards the road, then slipped over the verge and climbed among the rocks. The cliffs were honeycombed by caves—then irregular cavities, their mouths choked by fern and fuchsia, a reek of fox coming from them, showed high up, dark fuchsias below them. Some of them, narrow-mouthed, forbade entrance; others could be climbed into and explored.

They were damp places, barely innocent of concealed petrol. Gheena clambered on until Psyche grew tired and went back to where Darby sat in a sheltered nook, warm in the spring sunshine, his pipe between his teeth. He looked desolate then, his eyes following the active figure flying over the rocks.

"Petrol on the brain," he said patiently to Psyche.

Presently Gheena came to a deep channel running up to a rather large cave. The tide was flowing and the water lapping up at the big slimy boulders in the mouth of the dark place.

To go in might mean getting wet, but Gheena risked it, slipping and sliding over the stormy rocks. Crabbit grew excited, barking and growling, sniffing at the walls.

Something kept Gheena lingering until she had to take off her shoes and stockings and wade out. Outside a deep fissure led into another cave, an opening with a black sense of hollowness behind it, but no room for a man to pass in.

Crabbit was into the blackness in a moment. Gheena could hear him snuffling inside and even growling, then leaping up, trying to get out.

Sudden fear gripped Gheena, her dog might be entombed in there with walls too slippery for him to scramble up. He appeared quite suddenly, hooking on with his strong paws and coming out looking ruffled. There was a strip of shale just beyond this and no dark cave mouths showing. It was not far from the opening of the harbour. So Gheena scrambled up to the top of the cliff to find it thick with gorse, some of it cut down and piled up to dry for firewood, and shook her head sadly.

It was quite hot in the shelter of the cliffs, with the sun shining. The air was full of the scent of the gorse and the tang of salt.

Leaping down on to a little shingly beach, Gheena all but fell over the Professor basking in the sun, his hammer in his hand. Crabbit wagged his tail. He liked the Professor, and Gheena said it was a long way to walk from Dunkillen.

The Professor, blinking sleepily, asked if Gheena was out for birds' eggs or submarines, and Gheena hovered close to confidence before she thought better of it.

"Exploring caves," she said with strict truth, then inviting him to Mrs. Maloney's tea.

As they climbed to the verge and stood on the short sweet grass, they saw a dark figure some way off swinging along the edge of the open sea.

"It is Mr. Stafford. He walks that way to get to the Wireless Station. Exercise is good for the young," said the Professor dryly. "Perhaps he, too, is looking for submarines. I will follow you, Miss Freyne."

Gheena sat down for a few minutes in the nook which Darby had chosen for himself.

"I was not much help, Gheena," Darby said a little drearily.

Something in his voice touched Gheena. She remembered how years before Darby had scrambled with her over the rocks, and not sat looking on crutches by his side.

"But you're always a help, Darby," she said quickly.

Little Psyche, her hands round her knees, bunched into a bundle, said nothing.

"Always someone who wants help," he answered laughingly.

"Not out hunting," snapped Psyche resentfully.

They took tea in Mrs. Maloney's cottage. Its complete absence of windows flavoured the meal with turf smoke, which oozed out of one of the two doors ventilating the house, one facing to the sea where a land breeze blew, one to the land where the wind roared in from the sea.

But the little place was spotless despite the smoke, the brass candlesticks shining, the blue china on the dresser polished—a big home-baked cake appearing, delightfully indigestible, from the three-legged oven, and Maria's half a pound of butter used recklessly.

Boiled eggs and whisky were also proffered but refused.

"I couldn't get any butter from Anne to bring out," said Gheena, when they were coming away. "So I must tell Maria to get some at Guinanes'. That's the way we manage. She gives me her things and I return them. She wouldn't take money. Dearest counts the pounds of butter now when the churning is done, so Anne is going to put away cream, because she says 'It's orkard on her, an' people comin' to tay, an' the Masther axin' where the butter do be goin' to.' You must stop at Guinanes', Darby; I've told Maria to get a parcel from them."

As they bumped out of the lane, the whining purr of a high-powered car sounded outside it, and the long grey nose of Stafford's Daimler swung aside to avoid them. He had left his car evidently on the road.

"We found the Professor out rocking, and we are taking him home," said Darby.

"Oh!" said Basil Stafford quietly. He looked worried and out of humour.

"News—up there?" queried Darby.

"Not pretty news," Stafford answered grimly. "The submarines will do some harm in time." He sighed a little. "And you were all out on the cliffs," he added, staring at nothing.

"Miss Freyne was out upon the cliffs," said Darby, "I was not."

"Let those cliffs alone," said Stafford sharply. "I wish you would, Miss Freyne, in war times."

He laughed a little bitterly as Gheena looked at him.

It was still early, and a complete distaste for her own home made Gheena say that she would go to see Mrs. Weston.

They stopped at Guinanes' on their way back to order a parcel for their old hostess.

A stout woman at the counter was making complaint as to damp flour.

"Soggen and weighty, Mrs. Guinane, an' it near to swheep the life from Thomas Martin with the pain it gev him. 'The centher of me is on fire, Ma,' he cried out, an' it twelve at night—'an' I will surely die.'"

Mrs. Guinane, apologizing profusely, looked darkly towards the door which led to the kitchen.

"Mike, are ye there? He was there a minnit ago. I towlt him not to take the flour out of where 'twas always, to put it in that new house he has, for flour, says I, will not do unless there is a fire, says I, an' not one of us will he let in to put a fire there, but in an' out for himself always. Mikey, will ye bring back the flour ye have destroyed with ye're obstinacy, an' not be spilin' good food?"

Mrs. Weston's man put his shrewd blue-eyed face round the edge of the door and muttered something half aloud.

"Or will Mary Kate folly ye now with an apern full of turf," said his mother, conciliating him, "till we airs that new sthore ye have?"

Mike said "She will not" shortly, merely promising to bring back the flour bags to dry quarters.

"An', Mike, we are out of washin' soda. An' it locked up with him inside."

Mrs. Guinane then announced hotly that she was scalded from the new store, and turned to Gheena.

"Thim Germans has the poor ruined, Miss," she said, as she took the order. "Heapin' pince on everythin'."

Mrs. Weston, yawning profusely, was at home in a tobacco-scented atmosphere. Ends of cigarettes were littered about and feet cased in green silk were hurriedly removed from a comfortable rest on the mantelpiece and thrust into tight shoes. The old Swiss maid hobbled past the visitors out of the oven-hot room, curtsying as she met them.

Gheena only left a message from her mother. She could not have stayed long in the close room. But before she went she whispered one or two things to her friend. Mrs. Weston was not pleased to hear that Gheena had gone alone to the cliffs.

"Even if my shoes were too tight," she said. "And you found nothing?"

"Nothing at all," said Gheena absently, because at the moment she was thinking of the curious cave with the channel running into it, and of some sound which had not struck her at the time, but which came back to her now.

They found George Freyne accumulating chill and bad-humour upon the doorstep, looking out for his step-daughter.

"If you had told me that you actually wanted me to go for a drive," said Gheena patiently; "but you were not sure, Dearest, so I went for a walk and Darby drove us home. I—I wasn't spending money on anything, driving the car or being extravagant."

"Dearest has been quite put out," Mrs. Freyne confided. "Lancelot was driven over, lying back on cushions, Gheena, and looking as if he thought he was ill; he's very stout. And you were not there, and they asked us all back to dinner, which would have meant, Dearest said, no dinner here, so he's put out, Gheena darling, and says he'll sell another horse."

"If—he—dares to sell mine!" said Gheena with a queer little gulp.

CHAPTER XV

Darby Dillon refused emphatically to believe "a word of it." He listened to Gheena and his expression leant towards rudeness.

"Not one word," he said. "He's too good a——"

He stopped quite suddenly. If Gheena looked on Basil Stafford as a slacker and perhaps worse, she would never get to care for him, and hope is so strong a thing that there was always at the back of Darby's mind some vague thought of getting much better, and then in his fairy dreamland he would think that he might try to make a girl care for him. If she was gone, that dreamland would close its doors.

Then honesty came first. "He's too good a sort," said Darby gruffly, and observed also that Carrigeen Freyne, in this instance, had not Grandjer's nose.

Gheena said that Darby was very rude, and took up her gloves. They had come in to tea with Darby after a hunt. Hunting was just over now, even though here on the edge of the sea they sometimes killed a May fox. Still meadows were being closed up and fences mended, and it was only possible to hunt in the woodlands or on the mountains.

It was April now, treacherously fine, blue-skied and finely white-clouded, with all the birds singing, and spring holding out hands to early summer. Horses looked stale and dry-coated, but Darby held on. His year was over when hunting stopped, and he must hobble while Dearest George and Mr. Keefe melted opposite each other on mossy tennis lawns, and stood bravely up at the net until someone hit them.

"Mr. Freyne is so wonderful at the net," was a quotation made with bated breath by the country tennis-players.

"Just because I won't let you run away with things, you," said Darby—"you want to go without tea. I say Stafford's a good sort, Gheena, even if he won't fight or can't."

Gheena kicked the turf fire vigorously as she railed out fresh indictment. Money so suddenly obtained here, etc.

"I would write to the admirals if I knew them," said Gheena with dignity, "about—well, about things. And I did write to someone, who isn't stupid." Here she withered Darby with a glance.

Darby repeated equably that he refused to believe it. Stafford was a good sort, and he offered tea just as Psyche, a sprite even in her severe habit, came in, Dearest George, severely aloof, following her gloomily.

As he drank strong tea and ate several eggs, he spoke with feeling of his nephew Lancelot's health, and the complete arresting of his convalescence. He also talked of economy and the awful future of Great Britain's finances.

"Money," said Dearest, "being a thing which people cannot go on finding for ever; and as for horses, no one would be able to afford them, even if the war dragged on."

Darby saw Gheena's face cloud and assume an expression of one who had heard this particular form of foreboding too often.

The two girls jumped into the back of the car when they were starting, leaving Mr. Freyne to sit alone, wondering as he let in his clutch what petrol would go to and how long he would keep the car going.

"And if we were poor," stormed Gheena—"if we were, but we're not; and it's all mine, or it will be when I——"

She nodded icily to Stafford who was jogging home alone, riding rather close to Mrs. Weston and Mr. Keefe, who, with their heads almost touching, ambled in front of him through the opal twilight.

The sweetness of a spring morning was broken next day by the arrival of the motor from Cahercalla, with an urgent message saying that Mr. Lancelot was not well, and wished Miss Gheena to come over.

Gheena went without enthusiasm. It was a sunny morning, and she knew that she would find Lancelot lying down and basking in a huge arm-chair in the morning room, with an enormous fire and all the windows shut. There would be a smell of beef-tea and toast, coupled with that of a variety of tonics and cotton-wool, and Lancelot would betray the peevishness engendered by lack of exercise and too much heat.

As she had thought, she was engulfed in the pale brown morning room. Mrs. Freyne was winding wool of a lank variety, rasping it off a chair-back with dexterous fingers, Evelyn was stitching flannel night-dresses, and Lancelot was drinking Bovril and eating toast. He brightened up when Gheena, holding the door open for as long as she could, greeted him, and he at once told her how ill he felt. Mrs. Freyne went on for a time with her winding, and remarked after a time, apropos of nothing, that she had just heard from Geoffery, her second son, and that Lancelot never seemed really happy at Cahercalla, and that Geoffery would love to live there. Here she left the room to see the cook, followed in a moment by Evelyn.

Gheena found herself alone with her puffily fat cousin, who suddenly showed some interest in life.

He said it was good of her to come over. He blushed and upset his mother's work-basket, and then asked Gheena if she had been listening. Gheena asked to what, with restrained impotence in her voice.

At this point Lancelot sat up and possessed himself of Gheena's hand and asked her to marry him. It took Gheena some little time, sitting with crumpled brows, to realize what he was talking about.

Lancelot was not lacking in humbleness, nor yet in certainty of acceptance. He explained to Gheena the suitability of the matter—how he would come to live at Castle Freyne, and being such a friend of his uncle's, no changes need be made in existing arrangements. Of course, he might be again employed in the Army, even if not on active service, but war would not last for ever. And then he sat quite up and sighed with the satisfied air of a child who has repeated a lesson correctly; his next glance was at the clock.

Gheena's firm removal of her hand did not trouble him at all.

"Shall we call back mother," said Lancelot, "as it's time for my tonic, and she'd like to know?"

"Oh, she went away on purpose," said Gheena. Then with extreme candour Miss Freyne explained that she was very sorry, but she had no intention of marrying at present, and certainly not her distant cousin Lancelot.

Lancelot replied peevishly that he understood that Gheena wanted to be independent, and that why not now instead of later. Complete refusal he evidently did not understand.

Gheena looked at his plump cheeks; she conquered an intense desire to laugh heartily and she fell into thought. If she were engaged to Lancelot the wheels of everyday would no doubt be oiled, and the fever of economy be cured. But Gheena had no meanness in her.

Quite decisively this time, she told Lancelot that an engagement was as far away from her thoughts as matrimony, and that he could put the whole thing out of his head.

Lancelot plumped his cushions and quoted Uncle George feverishly. He produced a pearl ring bought for him at Cortra, and then his pocket-handkerchief. With tears of sheer temper in his eyes, he said a great many things which could not possibly further his suit.

Gheena rang the bell, a haughty look in her face. She remarked that Lancelot wanted his tonic, and endeavoured to look vacant when Lancelot made tearful mention of Prussic acid, and it was plain that his mother took in the whole situation at a glance.

The tonic, irony and bitter, was brought up solemnly to be rejected by the invalid, who even upset the bottle, declaring that health was no use to him now. After this everything was even plainer.

Luncheon with Lancelot glaring furiously at her over the hot chickens, which he wanted to eat and would not, was not a pleasant meal. When her son refused apple meringue and shook his head at a foie gras, Mrs. Freyne grew almost frantic, and the only conversation was a spasmodic one between Gheena and Eva.

Castle Freyne was eight miles away. Gheena had to wait to be called for by her stepfather, and the afternoon stretched hot and interminable before her.

Lancelot did not wish to go out. The prospect of sitting in the morning-room, seeing his aggrieved face outlined against the red cushions, until five or six o'clock seemed almost unendurable.

Making some vague excuse about a message, she slipped out; even a short respite was something, and once in the fresh air she considered the eight miles of road between her and home.

The avenue was a short one. She got to the gate and looked out. Her shoes were not thick and showers were coming up from the sea. Gheena wavered between the thought of hours dragged out under accusing eyes or of a two and a half hours' tramp, which would include a meeting with her stepfather.

At that moment the long grey nose of Basil Stafford's car swung round the bend in the road, and was pulled up beside her. In this she could be home in twenty minutes, get up the back avenue, and take refuge in the school-room for tea.

Very jerkily she asked to be taken home, murmuring something about offence given.

It did not take a far-seeing wit to discern the reason. A flicker of laughter curved Mr. Stafford's lips and he opened the door at the side.

Gheena flung propriety on one side. She drove back to the door and told Evelyn that she was going home, as she had forgotten to do something particular, and whispered "Go on" to the willing driver. The pace at which a high-powered car can go, even on narrow roads, was demonstrated to her in the next ten minutes, for to meet the Castle Freyne people would mean disaster. They reached the back gate safely, and Gheena, who had sat silent, could only ask her rescuer to tea, which, she explained, must be taken in the school-room, and that they must hide.

Basil Stafford accepted readily. Together they ran up the rough avenue until they reached the shelter of the large hay-barn, from which they could see if the coast was clear. Scrambling up into the fragrant hay, peering out across the wall, and then dodging quickly into the haven of the inner yard, to hear a familiar voice asking for Phil.

A variety of men grinned softly as Gheena dashed into a stable and went up the ladder to the loft at the double, followed by Stafford. Here among piled-up oats they crept forward and looked through the window down into the yard.

Mr. Freyne had come out to speak seriously to Phil—that morning traces of white oats had been observed in the mangers while Phil was out exercising. Black, and black alone, were to be used.

"And black it was," lied Phil pleasantly, "with maybe a grain or two of white getting mixed in."

Mr. Freyne looked upwards. He said that he knew exactly the quantity up there and would see if it had been depleted. Gheena drew a long breath, and remarked that she must face it, unless she went under the oats.

"And have a care of the ladder, sir," said Phil's voice below. "I was up lasht when turnin' the heaps an' two rungs broke on me. I just slipped them in somewheres, I'd say middleways."

Dearest George, checked, raved hotly at Phil for thus replacing rungs which might give way and kill a man.

"Well, I was afther meanin' to," observed Phil guilelessly; "but knowin' I would not be goin' up to the white oats maybe agin before May or June, I thought to put in a fresh laddther, that same bein' pure rotten. Would I put down a sop of hay in case ye meet the two, sir, an' they gives?"

When Dearest George spoke again it was in the yard. He told Phil several things then, as he gloomily awaited the arrival of his wife, who ambled out from the kitchen, a basket in her hands.

"Just a few things for Dayly's sick wife," she said. "I won't keep you a minute there, Dearest, because it's scarlet fever, and I'm sure you'd advise me not to and Gheena will want to come home. She always does from Cahercalla."

"This time," said Mr. Freyne, "Gheena will not wish to come home."

"If you mean she'll be engaged to Lancelot," said Matilda Freyne. "Of course, Dearest, if you think so, but I do not. He's so young and so stout, and she never liked fat men, and I'd much rather it was Darby."

Dearest ensconced himself behind the wheel and swore softly.

"He's saying 'Damn it! I should know best,'" whispered Stafford.

"At this distance you can't hear," said Gheena.

They were squeezed up together in the window, safe behind a veil of cobwebs, a friendliness unknown before between them. Gheena had forgotten war and spying. She was with someone who was protecting her.

"Shall we go out the back avenue? it's shorter," said Mr. Freyne.

Instantly Gheena's hand went out and caught Stafford's arm. They remembered the car down there.

"Mike Dundon put new sthones upon it only yesterday," said Phil stolidly. "And the off tyre is shaky, sir."

Basil Stafford felt that no half-crown had been so well earned as that which he put into Phil's hand when the car had hummed away out the front gate.

Gheena, a little shaken and upset, gave him tea in the school-room. One cannot snub a man who has hidden with you in an oat-loft. They talked and laughed with the same new friendliness, Stafford telling her of his years abroad, of Italy, of France, and then of Germany. The cloud came suddenly into Gheena's eyes.

"You were there for years, weren't you?" she said.

"For some months," he answered absently; "in Berlin. I knew some nice men there too."

"Whom you would not care to fight against now, I suppose?" Gheena muttered half to herself. "Oh, if there was only no war!" she flashed out, "and no economy, and no black oats, and wounded people and things!"

Basil said gravely that it would be a far better arrangement. He saw the cloud which had risen up.

"And—there being a war—we cannot be friends," he said slowly, coming to the mantelshelf, looking hard at Gheena.

Gheena felt a very hot flush being succeeded by pallor as she replied that one could not be friends with someone one could not understand.

Mr. Stafford said, "Or—anything else except friends," still keeping close to her.

"Gheena, a little bird whispered to me that you were home. They saw you coming, and I've news for you. Oh, Mr. Stafford!" Violet Weston pushed open the door, her golden head gleaming, her shoes of purple suede pinching her so that she limped.

"And the news?" Basil asked softly.

Violet replied, "Private news," lightly. Mrs. Weston sent Stafford out. He went to fetch his car, and she broke into excited whispers of how she'd heard that there was news of some spy about, and several other things, which could only have come from Mr. Keefe.

She sat on the edge of Gheena's chair, and was still there, one arm round the girl's shoulders, when Stafford came back to say good-bye. Gheena had already made doleful confession concerning Lancelot's proposal and the scoldings it was likely to involve her in.

Darby and Psyche had been out riding. They were just in when the unwelcome sound of a motor heralded the early return of Dearest George.

He came in quite slowly—happiness, of course, makes tripping feet, and sorrow heavy ones—and took off his motor gloves with tragic intensity.

When Darby remarked that they were back early, Mr. Freyne returned that he could not stay to watch sorrow, and particularly wounded sorrow.

"He even refused scones for tea," said Gheena's mother; "but I saw a tray on the writing-table, and he'd been having Benger's food—don't you think so, Dearest?—and plum cakes."

"He seemed quite annoyed by that question," observed Mrs. Freyne a moment later, when her spouse had quitted the room noisily.

Gheena, taken to task presently for girlish caprice, spoke out with complete honesty. She would never marry Lancelot. In her eyes he was a mere fat youth, and she had never been able to fix the halo of wounded hero about his head.

After this the hours marched to bedtime through a mental atmosphere of Cimmerian gloom.

When Darby made a cheeky remark, Dearest George quoted the casualty lists. If Psyche broke out about hunting, he said that all horses were now munitions of war. The taunting reproach in his eyes made a game of Bridge into a species of Kriegspiel, for, of course, Gheena cut her stepfather, and went "No trumps" after his repeated "Nos," because she said she thought he was only no-ing from bad spirits, the result of several lost shillings not improving matters.

But next morning, as Gheena and Crabbit forgot troubles among the daffodils under the trees, with the wind making the flowers as a sea of silvery gold, floating on spears of green, Mr. Freyne showed that he was in earnest.

Coming across the grass, he nodded good morning and called to his wife. Unsoftened by sheen of gold, by glimpse of blue restless sea, he scanned futurity with mental field-glasses and mapped out the following winter's campaign with precision.

He regretted it, but except Mrs. Freyne's cob—she was afraid of her weight and must ride—there would be no horses at Castle Freyne.

"And mine?" Gheena cried. "My horses, Dearest?"

Gheena's stepfather observed that there would not be anybody's horses. He reminded her coldly that until she came of age or married, she had not even an allowance.

Redbird, Whitebird, Blackbird—friends true and tried—to go to France as troopers; Redbird, little Redbird, with her fretful temper; Blackbird, fretful and excitable. Gheena heard the words pour on, catching one here and there, realizing vaguely their tone of threatening anger rather than their full sense. Then she recovered. It was nonsense! In four years she would have too much in her power. Even in war-times her stepfather would not dare to sell her horses. But four years! Forty-eight months! how many hundred days?—an age interminable!

"You don't mean it really, Dearest?" she said, smiling bravely. "Now, do you? And poverty is nonsense."

Mr. Freyne had delivered himself of much oratory; this retort snapped the thin thread of his patience.

His dark look at his stepdaughter worried her far more than any outburst of rage would have done.

"If you marry," he said smoothly, "the power will be in your own hands."

Gheena flew to her mother, who was bedewing socks with facile tears. Matilda Freyne explained that a wife must take her husband's advice, and that Dearest George had fully explained the urgency of everything.

"If you married Lancelot, darling Gheena," she said hopefully, "you could ask him about things. You see, the difficulty with you is that you are always asking yourself—and now I have dropped three stitches, and I must call Mary Anne."

Gheena refrained from bitter retort. So far the unending battle between her and her stepfather had been one of manoeuvring, firing blank shells; they had pulled in different directions, Gheena always sublimely certain of ultimate success. Now she was faced suddenly by a mobilized foe and was frightened.

"Your Dearest—that is, Dearest George—means it," said Mrs. Freyne tearfully. "And I——"

"I won't vex you, Mumsie," said Gheena gently, just as a messenger rode up with a message from Cahercalla.

It stated in the long pointed writing of Lancelot's mother that the boy was fretting and ill.

"He has had a complete set-back and refused even meringues and golden plover for dinner," wrote Mrs. Freyne. "He is now still in bed suffering from the shock of this unforeseen upset. Why, when everything was so absolutely suitable, Gheena could not. She had better come over at once before Lancelot's luncheon is due."

Gheena backed towards the door, listening to the reading of the letter. Then as Dearest was called for, she swung out hatless and raced into the wood with Crabbit at her heels, and slipped through the gardens into the stables. The swift saddling of Greybird was followed by her escape down the back avenue at a gallop and a reckless school across country until she dropped on to the road close to Darby's house.

He was out, limping among the horses, his dark face lighting as the girl rode in.

Gheena explained fully. Darby had always heard her troubles. She came into the warm old library and sat there muttering her forebodings.

"Psyche will find me," she said, looking out. "I left a note." She forgot trouble in the quiet old house. Darby talked of cheery things, of a speedy ending to the great war and of Dearest's seeing the error of his ways.

By the time the cook had, in her own language, slapped up a sweet, and lashed the phisint that was raggety-lookin' into a fricassey, Psyche had arrived upon a bicycle.

It was, of course, unfortunate that Gheena should have chosen one of the bones of contention to escape on, and that George Freyne should have, after some angry questioning, driven to Dillonscourt, looked for his lost step-daughter, and captured her out upon the lawn.

He was merely reproachful as he drove her on to Cahercalla, where Lancelot wilted in fiery heat, with untouched beef-tea, greasily tragic, by his side.

He explained very gently that he merely felt tired, but his poor mother was worried, and Doctor Malone said...

Here the old doctor upset the atmosphere of gentle pity by bursting to say he thought something must be very wrong if Lancelot couldn't eat as much as three; but with the help of a few liver pills, please God ... and then he told Lancelot to keep quiet. The memory of that visit was not a pleasant one to harassed Gheena. She was young and soft-hearted. By the time Lancelot's mother had talked to her feelingly in the vast chill drawing-room, and his sister had carried her off to the seclusion of a neat bedroom to clinch the matter, Gheena felt like a criminal, who ought to show repentance by immediately accepting the wounded hero downstairs, but she went away, leaving him sorrowful.

Two weeks of soft spring weather brought April almost to an end. It was weather almost summer-like, the sun turning it into summer and sheltered corners. The water was even warm enough for Gheena to take to swimming.

But through the woof of sunshine ran the warp of trouble. Lancelot languished. He really grew thinner and weak from hot, airless rooms and want of exercise.

The tale of his woes was told by degrees to all Dunkillen. Mrs. Keefe came to ask Gheena to change her mind because the boy was a wounded soldier. Mrs. De Burgho Keane called to say that any girl ought to be glad to find a husband now that all the men were being killed. At the end of a fortnight Mr. Freyne read the war news, and decided that the German tactics of attack were the best he could use, but he said nothing.

Gheena had had a swim. She came in glowing to dress warmly, and bask in the hot sunshine right in under the shelter of the cliffs. There was not a breath of air in her nook. The rocks caught the sun and flung it back, and in front the sea plashed calmly.

She saw Guinane's boat being pulled towards the village; it was heavily laden with stores. Another boat dashed out from the rocks, showing for a moment and then disappearing. Gheena knew it for Stafford's. She shrugged her shoulders, and felt the world in an elusive spring sunshine was not the place which it had been. The tide crept higher, bringing a cold breath with it, but Gheena could scramble out of her nook, even at high-water.

She was going to move when a snow shower of torn paper obstructed the view, falling in little scraps, some upon the water, some upon the shingle.

Crabbit cocked his ears and Gheena grew curious; steps died away on the cliff, and with quick fingers she took up most of the scraps of paper and put them in her pocket.

Stamp paper and toil helped away at least two hours in the house, until with great difficulty she read some of the letter. "Undoubtedly ... Submarines ... coast ... wait. Ba. Get the supply." Gheena raised her head. A few minutes before the note had fallen Basil Stafford's boat had shot in to shore; her eyes grew heavy.

Hunting was almost over, Darby still pursuing in big woodlands which were useless in winter, going out early, as if for cubbing. The horses, with rusty coats and looking far too fine, going with fire or spirit after their long winter. But it was something to do, and little Miss Delorme did not see why they should not hunt all summer in the mornings. She never missed a meet.

The attack meditated by George Freyne was carried out one day, and revealed by Phil, who went tearing to the shore to find Gheena.

"Save an' bless us, Miss Gheena, but Hartigan is afther bein' below in the yard an' all the horses soult! When he clapped his eyes on them, 'How much,' says he, 'for we have too many,' an' the Masther says 'Lump them,' says he, 'for a quiet sale.' An'——"

Gheena said "My horses?" very slowly.

"Redbird an' all." Phil was sobbing openly. "The craythur I reared from a foal to g'out to be run afther by thim haythens, and where will we all be, Miss Gheena? And God save us, don't get a wakeness, Miss!"

Gheena had not moved. She stood dreary, stricken; they were using their power. She was to live a virtual prisoner in her own home—no horses, no next season to dream of directly this one was dead.

"An' when he sighted the grey over the half door, 'He has the head of a rogue,' says he; 'lave him there;' but he come around an' said there was weddin's always, an' so he'd take him too. So Miss Mona's horse as well. And, Miss Gheena——"

For Gheena, abandoning all dignity, sat down and wept hopelessly, with Crabbit walking round, deeply upset.

"You next," said Gheena, feeling the dog's cold nose.

"You next." Phil went away back, crying himself, through the budding wood, with its sheen of blue anemones and tender green of growing moss. He clambered heavily over the sunk fence to meet Darby on the avenue—Darby, riding, whistling as he came, some touch of the spring making him happy.