Round and round the girls went, passing in turn out of the arms of an old into those of a young man, and back again. If they stayed their feet for a moment, Mrs. Barton glided across the floor, and, with insinuating gestures and intonations of voice, would beg of them to continue. She declared that it was la grace et la beaute, etc. The merriment did not cease until half-past six. Some of the company then left, and some few were detained for dinner. A new pianist and fresh officers arrived about nine o'clock, and dancing was continued until one or two in the morning. To yawning subalterns the house in Mount Street seemed at first like a little paradise. The incessant dancing was considered fatiguing, but there were interludes in which claret was drunk, cigarettes smoked, and loose conversation permitted in the dining-room.

Then the dinners! Mrs. Barton's dinners are worthy of special study. Her circle of acquaintances being limited, the same guests were generally found at her table. Lord Dungory always sat next to her. He displayed his old-fashioned shirt-front, his cravat, his studs, his urbanity, his French epigram. Lord Rosshill sat opposite him; he was thin, melancholy, aristocratic, silent, and boring. There was a captain who, since he had left the army, had grown to the image of a butler, and an ashen-tinted young man who wore his arm in a sling; and an old man, who looked like a dirty and worn-out broom, and who put his arm round the backs of the chairs. These and three A.D.C.'s made up the party. There was very little talking, and what there was was generally confined to asking the young ladies if they had been to the Castle, and if they liked dancing.

The Marquis was a constant, although an unwilling guest at all these entertainments. He would fain have refused Mrs. Barton's hospitalities, but so pressing was she that this seemed impossible. There were times when he started at the postman's knock as at the sound of a Land Leaguer's rifle. Too frequently his worst fears were realized. 'Mon cher Marquis, it will give us much pleasure if you will dine with us to-morrow night at half-past seven.' 'Dear Mrs. Barton, I regret extremely that I am engaged for to-morrow night.' An hour later, 'Mon cher Marquis, I am very sorry you cannot come to-morrow night, but Thursday will suit us equally well.' What was to be done? A second excuse would result only in a proposal to fix a day next week; better accept and get it over. He must do this or send a rude message to the effect that he was engaged for every day he intended to dine out that season, and he lacked the moral courage to write such a letter. Mrs. Barton's formula for receiving the Marquis never varied. If he arrived early he found Olive waiting to receive him in the drawing-room. She was always prepared with a buttonhole, which she insisted on arranging and pinning into his coat. Then allusion was made to the forget-me-nots that the bouquet was sure to contain; and laughing vacantly—for laughter with Olive took the place of conversation—she fled through the rooms, encouraging him to pursue her. During dinner attempts were made to exchange a few words, but without much success. Nor was it until Olive pelted him with flowers, and he replied by destroying another bouquet and applying it to the same purpose, that much progress was made towards intimacy. But this little scene was exceptional, and on all other occasions Lord Kilcarney maintained an attitude of reserve.

Mrs. Barton was at her wits' end. Three days ago she had met him walking in Grafton Street with Violet; yesterday she had caught sight of him driving towards Fitzwilliam Place in a four-wheeler. She had fortunately a visit to pay in that neighbourhood, and was rewarded by seeing the Marquis's cab draw up before the Scullys' door. The mere fact that he should use a cab instead of an outside car was a point to consider, but when she noticed that one of the blinds was partially drawn down, her heart sank. Nor did the secret of this suspicious visit long remain her exclusive property. As if revealed by those mysteriously subtle oral and visual faculties observed in savage tribes, by which they divine the approach of their enemies or their prey, two days had not elapsed before the tongue of every chaperon was tipped with the story of the four-wheeler and the half-drawn blind, but it was a distinctly latter-day instinct that had led these ladies to speak of there having been luggage piled upon the roof of this celebrated cab. Henceforth eye, ear, and nostril were open, and in the quivering ardour of the chase they scattered through the covers of Cork Hill and Merrion Square, passing from one to the other, by means of sharp yelps and barkings, every indication of the trail that came across their way. Sometimes hearkening to a voice they had confidence in, they rallied at a single point, and then an old bitch, her nose in the air, her capstrings hanging lugubriously on either side of her weatherbeaten cheeks, would utter a deep and prolonged baying; a little farther on the scent was recovered, and, with sterns wagging and bristles erect, they hunted the quarry vigorously. Every moment he was expected to break—fear was even expressed that he might end by being chopped.

The Shelbourne Hotel was a favourite meet, and in the ladies' drawing-room each fresh piece of news was torn with avidity. The consumption of notepaper was extraordinary. Two, three, four, and even five sheets of paper were often filled with what these scavengeresses could rake out of the gutters of gossip. 'Ah! me arm aches, and the sleeve of me little coat is wore; I am so eager to write it all off to me ant, that I am too impatient to wait to take it off,' was the verbal form in which the girl in red explained her feelings on the subject. Bertha Duffy declared she would write no more; that she was ruining herself in stamps. Nor were the pens of the Brennans silent; and looking over their shoulders, on which the mantles of spinsterhood were fast descending, one read: 'I hear they danced at the Castle three times together last night . . . a friend of mine saw them sitting in Merrion Square the whole of one afternoon. . . . They say that if he marries her, that he'll be ruined. . . . The estates are terribly encumbered . . . his family are in despair about it. . . . Violet is a very nice girl, but we all know her mother sold bacon behind a counter in Galway. . . . He never looks at Olive Barton now; this is a sad end to her beau, and after feeding him up the whole season. . . . He dined there three times a week: Mrs. Barton took the house on purpose to entertain him. . . . It is said that she offered him twenty thousand pounds if he'd marry her daughter. . . . The money that woman spends is immense, and no one knows whence it comes.'

In these matrimonial excitements the amatories of the lady who brought the A.D.C. home from the Castle passed unheeded. The critical gaze of her friends was sorely distracted, and even the night porter forgot to report the visits of her young gentlemen. May, too, profited largely by the present ferment of curiosity; and, unobserved, she kept her trysts with Fred Scully at the corners of this and that street, and in the hotel they passed furtively down this passage and up that pair of stairs; when disturbed they hid behind the doors.

Mrs. Gould lived in ignorance of all this chambering folly, spending her time either writing letters or gossiping about Lord Kilcarney in the drawing-room. And when she picked up a fragment of fresh news she lost not a moment, but put on her bonnet and carried it over to Mount Street. So assiduous was she in this self-imposed duty, that Mrs. Barton was obliged at last to close her door against this obtrusive visitor.

But one day, after a moment of intense reflection, Mrs. Barton concluded that she was losing the battle—that now, in the eleventh hour, it could only be snatched out of defeat by a bold and determined effort. She sat down and penned one of her admirable invitations to dinner. An hour later a note feebly pleaded a 'previous engagement.' Undaunted, she sat down again and wrote: 'Tomorrow will suit us equally well.' The Marquis yielded; and Lord Dungory was ordered, when he found himself alone with him in the dining-room, to lose no opportunity of insisting upon the imminent ruin of all Irish landlords. He was especially enjoined to say that, whatever chance of escape there was for the owners of unencumbered properties, the doom of those who had mortgages to pay had been sounded. Milord executed his task with consummate ability; and when the grand parti entered the drawing-room, his thoughts were racked with horrible forebodings. The domain woods, the pride of centuries, he saw plundered and cut down; lawns, pleasure-grounds, and gardens distributed among peasants, and he, a miserable outcast, starving in a Belgian boarding-house. Mrs. Barton's eyes brightened at the distressed expression of his face. Olive brought in the buttonhole and went to the piano; Milord engaged Alice's attention; and the Marquis was led into the adjoining room.

'The season is now drawing to its close,' Mrs. Barton said; 'we shall be soon returning to Galway. We shall be separating. I know Olive likes you, but if there is no—if it is not to be, I should like to tell her not to think about it any more.'

The Marquis felt the earth gliding. What could have tempted the woman to speak like this to him? What answer was he to make her? He struggled with words and thoughts that gave way, as he strove to formulate a sentence, like water beneath the arms of one drowning.

'Oh, really, Mrs. Barton,' he said, stammering, speaking like one in a dream, 'you take me by surprise. I did not expect this; you certainly are too kind. In proposing this marriage to me, you do me an honour I did not anticipate, but you know it is difficult offhand, for I am bound to say . . . at least I am not prepared to say that I am in love with your daughter. . . . She is, of course, very beautiful, and no one admires her more than I, but—'

'Olive will have twenty thousand pounds paid down on her wedding-day; not promised, you know, but paid down; and in the present times I think this is more than most girls can say. Most Irish properties are embarrassed, mortgaged,' she continued, risking everything to gain everything, 'and twenty thousand pounds would be a material help to most men. At my death she will have more; I—'

'Oh, Mrs. Barton, do not let us speak of that!' cried the little man.

'And why not? Does it prove that because we are practical, we do not care for a person? I quite understand that it would be impossible for you to marry without money, and that Olive will have twenty thousand paid down on her wedding-day will not prevent you from being very fond of her. On the contrary, I should think—'

'Twenty thousand pounds is, of course, a great deal of money,' said the little man, shrinking, terror-stricken, from a suddenly protruding glimpse of the future with which Milord had previously poisoned his mind.

'Yes, indeed it is, and in these times,' urged Mrs. Barton.

The weak grey eyes were cast down, abashed by the daring determination of the brown.

'Of course Olive is a beautiful girl,' he said.

'And she is so fond of you, and so full of affection. . . .'

The situation was now tense with fear, anxiety, apprehension; and with resolute fingers Mrs. Barton tightened the chord until the required note vibrated within the moral consciousness. The poor Marquis felt his strength ebbing away; he was powerless as one lying in the hot chamber of a Turkish bath. Would no one come to help him? The implacable melody of Dream Faces, which Olive hammered out on the piano, agonized him. If she would stop for one moment he would find the words to tell her mother that he loved Violet Scully and would marry none other. But bang, bang, bang the left hand pounded the bass into his stunned ears, and the eyes that he feared were fixed upon him. He gasped for words, he felt like a drunkard who clutches the air as he reels over a precipice, and the shades of his ancestors seemed to crowd menacingly around him. He strove against his fears until a thin face with luminous eyes shone through the drifting wrack like a stars.

'But we have seen so little of each other,' he said at last; 'Miss Barton is a great beauty, I know, and nobody appreciates her beauty more than I, but I am not what you call in love with her.'

He deplored the feebleness of his words, and Mrs. Barton swooped upon him again.

'You do not love her because, as you say, you have seen very little of each other. We are going down to Brookfield to-morrow. We shall be very glad if you will come with us, and in the country you will have an opportunity of judging, of knowing her: and she is such an affectionate little thing.'

Affrighted, the Marquis sought again for words, and he glanced at his torturer timidly, like the hare on the ever-nearing hounds. Why did she pursue him, he asked, in this terrible way? Had she gone mad? What was he to say? He had not the courage to answer no to her face. Besides, if Violet would not have him, he might as well save the family estates. If Violet refused him! Then he didn't care what became of him! He sought, and he struggled for words, for words that would save him; and, in this hour of deep tribulation, words came and they saved him.

'I have a great deal of business to attend to to-morrow. I am—that is to say, my solicitor is, raising for me a large sum of money at four per cent. On one large mortgage I am paying six per cent., therefore if I can get the money at four I shall be by some hundreds of pounds a richer man than I am at present. At the end of the week this matter will be settled. I will write to you and say when I shall be able to accept your invitation.'

Mrs. Barton would have preferred to have brought the matter at once to a conclusion, but in the hesitation that ensued, the Marquis, unable to withstand the strain set upon his feelings any longer, moved away from her. And in the next room, to save himself from further persecution, he engaged at once in conversation with Alice. Ten minutes after he said good-night. To get out of the light into the dark, to feel the cool wind upon his cheek, oh! what a relief! 'What could have persuaded that woman to speak to me as she did? She must be mad.' He walked on as if in a dream, the guineas she had promised him chinking dubiously through his brain. Then stopping suddenly, overcome by nerve-excitement, he threw his arms in the air: his features twitched convulsively. The spasm passed; and, unconscious of all save the thoughts that held and tore him—their palpitating prey—he walked onwards. . . . Black ruin on one side, and oh! what sweet white vision of happiness on the other! Why was he thus tortured—why was he thus torn on the rack of such a terrible discussion? He stopped again, and his weak neck swayed plaintively. Then, in the sullen calm that followed, the thought crossed his mind: If he only knew. . . . She might refuse him; if so, he did not care what became of him, and he would accept the other willingly. But would she refuse him? That he must know at once. If she did refuse, he would, at all events, escape the black looks of his relations, and in the cowardice of the thought the weary spirit was healed, assuaged, as tired limbs might be in a bath of cool, clear water. Why lose a moment? It was only half-past ten—an 'outside' would take him in less than two minutes to Fitzwilliam Place. Yes, he would go.

And as the car clattered he feasted on the white thin face and the grey allurements of her eyes. But if she weren't at home.

He was shown upstairs. Mother and daughter were alone, talking over the fire in the drawing-room. Nothing could be more propitious, but his fears returned to him, and when he strove to explain the lateness of his visit his face had again grown suddenly haggard and worn. Violet exchanged glances, and said in looks, if not in words: 'It is clear they have been hunting him pretty closely to-day.'

'I must apologize,' he said, 'for calling on you at such an hour; I really did not think it was so late, but the fact is I was rather anxious to see. . . .'

'But won't you sit down, Lord Kilcarney?' said Violet. 'I assure you we never go to bed before twelve, and sometimes we sit up here until one—don't we, mamma?'

Mrs. Scully smiled jocosely, and the Marquis sat down. In an instant his fate was decided. Overcome by the girl's frail sweetness, by the pellucid gaiety of her grey eyes, he surrendered; and his name and fortune fluttered into her lap, helplessly as a blown leaf. He said:

'I came to see you to-night . . . I took the liberty of calling on you at this late hour, because things had occurred that . . . well, I mean . . . you must have observed that I was attached to you. I don't know if you guessed it, but the fact is that I never cared for anyone as I do for you, and I felt I could bear with uncertainty no longer, and that I must come to-night, and ask you if you will have me.'

Violet raised her eyes.

'Say yes,' murmured the Marquis, and it seemed to him that in the words life had fallen from his lips.

'Yes,' was the answer, and he clasped the thin hand she extended to him.

'Ah, how happy you have made me, I never thought such honours were in store for me,' exclaimed Mrs. Scully. The discipline of years was lost in a moment; and, reverting to her long-buried self, she clasped the Marquis to her agitated bosom. Violet looked annoyed, ashamed; and Mrs. Scully, whom excitement had stripped of all her grand manners, said:

'And now, me dear children, I'll leave you to yerselves.'

The lovers sat side by side. Violet thought of the great love she had inspired, and the Marquis of the long years of happiness that would—that must now be his, of the frail grace that as a bland odour seemed to float about his beloved. And now that she was his, he would have her know that his love of her rose out of his deepest sense of soul; but words were weak: he seemed to be tongue-tied.

'Where did you dine to-night?' she said suddenly.

'With the Bartons.'

He told her everything—of the proposal and the invitation to Brookfield.

'And are you going down to Galway to stay with them?'

'Of course not. How can you ask such a question?'

'And why not—why shouldn't you go? I wish you would,' she added; and the light in her grey eyes was malign.

'You're joking? You surely don't mean what you say. I thought you said you loved me.'

'Yes, my dear Harry, that is the very reason. We love each other, therefore I know I can trust you.'

He pressed the hand—the silken skin, the palm delicately moist—in recognition of her kind words.

'I wouldn't go for anything in the world. I hate those people. 'Pon my word, I don't think anything would tempt me to spend a week with them in the country.'

'Yes; I could.'

The Marquis laughed. 'Yes, you could—you could tempt me to do anything. But why should you want me to go and spend a week with them in Galway?'

'Because, dear, they were rude to me; because,' she added, casting down her eyes—'because they tried to buy you from me. That is why I should like to humiliate them.'

The enchantment of the Marquis was completed, and he said:

'What, a whole week away from you! a whole week with Mrs. Barton! I could not endure it.'

'What, not for my sake?'

'Anything for your sake, darling.' He clasped her in his arms, and then they lapsed into silence that to him was even sweeter than the kiss she had given him. Love's deepest delight is the ineffable consciousness of our own weakness. We drink the sweetened cup in its entirety when, having ceased to will, we abandon ourselves with the lethal languors of the swimmer to the vague depths of dreams. And it was past midnight when the Marquis left Fitzwilliam Place. The ladies accompanied him downstairs; their hands helped him to his hat and coat, and then the lock slipped back sharply, and in the gloom, broken in one spot by the low-burning gas, the women wondered.

'Oh, mamma, mamma, mamma! I am so happy!' the girl exclaimed, and, weeping passionately, she threw herself for rest upon Mrs. Scully's arms.

'Yes, my child; you have been very good, you have made me very happy. You'll be a marchioness. Who would have thought I'd have lived to see all this honour when I served in the little shop at Galway!'

At the mention of the shop Violet recovered her composure, and mother and daughter listened to the receding footfalls.

'I wonder if he is happy,' Violet murmured; 'as happy as I am. For I do like him. He is a good sort.'

'Your happiness is a different happiness,' Mrs. Scully answered.

Like a flowering tree, a luxuriant joy bloomed in the Marquis's heart; in its shade and fragrance his thoughts lay supinely; and, a prey to many floating and fanciful imaginings, he walked onwards through the darkness. In the lowering skies he saw the fair face that had led him to the verge on which he now stood.

'Was anybody as happy as he? And what did his happiness mean?' he asked himself.

Shades flitted across yellow window-panes, and he remembered he had received an invitation for this very ball.

Cats slunk through the area railings; policemen moved from their hiding corners; a lover passed on with his dreams.



XXI

Mrs. Barton rarely took anyone into her confidence, and her plan for the capture of the Marquis was locked within her breast. Not to her husband, nor yet to Milord, did she think of going for advice. Her special experience of life had taught her to trust none, to be self-reliant, and never to give up hope. For as she often said, it is the last effort that wins the battle. Mrs. Barton's knowledge of the world, when it came to be analyzed, was only that of the courtesan—skin deep.

Two days after she received a note from the Marquis, saying he would be glad to spend a week with them at Brookfield. She read it quietly, slipped it into the pocket of the black silk that covered the unseen feet, and glided out of the room. Every detail was clear to her. They must leave Dublin to-morrow morning; they need not trouble about calling on a pack of women, but they would have all their men friends to dinner.

Mr. Barton, when he was informed of these sudden determinations, was in the act of rehearsing a song he was to sing the following day at a concert.

'But, my dear,' he said, tightening one of the strings; 'the public will be awfully disappointed.'

'Yes, my dear, yes; I am very sorry, but I have my reasons—serious reasons; and in this world we must only do what's right.'

'Then in the next world we shall be able to do everything that's wrong,' said Mr. Barton; and he threw back his blond locks with troubadour-like waves of his lymphatic hand. 'I shall like the next world better than this,' he added, and his wife and daughter laughed; for papa was supposed to be very naughty.

'Olive, dear—'

'Oh, mamma, I wish you wouldn't call me Olive. I shall change my name. Captain Talbot was chaffing me about it yesterday. Everybody chaffs me about it.'

'Never mind, my dear; it makes a subject of conversation. But I was going to tell you that we shall have to start for Brookfield to-morrow.'

'Go to Brookfield! I couldn't possibly leave Dublin yet a while; what would all my young men do—they'd die of broken hearts!'

'It won't matter much if they do; there aren't a dozen worth two thousand a year each.'

'No? You are joking, mamma. And the Marquis?'

'That's a secret, dear.'

'Then you don't think he'll propose to me after all; and I gave up Edward—Captain Hibbert.'

'I thought you had forgotten that horrid man's name. I didn't say, dear, that the Marquis wouldn't propose to you—of course he will. But we must leave Dublin to-morrow—I have serious reasons.'

'Oh, mamma, I didn't think you were so cruel, to go back to that hateful place, where everybody talks of rents, and that odious Land League.'

'Now, I will not allow my darling to cry like that,' exclaimed Mrs. Barton, and she threw her arms round the girl's shoulders. 'I didn't say that there wouldn't be a man within seven miles. On the contrary, there will be one very charming man indeed.'

'What do you mean, mamma?'

'That's a secret—that's a secret.'

Alice was told that she had better come home early that afternoon, so that she might have plenty of time to pack her own things and help her sister with hers; and it seemed to her unbelievable that she was at last leaving that hateful little varnished floor, complimenting old beaux and young A.D.C.'s.

But if to nobody else, she must say good-bye to May. She had hardly seen her since the night of the State ball—the night she had given Fred Scully permission to see her in her room. She found her in the ladies' drawing-room.

'How do you do, May?'

'Oh, how do you do, Alice? I am so glad to see you. What a dreadful day!'

'Yes, isn't it? Don't you find it very depressing?'

'I should think I did. I'm feeling rather out of sorts. Do you ever feel out of sorts? you know, when everything seems as if it were reflected in a darkened glass? There are times when we girls are nervous and weak, and ready to quarrel with anyone. I don't know what I wish for now; I think I should like to go back to the country.'

'We are going back to-morrow morning.'

'You don't say so; and how's that? There are plenty of balls and afternoon dances. What does Olive say to going home?'

'She doesn't mind. You know mamma always said she would return immediately after the Castle balls.'

'And now that it is all over, tell me what you think of the Castle. Did it come up to your expectations?'

'I don't know that I think much about the matter. I am not so fond of dancing as you are.'

'Oh, goodness me, goodness me, how ill I do feel,' said May, as she started and yawned in a way that betokened the nervous lassitude she was suffering from.

'Perhaps you had better see the doctor,' said Alice significantly.

'I'm worried. Fred hasn't been as nice lately as he used to be.'

'What has he done?'

'Last night he promised to meet me in the Square, and he wrote to say he couldn't come, that he was forced to go and see an important customer about some horses.'

'Perhaps he had.'

'I dare say he had, but what of that? It does not make it any less disagreeable for me to be disappointed.'

'How cross you are, May! I came out on purpose to talk to you on this very subject. I hope you won't be angry, but I think it is my duty to tell you that people are beginning to talk about you.'

'And what do they say?'

'Well, they say many unpleasant things; you know how ill-natured people are.'

'Yes, but what do they say?'

'They say you are desperately in love with Fred Scully.'

'Supposing I were; is there any very great harm in that?'

'I only want to put you on your guard, May dear; and since I have come here for the purpose of speaking out, I had better do so, however unpleasant it may be; and I must say that you often forget yourself when he is in the room, and by your whole manner betray your feelings. You look at him—'

'You needn't talk. Now that Harding has left town, these moral reflections come very easy to you!'

Alice blushed a little; she trembled, and pursuing her advantage, May said:

'Oh, yes; I have watched you in the Castle sitting out dances; and when girls like you butter! 'Pon my word, it was painful to look at you.'

'Mr. Harding and I talked merely of books and pictures.'

'If you come here to insinuate that Fred and I are in the habit of indulging in improper conversation. . . . I didn't expect this from you. I shan't stop another moment. I shan't speak to you again.'

Picking up her novel, and deaf to all explanations, May walked haughtily out of the room. Alice would have given much to help; and, her heart filled with gentle disappointment, she returned home. The evening was spent in packing; and next morning at dawn, looking tired, their eyes still heavy with sleep, the Bartons breakfasted for the last time in Mount Street.

At the Broadstone they met Lord Dungory. Then, their feet and knees cosily wrapped up in furs, with copies of the Freeman's Journal lying on the top, they deplored the ineffectiveness of Mr. Forster's Coercion Act. Eight hundred people were in prison, and still the red shadow of murder pointed across the land. Milord read from the newspaper:

'A dastardly outrage was committed last night in the neighbourhood of Mullingar. A woman named Mary —— had some differences with her sister Bridget ——. One day, after some angry words, it appears that she left the house, and seeing a man working in a potato-field, she asked him if he could do anything to help her. He scratched his head, and, after a moment's reflection, he said he was going to meet a "party," and he would see what could be done. On the following day he suggested that Bridget might be removed for the sum of one pound. Mary —— could not, however, procure more than fifteen shillings, and a bargain was struck. On the night arranged for the assassination Mary wished to leave the house, not caring to see her sister shot in her presence, but Pat declared that her absence would excite suspicion. In the words of one of the murderers, the deed was accomplished "nately and without unnecessary fuss."'

'I wonder,' said Mrs. Barton, 'what those wretches will have to do before the Government will consent to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, and place the country in the hands of the military. Do they never think of how wickedly they are behaving, and of how God will punish them when they die? Do they never think of their immortal souls?'

'L'ame du paysan se vautre dans la boue comme la mienne se plait dans la soie.'

'Dans la soie! dans la soie! oh, ce Milord, ce Milord!'

'Oui, madame,' he added, lowering his voice, 'dans le blanc paradis de votre corsage.'

Three days after life at Brookfield had resumed its ordinary course. Once breakfast was over, Arthur retired to the consideration of the pectoral muscles of the ancient Briton, Milord drank his glass of sherry at half-past one, and Mrs. Barton devoted herself to the double task of amusing him and encouraging Olive with visions of future fame. Alice was therefore left definitely to herself, and without hindrance or comment was allowed to set up her writing-table, and spend as much time as she pleased in her bedroom.

Several sheets of foolscap paper covered with large open handwriting lay upon the table. Upon the first page, with a line ruled beneath it, stood the title: 'The Diary of a Plain Girl—Notes and Sensations.' She had just laid aside her pen and was waiting for Cecilia.

'Oh, Alice darling, how are you? I am delighted—I am so delighted to see you. Let me kiss you, let me see you; I have been longing for you for weeks—for months.'

Alice bent her face down, and then, holding each other's hands, the girls stood looking through a deep and expressive silence into each other's eyes.

'I wish, Alice, I could tell you how glad I am to have you back: it seems like heaven to see you again. You look so nice, so true, so sweet, so perfect. There never was anyone so perfect as you, Alice.'

'Cecilia dear, you shouldn't talk to me like that; it is absurd. Indeed, I don't think it is quite right.'

'Not quite right,' replied the cripple sadly; 'what do you mean? Why is it wrong—why should it be wrong for me to love you?'

'I don't mean to say that it is wrong; you misunderstand me; but—but—well, I don't know how to explain myself, but—'

'I know, I know, I know,' said Cecilia, and her nervous sensitivity revealed thoughts in Alice's mind—thoughts of which Alice herself was not distinctly conscious, just as a photograph exposes irregularities in the texture of a leaf that the naked eye would not perceive.

'If Harding were to speak to you so, you wouldn't think it wrong.'

Alice's face flushed a little, and she said, with a certain resoluteness in her voice, 'Cecilia, I wish you wouldn't talk to me in this way. You give me great pain.'

'I am sorry if I do, but I can't help it. I am jealous of the words that are spoken to you, of the air you breathe, of the ground you walk upon. How, then, can I help hating that man?'

'I do not wish to argue this point with you, Cecilia, nor am I sure that I understand it. There is no one I like better than you, dear, but that we should be jealous of each other is absurd.'

'For you perhaps, but not for me.' Cecilia looked at Alice reproachfully, and at the end of a long and morose silence she said:

'You received the long letter I wrote to you about him?'

'Yes, Cecilia, and I answered it. It seems to me very foolish to pronounce condemnatory opinion on the whole world; and particularly for you who have seen so little of it.'

'That doesn't matter. People are blinded by their passions; but when these have worn themselves out, they see the truth in all its horrible nakedness. One of these days you'll tell me that I am right. You have been a good deal in the world lately; tell me if you have found it beautiful. You didn't believe me when I told you that men were vile and abominable; you said there were good men in the world, that you were sure of it. Have you found them? Was Mr. Harding so very perfect?'

Alice coloured again; she hesitated, and in the silence Cecilia again divined her friend's thoughts.

'A very poor ideal indeed, it seems to me that you set yourself—to make the best of this wretched world.'

'I cannot understand what good can come of craving after the unattainable,' said Alice, looking earnestly out of her grey sharp eyes.

'True beauty lies only in the unattainable,' said Cecilia, lifting her eyes with that curious movement of the eyeball by which painters represent faith and mysticism.

At the end of a long silence, Alice said:

'But you'll have some tea, will you not, Cecilia?'

'Yes; but don't let us go downstairs.'

'We'll have it up here; Barnes will bring it up.'

'Oh, that will be so nice.'

The girls drew closer to the fire, and in its uniting warmth they looked into the ardent face of their friendship, talking, at first, conscious of the appropriateness of their conversation; but soon forgetful of the more serious themes they had been discussing, questions were asked and answered, and comments passed, upon the presentations, the dresses, the crowds, upon all their acquaintances.

'It is given out, Alice dear, that Lord Kilcarney is coming down to stay at Brookfield. Is it true?'

'I have heard nothing of it. Whom did you hear it from?'

'Well, the Duffys wrote it to my sisters. The Duffys, you know, have all the Dublin news.'

'What dreadful gossips they are! And the wonderful part of it is that they often tell you that things have happened long before they do happen.'

'Yes; I have noticed that. They anticipate the news.'

The girls laughed lightly, and Cecilia continued:

'But tell me, which do you think he admires most, Olive or Violet? The rumour goes that he pays Violet great attentions. The family is, of course, wild about it. She hasn't a penny piece, and Olive, they say, has a good deal of money.'

'I don't know.'

'You must show me the dress you wore. You described it beautifully in your letter. You must have looked very sweet. Did everybody say so?'

'I am not sure that they did. Men, you know, do not always admire what women do.'

'I should think not. Men only admire beastliness.'

'Cecilia dear, you shouldn't talk like that; it isn't nice.'

Cecilia looked at Alice wistfully, and she said:

'But tell me about the presentations. I suppose there were an immense number of people present?'

'Yes, and particularly debutantes; there were a great number presented this year. It was considered a large Drawing-Room.'

'And how are you presented? I've heard my sister speak about it, but I never quite understood.'

At that moment Barnes brought in the tea. She set it on a little table used for the purpose.

'There is a letter for you, miss, on the tray,' she said as she left the room; 'it came by the afternoon post.'

Without answering, Alice continued to pour out the tea, but when she handed Cecilia her cup, she said, surprised at the dull, sullen stare fixed upon her:

'What is the matter? Why do you look at me like that?'

'That letter, I am sure, is from Harding; it is a man's handwriting.'

She had been expecting that letter for days.

'Oh! give it me,' she said impulsively.

'There it is; I wouldn't touch it. I knew you liked that man; but I didn't expect to find you corresponding with him. It is shameful; it isn't worthy of you. You might have left such things to May Gould.'

'Cecilia, you have no right to speak to me in that way; you are presuming too much on our friendship.'

'Oh, yes, yes; but before you met him I could not presume too much upon our friendship.'

'If you want to know why I wrote to Mr. Harding, I'll tell you.'

'It was you who wrote to him, then?'

'Yes, I wrote to him.'

'Oh, yes, yes, yes; I see it all now,' cried Cecilia, and she walked wildly to and fro, her eye tinged with a strange glare. 'Yes, I see it all. This room, that was once a girl's room, is now Harding's room. He is the atmosphere of the place. I was conscious of it when I entered, but now it is visible to me—that manuscript, that writing-table, that letter. Oh yes, it is Harding, all is Harding!'

'Cecilia, Cecilia, think, I beg of you, of what you are saying.'

But when Alice approached and strove to raise her from the pillow upon which she had thrown herself, she started up and savagely confronted her.

'Don't touch me, don't touch me!' she cried. 'I cannot bear it. What are you to me, what am I to you? It is not with me you would care to be, but with him. It is not my kiss of friendship that would console you, but his kiss of passion that would charm you. . . . Go to him, and leave me to die.'

'Was this insanity?' And then, forgetful of the abuse that was being showered upon her, Alice said:

'Cecilia dear, listen; I'll forgive the language you have used toward me, for I know you do not know what you are saying. You must be ill . . . you cannot be in your right senses to-day, or you would not speak like that.'

'You would soothe me, but you little dream of the poison you are dropping on my wounds. You never understood, you are too far removed from me in thought and feeling ever to understand—no, your spirituality is only a delusion; you are no better at heart than May Gould. It is the same thing: one seeks a husband, another gratifies herself with a lover. It is the same thing—where's the difference? It is animal passion all the same. And that letter is full of it—it must be—I am sure it is.'

'You are very insulting, Cecilia. Where have you thrown my letter?'

The letter had fallen beneath the table. Alice made a movement towards it, but, overcome by mad rage, Cecilia caught it up and threw it into the fire. Alice rescued her letter, and then, her face full of stern indignation, she said:

'I think, Cecilia, you had better leave my room, and before you come to see me again, I shall expect to receive a written apology for the outrageous way you have behaved.'

In a few days came a humble and penitent letter; Cecilia returned, her eyes full of tears, and begged to be forgiven; the girls resumed their friendship, but both were conscious that it was neither so bright nor so communicative as in the olden days.



XXII

'Something has happened to my learned daughter,' said Mr. Barton, and he continued his thumb-nail sketch on the tablecloth. 'What is it?' he added indolently.

Alice passed the cheque and the memorandum across the table. 'Three pounds for three articles contributed to the —— during the month of April.'

'You don't mean to say, Alice, you got three pounds for your writing?' said Mrs. Barton.

'Yes, mother, I have, and I hope to make ten pounds next month. Mr. Harding says he can get me lots of work.'

'So my lady then, with all her shy ways, knows how to make use of a man as well as any of us.'

Mrs. Barton did not willingly wound. She saw life from the point of view of making use of men, that was all; and when Alice walked out of the room, Mrs. Barton felt sorry for what she had said, and she would have gone to comfort her daughter if Olive had not, at that moment, stood in imminent need of comfort.

'I suppose,' she said pettishly, 'the letter you received this morning is from the Marquis, to say he won't be here next Tuesday?'

It was. For as the day fixed for his arrival at Brookfield approached, he would write to apologize, and to beg that he might be allowed to postpone his visit to Monday week or Wednesday fortnight. Mrs. Barton replied that they would be very glad to see him when he found it convenient to come and see them. She did not inquire into the reason of his rudeness, she was determined to fight the battle out to the end, and she did not dare to think that he was being prompted by that beast of a girl, Violet Scully.

'He writes a very nice letter indeed. He says he has a very bad cold, and doesn't like to show himself at Brookfield with a red nose, but that, unless he dies in the meantime, he will be with us on the twentieth of the month, and will—if we'll have him—stop three weeks with us.'

'I knew the letter was a put-off. I don't believe he admires me at all, the little beast; and I know I shall never be a marchioness. You made me treat poor Edward shamefully, and for no purpose, after all.'

'Now, Olive, you mustn't speak like that. Go upstairs and ask Barnes if she has heard anything lately?'

'Oh, I'm sick of Barnes; what has she heard?'

'She is a great friend of Lady Georgina's maid, who knows the Burkes intimately, particularly Lady Emily's maid, and Barnes got a letter from her friend the other day, saying that Lady Emily was delighted at the idea of her brother marrying you, dear, and that he thinks of nobody else, speaks of nobody else. Run up and speak to her about it.'

As we have seen, Mrs. Barton had drugged Olive's light brain with visions of victories, with dancing, dresses, admiration; but now, in the tiring void of country days, memories of Edward's love and devotion were certain to arise. He made, however, no attempt to renew his courtship. At Gort, within three miles, he remained silent, immovable as one of the Clare mountains. Sometimes his brown-gold moustache and square shoulders were caught sight of as he rode rapidly along the roads. He had once been seen sitting with Mrs. Lawler behind the famous cream-coloured ponies; and to allude to his disgraceful conduct without wounding Olive's vanity was an art that Mrs. Barton practised daily; and to keep the girl in spirits she induced Sir Charles, who it was reported was about to emigrate his family to the wilds of Maratoga, to come and stay with them. If a rumour were to reach the Marquis's ears, it might help to bring him to the point. In any case Sir Charles's attentions to Olive would keep her in humour until the great day arrived.

Well convinced that this was her last throw, Mrs. Barton resolved to smear the hook well with the three famous baits she was accustomed to angle with. They were—dinners, flattery, and dancing. Accordingly, an order was given to the Dublin fishmonger to send them fish daily for the next three weeks, and to the pastrycook for a French cook. The store of flattery kept on the premises being illimitable, she did not trouble about that, but devoted herself to the solution of the problem of how she should obtain a constant and unfailing supply of music. Once she thought of sending up to Dublin for a professional pianist, but was obliged to abandon the idea on account of the impossibility of devising suitable employment for him during the morning hours. A tune or two might not come in amiss after lunch, but to have him hanging about the shrubberies all the morning would be intolerable. She might ask a couple of the Brennans or the Duffys to stay with them, but they would be in the way, and occupy the Marquis's time, and go tell-taling all over the country; no, that wouldn't do either. Alice's playing was wretched. It was a wonderful thing that a girl like her would not make some effort to amuse men—would not do something. Once Olive was married, she (Mrs. Barton) would try to patch up something for this gawk of a girl—marry her to Sir Charles; excellent match it would be, too—get all the children emigrated first: and if he would not have her, there was Sir Richard. It was said that he was quite reformed—had given up drink. But there was no use thinking of that: for the present she would have to put up with the girl's music, which was wretched.

Olive fell in with her mother's plans, and she angled industriously for Lord Kilcarney. She did not fail to say in or out of season, 'Il n'y a personne comme notre cher Marquis,' and as the turbot and fruit, that had arrived by the afternoon train from Dublin, were discussed, Milord did not cease to make the most appropriate remarks. Referring to the bouquet that she had pinned into the Marquis's buttonhole, he said:

'Il y a des amants partout ou il y a des oiseaux et des roses.' And again: 'Les regardes des amoureux sont la lumiere comme le baiser est la vie du monde.'

After dinner no time was lost, although the Marquis pleaded fatigue, in settling Alice at the piano, and dancing began in sober earnest. After each waltz Olive conducted him to the dining-room; she helped him liberally to wine, and when she held a match to his cigarette their fingers touched. But to find occupation for the long morning hours of her young couple was a grave trouble to Mrs. Barton. She was determined to make every moment of the little Marquis's stay in Galway moments of sunshine; but mental no more than atmospheric sunshine is to be had by the willing, and the poor little fellow seemed to pine in his Galway cage like a moulting canary. He submitted to all the efforts made in his behalf, but his submission was that of a victim. After breakfast he always attempted to escape, and if he succeeded in eluding Mrs. Barton, he would remain for hours hidden in the laurels, enwrapped in summer meditations, the nature of which it was impossible even to conjecture. In the afternoon he spoke of the burden of his correspondence, and when the inevitable dancing was spoken of, he often excused himself on the ground of having a long letter to finish. If it were impossible for her to learn the contents of these letters, Mrs. Barton ardently desired to know to whom they were addressed. Daily she volunteered to send special messengers to the post on his account; the footman, the coachman, and pony-chaise, were in turn rejected by him.

'Thank you, Mrs. Barton, thank you, but I should like to avail myself of the chance of a constitutional.'

'La sante de notre petit Marquis avant tout,' she would exclaim, with much silvery laughter and all the habitual movements of the white hands. 'But what do you say: I am sure the young ladies would like a walk, too?'

With a view to picturesque effect Mrs. Barton's thoughts had long been centred on a picnic. They were now within a few days of the first of May, and there was enough sunshine in the air to justify an excursion to Kinvarra Castle. It is about four miles distant, at the end of a long narrow bay.

Mrs. Barton applied herself diligently to the task of organization. Having heard from Dublin of the hoax that was being played on their enemy, the Ladies Cullen consented to join the party, and they brought with them one of the Honourable Miss Gores. The Duffys and Brennans numbered their full strength, including even the famous Bertha, who was staying with her sisters on a visit. The Goulds excused themselves on account of the distance and the disturbed state of the country. Mrs. Barton found, therefore, much difficulty in maintaining the noted characteristic of her parties. Sir Richard and Sir Charles had agreed to come; Mr. Adair, Mr. Ryan, and Mr. Lynch were also present. They drove up on outside cars, and were all attended by a bodyguard of policemen.

And very soon everybody fell to babbling of the history of the Castle, which nobody knew: Ireland has had few chroniclers. Lord Dungory pointed out that in the seventeenth century people lived in Ireland naked—speaking Latin habitually—without furniture or tapestries or paintings or baths. The Castle suggested a military movement to Mr. Barton.

'If things get any worse, we might all retire into this castle. The ladies will stand on the battlements, and I will undertake to hold the place for ever against those village ruffians.'

'I do not think there will be any necessity for that,' replied Mr. Adair sententiously. 'I think that these last terrible outrages have awakened the Government to a sense of their responsibility. I have reason to believe that immediate steps will be taken to crush this infamous conspiracy.'

Lord Dungory interposed with a neat epigram, and Mr. Adair fell to telling how he would crush the Land League out of existence if the Government would place him in supreme power for the space of one month.

'That is all I would ask: one month to restore this island to peace and prosperity. I have always been a Liberal, but I confess that I entirely fail to understand the action the Government are taking in the present crisis.'

As Lord Dungory was about to reply that he did not believe that the peasants could continue to resist the Government indefinitely, the police-sergeant in charge of the picnic-party approached, his face overcast.

'We've just received bad news from Dublin, my lord. The worst. Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke were murdered this evening in the Phoenix Park. It is unfortunately true, sir; I've the telegram with me.' And he handed the yellow envelope to Lord Dungory, who, after glancing at it, handed it on to Mr. Adair.

The appearance of the police in conversation with Lord Dungory and Mr. Adair was a sign for the assembling of the rest of the company, and it was under the walls of old Kinvarra Castle that the picnic-party heard the awful news.

Then, in turn, each ejaculated a few words.

Mrs. Barton said: 'It is dreadful to think there are such wicked people in the world.'

Mr. Adair said: 'There can be no doubt but that we have arrived at the crisis; Europe will ring with the echoes of the crime.'

Olive said: 'I think they ought to hang Mr. Parnell; I believe it was he who drove the car.'

Mr. Barton said: 'The landlords and Land-Leaguers will have to do what I say; they will have to fight it out. Now, at their head, I believe by a series of rapid marches—'

'Arthur, Arthur, I beg of you,' exclaimed Mrs. Barton.

'We shall all have to emigrate,' Sir Charles murmured reflectively.

'The law is in abeyance,' said Mr. Lynch.

'Precisely,' replied Milord; 'and as I once said to Lord Granville, "Les moeurs sont les hommes, mais la loi est la raison du pays."'

Mr. Adair looked up; he seemed about to contest the truth of this aphorism, but he relapsed into his consideration of Mr. Gladstone's political integrity. The conversation had fallen, but at the end of a long silence Mr. Ryan said:

'Begorra, I am very glad they were murthered.'

All drew back instinctively. This was too horrible, and doubt of Mr. Ryan's sanity was expressed on every face.

At last Mr. Adair said, conscious that he was expressing the feelings of the entire company: 'What do you mean, sir? Have you gone mad? Do you not know that this is no fitting time for buffoonery?'

'Will ye hear me cousin out?' said Mr. Lynch.

'Begorra, I'm glad they were murthered,' continued Mr. Ryan; 'for if they hadn't been we'd have been—there's the long and the short of it. I know the counthry well, and I know that in six months more, without a proper Coercion Act, we'd have been burned in our beds.'

The unanswerableness of Mr. Ryan's words, and the implacable certainty which forced itself into every heart, that he spoke but the truth, did not, however, make the company less inclined to oppose the utilitarian view he took of the tragedy.

Unfinished phrases . . . 'Disgraceful' . . . 'Shocking' . . . 'Inconceivable' . . . 'That anyone should say such a thing' . . . were passed round, and a disposition was shown to boycott Mr. Ryan.

Mr. Adair spoke of not sitting in the room where such opinions were expressed, but Milord was seen whispering to him, 'We're not in a room, Adair, we're out of doors;' and Mrs. Barton, always anxious to calm troubled lives, suggested that 'people did not mean all they said.' Mr. Ryan, however, maintained through it all an attitude of stolid indifference, the indifference of a man who knows that all must come back sooner or later to his views.

And presently, although the sting remained, the memory of the wasp that had stung seemed to be lost. Milord and Mr. Adair engaged in a long and learned discussion concerning the principles of Liberalism, in the course of which many allusions were made to the new Coercion Bill, which, it was now agreed, Mr. Gladstone would, in a few days, lay before Parliament. The provisions of this Bill were debated. Milord spoke of an Act that had been in force consequent on the Fenian rising in '69. Mr. Adair was of opinion that the importance of a new Coercion Act could not be over-estimated; Mr. Barton declared in favour of a military expedition—a rapid dash into the heart of Connemara. But the conversation languished, and in the ever-lengthening silences all found their thoughts reverting to the idea brutally expressed by Mr. Ryan: Yes, they were glad; for if Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke had not been assassinated, every landowner in the country would have been murdered.

There was no dancing that evening; and as the night advanced the danger of the long drive home increased in intensity in the minds of Messrs. Lynch and Ryan. They sat on either side of Mr. Adair, and it was finally arranged that they should join their police-forces, and spend the night at his place. Sir Charles was sleeping at Brookfield; Milord had four policemen with him; and as all would have to pass his gate, he did not anticipate that even the Land League would venture to attack thirteen armed men. Mr. Barton, who saw the picturesque in everything, declared, when he came back, that they looked like a caravan starting for a pilgrimage across the desert. After a few further remarks, the ladies rose to retire; but when Mrs. Barton gave her hand to Lord Kilcarney, he said, his voice trembling a little:

'I'm afraid I must leave you to-morrow, Mrs. Barton. I shall have to run over to London to vote in the House of Lords. . .'

Mrs. Barton led the poor little man into the farther corner of the room, and making a place for him by her side, she said:

'Of course we are very sorry you are leaving—we should like you to stop a little longer with us. Is it impossible for you. . . ?'

'I am afraid so, Mrs. Barton; it is very kind of you, but—'

'It is a great pity,' she answered; 'but before we part I should like to know if you have come to any conclusion about what I spoke to you of in Dublin. If it is not to be, I should like to know, that I might tell the girl, so that she might not think anything more about—'

'What am I to say, what am I to do?' thought the Marquis. 'Oh! why does this woman worry me? How can I tell her that I wouldn't marry her daughter for tens of thousands of pounds?' 'I think, Mrs. Barton—I mean, I think you will agree with me that until affairs in Ireland grow more settled, it would be impossible for anyone to enter into any engagements whatever. We are all on the brink of ruin.'

'But twenty thousand pounds would settle a great deal.'

The little Marquis was conscious of annihilation, and he sought to escape Mrs. Barton as he might a piece of falling rock. With a desperate effort he said:

'Yes, Mrs. Barton—yes, I agree with you, twenty thousand pounds is a great deal of money; but I think we had better wait until the Lords have passed the new Coercion Bill—say nothing more about this—leave it an open question.'

And on this eminently unsatisfactory answer the matter ended; even Mrs. Barton saw she could not, at least for the present, continue to press it. Still she did not give up hope. 'Try on to the end; we never know that it is not the last little effort that will win the game,' was the aphorism with which she consoled her daughter, and induced her to write to Lord Kilcarney. And almost daily he received from her flowers, supposed to be emblematical of the feeling she entertained for him; and for these Alice was sometimes ordered to compose verses and suitable mottoes.



XXIII

But Lord Kilcarney's replies to these letters seldom consisted of more than a few well-chosen words, and he often allowed a week, and sometimes a fortnight, to elapse before answering at all. Olive—too vain and silly to understand the indifference with which she was treated—whined and fretted less than might have been expected. She spent a great deal of her time with Barnes, who fed her with scandal and flattery. But a storm was about to break, and in August it was known, without any possibility of a doubt, that the Marquis was engaged to Violet Scully, and that their marriage was settled for the autumn.

And this marriage, and the passing of the Bill for the Prevention of Crime, were the two interests present in the mind of Irish landlordism during the summer of '82. Immediately the former event was publicly announced, every girl in Dublin ran to her writing desk to confirm to her friends and relatives the truth of the news which for the last two months she had so resolutely anticipated. The famous Bertha, the terror of the debutantes, rushed to Brookfield, but she did not get there before the Brennans, and the result was a meeting of these families of girls in Mrs. Barton's drawing-room. Gladys was, however, the person chosen by God and herself to speak the wonderful words:

'Of course you have heard the news, Mrs. Barton?'

'No,' replied Mrs. Barton, a little nervously; 'what is it?'

'Oh yes, what is it?' exclaimed Olive. 'Anyone going to be married?'

'Yes. Can you guess?'

'No; tell me quick . . . no, do tell me. Are you going to be married?'

Had Olive been suddenly dowered with the wit of Congreve she could not have contrived an answer that would have shielded her better from the dart that Gladys was preparing to hurl. The girl winced; and divining the truth in a moment of inspiration, Mrs. Barton said:

'Ah! I know; Lord Kilcarney is engaged to Violet Scully.'

The situation was almost saved, and would have been had Olive not been present. She glanced at her mother in astonishment; and Gladys, fearing utter defeat, hurled her dart recklessly.

'Yes,' she exclaimed, 'and their marriage is fixed for this autumn.'

'I don't believe a word of it. . . . You only say so because you think it will annoy me.'

'My dear Olive, how can it annoy you? You know very well you refused him,' said Mrs. Barton, risking the danger of contradiction. 'Gladys is only telling us the news.'

'News, indeed; a pack of lies. I know her well; and all because—because she didn't succeed in hooking the man she was after in the Shelbourne last year. I'm not going to listen to her lies, if you are;' and on these words Olive flaunted passionately out of the room.

'So very sorry, really,' exclaimed Zoe. 'We really didn't know . . . indeed we didn't. We couldn't have known that—that there was any reason why dear Olive wouldn't like to hear that Lord Kilcarney was engaged to Violet.'

'Not at all, not at all. I assure you that whatever question there may once have been, I give you my word, was broken off a long time ago; they did not suit each other at all,' said Mrs. Barton. Now that she was relieved of the presence of her young, the mother fought admirably. But in a few minutes the enemy was reinforced by the arrival of the Hon. Miss Gores.

'Oh, how do you do? I am so glad to see you,' said Mrs. Barton, the moment they entered the room. 'Have you heard the news? all is definitely settled between the little Marquis and Violet. We were all talking of it; I am so glad for her sake. Of course it is very grand to be a marchioness, but I'm afraid she'll find her coronet a poor substitute for her dinner. You know what a state the property is in. She has married a beggar. The great thing after all, nowadays, is money.'

It would have been better perhaps not to have spoken of Lord Kilcarney's mortgages, but the Marquis's money embarrassments were the weak point in Violet's marriage, but it would not be natural (supposing that Olive had herself refused Lord Kilcarney) for her not to speak of them. So she prattled on gaily for nearly an hour, playing her part admirably, extricating herself from a difficult position and casting some doubt—only a little, it is true, but a little was a gain on the story that Olive had been rejected.

As soon as her visitors left the room, and she went to the window to watch the carriages drive away and to consider how she might console her daughter—persuade her, perhaps, that everything had happened for the best.

'Oh, mamma,' she said, rushing into the room, 'this is terrible; what shall we do—what shall we do?'

'What's terrible, my beautiful darling?'

Olive looked through her languor and tears, and she answered petulantly:

'Oh, you know very well I'm disgraced; he's going to marry Violet, and I shall not be a marchioness after all.'

'If my beautiful darling likes she can be a duchess,' replied Mrs. Barton with a silvery laugh.

'I don't understand, mamma.'

'I mean that we aren't entirely dependent on that wretched little Marquis with his encumbered property; if he were fool enough to let himself be entrapped by that designing little beast, Violet Scully, so much the worse for him; we shall get someone far grander than he. It is never wise for a girl to settle herself off the first season she comes out.'

'It is all very well to say that now, but you made me break off with dear Edward, who was ever so nice, and loved me dearly.'

Mrs. Barton winced, but she answered almost immediately:

'My dear, we shall get someone a great deal grander than that wretched Marquis. There will be a whole crowd of English dukes and earls at the Castle next year; men who haven't a mortgage on their property, and who will all fight for the hand of my beautiful Olive. Mr. Harding, Alice's friend, will put your portrait into one of the Society papers as the Galway beauty, and then next year you may be her Grace.'

'And how will they do my portrait, mamma?'

'I think you look best, darling, with your hair done up on the top of your head, in the French fashion.'

'Oh! do you think so? You don't like the way I have it done in now?' said the girl; and, laughing, she ran to the glass to admire herself. 'Barnes said I looked sweet this morning;' and five minutes after she was tossing her head nervously, declaring she was miserable, and often she burst out crying for no assignable cause. Mrs. Barton consoled and flattered gaily; but the sweet placid countenance was sometimes a little troubled. As the girls left the breakfast-room one morning she said, as if asking their advice:

'I have just received an invitation from Dungory Castle; they are giving a tennis-party, and they want us to go to lunch.'

'Oh! mamma, I don't want to go,' cried Olive.

'And why, my dear?'

'Oh! because everybody knows about the Marquis, and I couldn't bear their sneers; those Brennans and the Duffys are sure to be there.'

'Bertha's in Dublin,' said Mrs. Barton, in an intonation of voice a little too expressive of relief.

'Gladys is just as bad; and then there's that horrid Zoe. Oh! I couldn't bear it.'

'It will look as if we were avoiding them; they will only talk the more. I always think it is best to put a bold face on everything.'

'I couldn't, I couldn't. I'm broken-hearted, that's what I am. I have nothing to do or to think of.'

There could be little doubt that the Ladies Cullen had got up the tennis-party so that they might have an opportunity of sneering at her, but Milord would keep them in check (it might be as well to tell him to threaten to put down the school if they did not keep a guard on their tongues), and if Olive would only put a bold face on it and captivate Sir Charles, this very disagreeable business might blow over. Further than this Mrs. Barton's thoughts did not travel, but they were clear and precise thoughts, and with much subtlety and insinuative force she applied herself to the task of overcoming her daughter's weakness and strengthening her in this overthrow of vanity and self-love. But to the tennis-party they must go. Milord, too, was of opinion that they could not absent themselves, and he had doubtless been able to arrive at a very clear understanding with Lady Sarah and Lady Jane concerning the future of Protestantism in the parish, for on the day of the tennis-party no allusion was made to Lord Kilcarney's visit to Brookfield; certain references to his marriage were, of course, inevitable, but it was only necessary to question Mr. Adair on his views concerning the new Coercion Act to secure for Mrs. Barton an almost complete immunity from feminine sarcasm.

'I do not deny,' said Mr. Adair, 'that the Crimes Bill will restore tranquillity, but I confess that I can regard no Government as satisfactory that can only govern by the sword.'

These sentiments being but only very partially appreciated by the rest of the company, the conversation came to an awkward pause, and Lady Jane said as she left the room:

'I do not know a more able man on a county board than Mr. Adair. He took honours at Trinity, and if he hasn't done as much since as we expected, it is because he is too honourable, too conscientious, to ally himself to any particular party.'

'That was always the way with Lord Dungory,' suggested Mrs. Gould.

Lady Jane bit her lip, and continued, without taking notice of the interruption:

'Now, I hope Mr. Adair will not write a pamphlet, or express himself too openly concerning the Crimes Act. The question of the day is the organization of the Land Act, and I hear that Mr. Gladstone says it will be impossible to get on without Mr. Adair's assistance.'

'Every six months,' said Mrs. Gould, 'it is given out that Gladstone cannot go on without him; but somehow Gladstone does manage to get on without him, and then we never hear any more about it.'

Lady Jane looked angry; and all wondered at Mrs. Gould's want of tact, but at that moment the footman announced Messrs. Ryan and Lynch, and Alice asked if she might go up to see Cecilia. More visitors arrived; the Brennans, the Duffys, the five Honourable Miss Gores, and the company adjourned to the tennis ground. Mr. Lynch was anxious to have May for a partner, but she refused him somewhat pettishly, declaring at the same time that she had given up tennis, and would never touch a racquet again. Her continuous silence and dejected appearance created some surprise, and her cheeks flushed with passion when her mother said she didn't know what had come over May lately. Then obeying an impulse, May rose to her feet, and leaving the tennis players she walked across the pleasure grounds. Dungory Castle was surrounded by heavy woods and overtopping clumps of trees. As the house was neared, these were filled in with high laurel hedges and masses of rhododendron, and an opening in the branches of some large beech-trees revealed a blue and beautiful aspect of the Clare mountains.

'I wonder what May is angry about?' Cecilia said to Alice as they watched the tennis playing from their window; 'suppose those horrid men are annoying her.'

'I never saw her refuse to play tennis before,' Alice replied demurely. And ten minutes after, some subtle desire of which she was not very conscious led her through the shrubberies towards the place where she already expected to find May. And dreaming of reconciliation, of a renewal of friendship, Alice walked through the green summer of the leaves, listening to the infinite twittering of the birds, and startled by the wood-pigeons that from time to time rose boisterously out of the high branches. On a garden bench, leaning forward, her hands rested on her knees, May sat swinging her parasol from side to side, playing with the fallen leaves. When she looked up, the sunlight fell full upon her face, and Alice saw that she was crying. But affecting not to see the tears, she said, speaking rapidly:

'Oh, May dear, I have been looking for you. The last time we—'

But interrupted here by a choking sob, she found herself forced to say:

'My dear May, what is the matter? Can I do anything for you?'

'Oh, no, no; only leave me; don't question me. I don't want anyone's help.'

The ungraciousness of the words was lost in the accent of grief with which they were spoken.

'I assure you I don't wish to be inquisitive,' Alice replied sorrowfully, 'nor do I come to annoy you with good advice, but the last time we met we didn't part good friends. . . . I was merely anxious to assure you that I bore no ill-feeling, but, of course, if you—'

'Oh no, no,' cried May; reaching and catching at Alice's arm she pulled her down into the seat beside her; 'I am awfully sorry for my rudeness to you—to you who are so good—so good. Oh, Alice dear, you will forgive me, will you not?' and sobbing very helplessly, she threw herself into her friend's arms.

'Oh, of course I forgive you,' cried Alice, deeply affected. 'I had no right to lecture you in the way I did; but I meant it for the best, indeed I did.'

'I know you did, but I lost my temper. Ah, if you knew how sorely I was tried you would forgive me.'

'I do forgive you, May dear; but tell me, cannot I help you now? You know that you can confide in me, and I will do any thing in my power to help you.'

'No one can help me now,' said the girl sullenly.

Alice did not speak at once, but at the end of a long silence she said:

'Does Fred Scully love you no more?'

'I do not know whether he does or not; nor does it matter much. He's not in Ireland. He's far away by this time.'

'Where is he?'

'He's gone to Australia. He wrote to me about two months ago to say that all had been decided in a few hours, and that he was to sail next morning. He's gone out with some racehorses, and expects to win a lot of money. He'll be back again in a year.'

'A year isn't long to wait; you'll see him when he comes back.'

'I don't think I should care to see him again. Oh, you were right, Alice, to warn me against him. I was foolish not to listen to you, but it was too late even then.'

Alice trembled; she had already guessed the truth, but hoping when she knew all hope was vain, she said:

'You had better tell me, May; you know I am to be trusted.'

'Can't you guess it?'

The conversation fell, and the girls sat staring into the depths of the wood. Involuntarily their eyes followed a small bird that ran up branch after branch of a beech-tree, pecking as it went. It seemed like a toy mouse, so quick and unvarying were its movements. At last May said, and very dolorously:

'Alice, I thought you were kinder; haven't you a word of pity? Why tell you, why ask me to tell you? Oh! what a fool I was!'

'Oh! no, no, May, you did right to tell me. I am more sorry for you than words can express, and I didn't speak because I was trying to think of some way of helping you.'

'Oh! there's no—no way of helping me, dear. There's nothing for me to do but to die.' And now giving way utterly, the girl buried her face in her hands and sobbed until it seemed that she would choke in thick grief.

'Oh! May, May dear, you mustn't cry like that: if anyone were to come by, what would they think?'

'What does it matter? Everyone will know sooner or later—I wish I were dead—dead and out of sight for ever of this miserable world.'

'No, May,' said Alice, thinking instinctively of the child, 'you mustn't die. Your trial is a terrible one, but people before now have got over worse. I am trying to think what can be done.'

Then May raised her weeping face, and there was a light of hope in her eyes. She clasped Alice's hand. Neither spoke. The little brown bird pursued his way up and down the branches of the beech; beyond it lay the sky, and the girls, tense with little sufferings, yearned into this vision of beautiful peace.

At last Alice said: 'Did you tell Mr. Scully of the trouble? Does he know—'

'He was away, and I didn't like to write it to him; his departure for Australia took me quite by surprise.'

'Have you told your mother?'

'Oh no, I'd rather die than tell her; I couldn't tell her. You know what she is.'

'I think she ought to be told; she would take you abroad.'

'Oh no, Alice dear; it would never do to tell mamma. You know what she is, you know how she talks, she would never leave off abusing the Scullys; and then, I don't know how, but somehow everybody would get to know about it. But find it out they will, sooner or later; it is only a question of time.'

'No, no, May, they shall know nothing of this—at least, not if I can help it.'

'But you can't help it.'

'There is one thing quite certain; you must go away. You cannot stop in Galway.'

'It is all very well talking like that, but where can I go to? A girl cannot move a yard away from home without people wanting to know where she has gone.'

Alice's eyes filled with tears.

'You might go up to Dublin,' she said, 'and live in lodgings.'

'And what excuse should I give to mother?' said May, who in her despair had not courage to deny the possibility of the plan.

'You needn't tell her where you are,' replied Alice; and then she hesitated, feeling keenly conscious of the deception she was practising. But her unswerving common sense coming, after a moment's reflection, to her aid, she said: 'You might say that you were going to live in the convent. Go to the Mother Superior, tell her of your need, beg of her, persuade her to receive and forward your letters; and in that way, it seems to me that no one need be the wiser of what is going to happen.'

The last words were spoken slowly, as if with a sense of shame at being forced to speak thus. May raised her face, now aflame with hope and joy.

'I wonder if it is possible to—' A moment after the light died out of her face, and she said:

'But how shall I live? Who will support me? I cannot ask mother for money without awakening suspicion.'

'I think, May, I shall be able to give you almost all the money you want,' replied Alice in a hesitating and slightly embarrassed manner.

'You, Alice?'

'But I haven't told you; I have been writing a good deal lately for newspapers, and have made nearly twenty pounds. That will be all you will want for the present, and I shall be able, I hope, to make sufficient to keep you supplied.'

'I don't think that anyone was ever as good as you, Alice. You make me feel ashamed of myself.'

'I am doing only what anyone else would do if they were called upon. But we have been sitting here a long time now, and before we go back to the tennis-ground we had better arrange what is to be done. When do you propose leaving?'

'I had better leave at once. It is seven months ago now—no one suspects as yet.'

'Well, then, when would you like me to send you the money? You can have it at once if you like.'

'Oh, thanks, dear; mother will give me enough to last me a little while, and I will write to you from Dublin. You are sure no one sees your letters at Brookfield?'

'Quite sure; there's not the slightest danger.' She did not question the advice she had given, and she felt sure that the Reverend Mother, if a proper appeal were made to her common sense, would consent to conceal the girl's fault. Two months would not be long passing, but the expenses of this time would be heavy, and she, Alice, would have to meet them all. She trembled lest she might fail to do so, and she tried to reckon them up. It would be impossible to get rooms under a pound a week, and to live, no matter how cheaply, would cost at least two pounds; three pounds a week, four threes are twelve! The twenty pounds would scarcely carry her over a month, she would not be well for at least two; and then there was the doctor, the nurse, the flannels for the baby. Alice tried to calculate, thinking plainly and honestly. If a repulsive detail rose suddenly up in her mind, she did not shrink, nor was she surprised to find herself thinking of such things; she did so as a matter of course, keeping her thoughts fixed on the one object of doing her duty towards her friend. And how to do this was the problem that presented itself unceasingly for solution. She felt that somehow she would have to earn twenty pounds within the next month. Out of the Lady's Paper, in which 'Notes and Sensations of a Plain Girl at Dublin Castle,' was still running, she could not hope to make more than thirty shillings a week; a magazine had lately accepted a ten-page story worth, she fancied, about five pounds, but when they would print it and pay her was impossible to say. She could write the editor an imploring letter, asking him to advance her the money. But even then there was another nine pounds to make up. And to do this seemed to her an impossibility. She could not ask her father or mother; she would only do so if the worst came to the worst. She would write paragraphs, articles, short stories, and would send them to every editor in London. One out of three might turn up trumps.

'GARDNER STREET, 'MOUNTJOY SQUARE. 'DARLING ALICE, 'I have been in Dublin now more than a week. I did not write to you before because I wished to write to tell you that I had done all you told me to do. The first thing I did was to go to the convent. Would you believe it, the new Rev. Mother is Sister Mary who we knew so well at St. Leonards! She has been transferred to the branch convent in Dublin; she was delighted to see me, but the sight of her dear face awoke so many memories, so many old associations, that I burst out crying, and it seemed to me impossible that I should ever be able to find courage to tell her the truth. None will ever know what it cost me to speak the words. They came to me all of a sudden, and I told her everything. I thought she would reproach me and speak bitterly, but she only said, "My poor child, I am sorry you hadn't strength to resist temptation; your trial is a dreadful one." She was very, very kind. Her face lighted up when I spoke of you, and she said: "Sweet girl; she was always an angel; one of these days she will come back to us. She is too good for the world." Then I insisted that it was your idea that I should seek help from the convent, but she said that it was my duty to go to my mother and tell her the whole truth. Oh, my darling Alice, I cannot tell you what a terrible time I went through. We were talking for at least two hours, and it was only with immense difficulty that I at last succeeded in making her understand what kind of person poor mamma is, and how hopeless it would be to expect her to keep any secret, even if her daughter's honour was in question. I told her how she would run about, talking in her mild unmeaning way of "poor May and that shameful Mr. Scully;" and, at last, the Rev. Mother, as you prophesied she would, saw the matter in its proper light, and she has consented to receive all my letters, and if mother writes, to give her to understand that I am safe within the convent walls. It is very good of her, for I know the awful risk she is wilfully incurring so as to help me out of my trouble.

'The house I am staying in is nice enough, and the landlady seems a kind woman. The name I go by is Mrs. Brandon (you will not forget to direct your letters so), and I said that my husband was an officer, and had gone out to join his regiment in India. I have a comfortable bedroom on the third floor. There are two windows, and they look out on the street. The time seems as if it would never pass; the twelve hours of the day seem like twelve centuries. I have not even a book to read, and I never go out for fear of being seen. In the evening I put on a thick veil and go for a walk in the back streets. But I cannot go out before nine; it is not dark till then, and I cannot stop out later than ten on account of the men who speak to you. My coloured hair makes me look fast, and I am so afraid of meeting someone I know, that this short hour is as full of misery as those that preceded it. Every passer-by seems to know me, to recognize me, and I cannot help imagining that he or she will be telling my unfortunate story half an hour after in the pitiless drawing-rooms of Merrion Square. Oh, Alice darling, you are the only friend I have in the world. If it were not for you, I believe I should drown myself in the Liffey. No girl was ever so miserable as I. I cannot tell you how I feel, and you cannot imagine how forlorn it all is; and I am so ill. I am always hungry, and always sick, and always longing. Oh, these longings; you may think they are nothing, but they are dreadful. You remember how active I used to be, how I used to run about the tennis-court; now I can scarcely crawl. And the strange sickening fancies: I see things in the shops that tempt me, sometimes it is a dry biscuit, sometimes a basket of strawberries; but whatever it is, I stand and look at it, long for it, until weary of longing and standing with a sort of weight weighing me down, and my stays all rucking up to my neck, I crawl home. There I am all alone; and I sit in the dark, on a wretched hard chair by the window; and I cry; and I watch the summer night and all the golden stars, and I cannot say what I think of during all these long and lonely hours; I only know that I cannot find energy to go to bed. And I never sleep a whole night through; the cramp comes on so terribly that I jump up screaming. Oh, Alice, how I hate him! When I think of it all I see how selfish men are; they never think of us—they only think of themselves. You would scarcely know me if you saw me now; all my complexion—you know what a pretty complexion it was—is all red and mottled. When you saw me a fortnight ago I was all right: it is extraordinary what a change has come about. I think it was the journey and the excitement; there would be no concealing the truth now. It is lucky I left Galway when I did.

'Mother gave me five pounds on leaving home. My ticket cost nearly thirty shillings, a pound went in cabs and hotel expenses, and my breakfasts brought my bill up yesterday to two pounds—I cannot think how, for I only pay sixteen shillings for my room—and when it was paid I had only a few shillings left. Will you, therefore, send the money you promised, if possible, by return of post? 'Always affectionately yours, 'MAY GOULD.'

The tears started to Alice's eyes as she read the letter. She did not consider if May might have spared her the physical details with which her letter abounded; she did not stay to think of the cause, of the result; for the moment she was numb to ideas and sensations that were not those of humble human pity for humble human suffering: like the waters of a new baptism, pity made her pure and whole, and the false shame of an ancient world fell from her. Leaning her head on her strong, well-shaped hand, she set to arranging her little plans for her friend's help—plans that were charming for their simplicity, their sweet homeliness. The letter she had just read had come by the afternoon post, and if she were to send May the money she wrote for that evening, it would be necessary to go into Gort to register the letter. Gort was two miles away; and if she asked for the carriage her mother might propose that the letters should be sent in by a special messenger. This of course was impossible, and Alice, for the first time in her life found herself obliged to tell a deliberate lie. For a moment her conscience stood at bay, but she accepted the inevitable and told her mother that she had some MSS. to register, and did not care to entrust them to other hands. It was a consolation to know that eighteen pounds were safely despatched, but she was bitterly unhappy, and the fear that money might be wanting in the last and most terrible hours bound her to her desk as with a chain; and when her tired and exhausted brain ceased to formulate phrases, the picture of the lonely room, the night walks, and the suffering of the jaded girl, stared her in the face with a terrible distinctness. Her only moments of gladness were when the post brought a cheque from London. Sometimes they were for a pound, sometimes for fifteen shillings. Once she received five pounds ten—it was for her story. On the 10th of September she received the following letter:

'DARLING ALICE, 'Thanks a thousand times for your last letter, and the money enclosed. It came in the nick of time, for I was run almost to my last penny. I did not write before, because I didn't feel in the humour to do anything. Thank goodness! I'm not sick any more, though I don't know that it isn't counterbalanced by the dreadful faintness and the constant movement. Isn't it awful to sit here day after day, watching myself, and knowing the only relief I shall get will be after such terrible pain? I woke up last night crying with the terror of it. Cervassi says there are cases on record of painless confinements, and in my best moods I think mine is to be one of them. I know it is wrong to write all these things to a good girl like you, but I think talking about it is part of the complaint, and poor sinner me has no one to talk to. Do you remember my old black cashmere? I've been altering it till there's hardly a bit of the original body left; but now the skirt is adding to my troubles by getting shorter and shorter in front. It is now quite six inches off the ground, and instead of fastening it I have to pin the placket-hole, and then it falls nearly right. . . . Only three weeks longer, and then. . . But there, I won't look forward, because I know I am going to die, and all the accounting for it, and everything else, will be on your shoulders. Good-bye, dear; I shan't write again, at least not till afterwards. And if there is an afterward, I shall never be able to thank you properly; but still I think it will be a weight off you. Is it so, dear? Do you wish I were dead? I know you don't. It was unkind to write that last line; I will scratch it out. You will not be angry, dear. I am too wretched to know what I am writing, and I want to lie down. 'Always affectionately yours, 'MAY GOULD.'

Outside the air was limpid with sunlight, and the newly mown meadow was golden in the light of evening. The autumn-coloured foliage of the chestnuts lay mysteriously rich and still, harmonizing in measured tones with the ruddy tints of the dim September sunset. The country dozed as if satiated with summer love. Heavy scents were abroad—the pungent odours of the aftermath. A high baritone voice broke the languid silence, and, in embroidered smoking-jacket and cap, Mr. Barton twanged his guitar. Milord had been thrown down amid the hay; and Mrs. Barton and Olive were showering it upon him. The old gentleman's legs were in the air.

Crushing the letter, Alice's hands fell on the table; she burst into tears. But work was more vital than tears; and, taking up her pen, she continued her story—penny journal fiction of true love and unending happiness in the end. A month later she received this note:

'DEAREST, 'Just a line in pencil—I mustn't sit up—to tell you it is all over, and all I said was "Thank God, thank God!" over and over again, as each pain went. It is such a relief; but I mustn't write much. It is such a funny screwed-up-looking baby, and I don't feel any of those maternal sentiments that you read about—at least not yet. And it always cries just when I am longing to go to sleep. Thank you again and again for all you have done for me and been to me. I feel awfully weak. 'Always affectionately yours, 'MAY GOULD.'



XXIV

Then Alice heard that the baby was dead, and that a little money would be required to bury it. Another effort was made, the money was sent; and the calm of the succeeding weeks was only disturbed by an uneasy desire to see May back in Galway, and hear her say that her terrible secret was over and done with for ever. One day she was startled by a quick trampling of feet in the corridor, and May rushed into the room. She threw herself into Alice's arms and kissed her with effusion, with tears. The girls looked at each other long and nervously. One was pale and over-worn, her spare figure was buttoned into a faded dress, and her hair was rolled into a plain knot. The other was superb with health, and her face was full of rose-bloom. She was handsomely dressed in green velvet, and her copper hair flamed and flashed beneath a small bonnet with mauve strings.

'Oh, Alice, how tired and pale you look! You have been working too hard, and all for me! How can I thank you? I shall never be able to thank you—I cannot find words to tell you how grateful I am—but I am grateful, Alice, indeed I am.'

'I am sure you are, dear. I did my best for you, it is true; and thank heaven I succeeded, and no one knows—I do not think that anyone even suspects.'

'No, not a soul. We managed it very well, didn't we? And the Reverend Mother behaved splendidly—she just took the view that you said she would. She saw that no good would come of telling mamma about me when I made her understand that if a word were said my misfortune would be belled all over the country in double-quick time. But, Alice dear, I had a terrible time of it, two months waiting in that little lodging, afraid to go out for fear someone would recognize me; it was awful. And often I hadn't enough to eat, for when you are in that state you can't eat everything, and I was afraid to spend any money. You did your best to keep me supplied, dear, good guardian angel that you are.' Then the impulsive girl flung herself on Alice's shoulders, and kissed her. 'But there were times when I was hard up—oh, much more hard up than you thought I was, for I didn't tell you everything; if I had, you would have worried yourself into your grave. Oh, I had a frightful time of it! If one is married one is petted and consoled and encouraged; but alone in a lodging—oh, it was frightful.'

'And what about the poor baby?' said Alice.

'The poor little thing died, as I wrote you, about ten days after it was born. I nursed it, and I was sorry for it. I really was; but of course . . . well, it seems a hard thing to say, but I don't know what I should have done with it if it had lived. Life isn't so happy, is it, even under the best of circumstances?'

The conversation came to a sudden close. At last the nervous silence that intervened was broken by May:

'We were speaking about money. I will repay you all I owe you some day, Alice dear. I will save up all the money I can get out of mother. She is such a dear old thing, but I cannot understand her. Not a penny did she send me for the first six weeks, and then she sent me L25; and it was lucky she did, for the doctor's bill was something tremendous. And I bought this dress and bonnet with what was left . . . I ought to have repaid you first thing, but I forgot it until I had ordered the dress.'

'I assure you it does not matter, May; I shall never take the money from you. If I did, it would take away all the pleasure I have had in serving you.'

'Oh, but I will insist, Alice dear; I could not think of such a thing. But there's no use in discussing that point until I get the money. . . . Tell me, what do you think of my bonnet?'

'I think it very nice indeed, and I never saw you looking better.'

And thus ended May Gould's Dublin adventure. It was scarcely spoken of again, and when they met at a ball given by the officers stationed in Galway, Alice was astonished to find that she experienced no antipathy whatever towards this rich-blooded young person. 'My dear guardian angel, come and sit with me in this corner; I'd sooner talk to you than anyone—we won't go down yet a while—we'll make the men wait;' and when she put her arms round Alice's waist and told her the last news of Violet and her Marquis, Alice abandoned herself to the caress and heard that thirty years ago the late Marquis had entered a grocer's shop in Galway to buy a pound of tea for an importuning beggar: 'And what do you think, my dear?—It was Mrs. Scully who served it out to him; and do you know what they are saying?—that it is all your fault that Olive did not marry Kilcarney.'

'My fault?'

'Your fault, because you gave the part of the beggar-maid to Violet, and if Olive had played the beggar-maid and hadn't married Kilcarney, the fault would have been laid at your door just the same.'

The pale cheeks of Lord Rosshill's seven daughters waxed a hectic red; the Ladies Cullen grew more angular, and smiled and cawed more cruelly; Mrs. Barton, the Brennans, and Duffys cackled more warmly and continuously; and Bertha, the terror of the debutantes, beat the big drum more furiously than ever. The postscripts to her letters were particularly terrible: 'And to think that the grocer's daughter should come in for all this honour. It is she who will turn up her nose at us at the Castle next year.' 'Ah, had I known what was going to happen it is I who would have pulled the fine feathers out of her.' Day after day, week after week, the agony was protracted, until every heart grew weary of the strain put upon it and sighed for relief. But it was impossible to leave off thinking and talking; and the various accounts of orange-blossoms and the bridesmaids that in an incessant postal stream were poured during the month of January into Galway seemed to provoke rather than abate the marriage fever. The subject was inexhaustible, and little else was spoken of until it was time to pack up trunks and prepare for the Castle season. The bride, it was stated, would be present at the second Drawing-Room in March.

Nevertheless Alice noticed that the gladness of last year was gone out of their hearts; none expected much, and all remembered a little of the disappointments they had suffered. A little of the book had been read; the lines of white girls standing about the pillars in Patrick's Hall, the empty waltz tunes and the long hours passed with their chaperons were terrible souvenirs to pause upon. Still they must fight on to the last; there is no going back—there is nothing for them to go back to. There is no hope in life for them but the vague hope of a husband. So they keep on to the last, becoming gradually more spiteful and puerile, their ideas of life and things growing gradually narrower, until, in their thirty-fifth or fortieth year, they fall into the autumn heaps, to lie there forgotten, or to be blown hither or thither by every wind that blows.

Two of Lord Rosshill's daughters had determined to try their luck again, and a third was undecided; the Ladies Cullen said that they had their school to attend to and could not leave Galway; poverty compelled the Brennans and Duffys to remain at home. Alice would willingly have done the same, but, tempted by the thin chance that she might meet with Harding, she yielded to her mother's persuasions. Harding did not return to Dublin, and her second season was more barren of incident than the first. The same absence of conviction, the same noisy gossiping and inability to see over the horizon of Merrion Square, the same servile adoration of officialism, the same meanness committed to secure an invitation to the Castle, the same sing-song waltz tunes, the same miserable, mocking, melancholy, muslin hours were endured by the same white martyrs.

And if the Castle remained unchanged, Mount Street lost nothing of its original aspect. Experience had apparently taught Mrs. Barton nothing; she knew but one set of tricks—if they failed she repeated them: she was guided by the indubitableness of instinct rather than by the more wandering light that is reason. Mr. Barton, who it was feared might talk of painting, and so distract the attention from more serious matters, was left in Galway, and amid eight or nine men collected here, there, and everywhere out of the hotels and barrack-rooms, the three ladies sat down to dinner.

Mrs. Barton, who could have talked to twenty men, and have kept them amused, was severely handicapped by the presence of her daughters. Olive, at the best of times, could do little more than laugh; and as Alice never had anything to say to the people she met at her mother's house, the silences that hung over the Mount Street dinner-table were funereal in intensity and length. From time to time questions were asked relating to the Castle, the weather, and the theatre.

Therefore, beyond the fact that neither Lord Kilcarney nor Mr. Harding was present, the girls passed their second season in the same manner as their first. Les deux pieces de resistance at Mount Street were a dissipated young English lord and a gouty old Irish distiller, and Mrs. Barton was making every effort to secure one of these. A pianist was ordered to attend regularly at four o'clock. And now if Alice was relieved of the duty of spelling through the doleful strains of 'Dream Faces,' she was forced to go round and round with the distiller until an extra glass of port forced the old gentleman to beg mercy of Mrs. Barton. At one o'clock in the morning the young lord used to enter the Kildare Street Club weary. But not much way was made with either, and when one returned to London and the other to a sick-bed, Olive abandoned herself to a series of flirtations. At the Castle she danced with all who asked her, and she sat out dances in the darkest corners of the most distant rooms with every officer stationed in Dublin. Mrs. Barton never refused an invitation to any dance, no matter how low, and in all the obscure 'afternoons' in Mount Street and Pembroke Street Olive's blonde cameo-like face was seen laughing with every official of Cork Hill and the gig-men of Kildare Street.

In May the Bartons went abroad, and Olive flirted with foreign titles—French Counts, Spanish Dukes, Russian Princes, Swedish noblemen of all kinds, and a goodly number of English refugees with irreproachable neckties and a taste for baccarat. In the balmy gardens of Ostend and Boulogne, jubilant with June and the overture of Masaniello, Milord and Mrs. Barton walked in front, talking and laughing gracefully. Olive chose him who flattered her the most outrageously; and Alice strove hard to talk to the least objectionable of the men she was brought in contact with. Amid these specious talkers there were a few who reminded her of Mr. Harding, and she hoped later on to be able to turn her present experiences to account. There was, of course, much dining at cafes and dining at the casinos, and evening walks along the dark shore. Alice often feared for her sister, but the girl's vanity and lightheadedness were her safeguards, and she returned to Galway only a little wearied by the long chase after amusement.