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Barbara

“Good-bye is always a difficult word to say, isn’t it—particularly when you are going abroad for years?”

Howard Burton looked hard at Barbara as he addressed her, but Barbara stared persistently at the ebony handle of the silver teapot, and she noticed that one of the little rivets was loose—she could see nothing but this rivet.

“Good-bye is never a pleasant word.” Barbara was astonished at the perfect control she had over her voice. “You will enjoy the voyage out, I expect,” she added coldly—“and South Africa must be a most interesting country—Rhodesia, I should say.”

She smiled frostily, for women hate to show the white feather just as much as men do, and Barbara Carvel was no coward; besides, she was angry—very angry. She considered that the young man standing by her side had treated her shamefully, for Howard Burton had not proposed this afternoon. He was leaving England—leaving the home in Kent where he lived with his widowed mother—and Barbara was still in the dark as to his intentions, for after having made love to her in a tacit sort of way for years, he had failed to ask the one and all-important question.

“Yes, I believe I shall have quite a decent time in Rhodesia. There’s plenty of big game shooting and all that, and I shall be glad to get out of England. A poor man has no chance here—everything is hopelessly rotten. You need money to make a success of things at home.”

Howard held out his hand across the tea-table. He was a big, fair young man, somewhat woodenly built, his type pure Saxon. He had honest blue eyes, a strong resolute face, very square shoulders, and a forcible-looking chin.

He made Barbara appear slighter and taller than she actually was, just as in comparison to his excessive fairness she might have been reckoned a brunette. For she was neither dark nor fair, really; her eyes were hazel, but her hair had warm ruddy lights in it, and her complexion was very clear and creamy.

She was dressed simply in a plain blue serge skirt and white muslin blouse; but Barbara had pinned a red rose into her belt, but the rose had already begun to droop its head wearily, fading as Barbara’s hopes had faded.

“Well, good-bye, and good luck!”

That was all Barbara said as she shook hands with the young man who had been such a prominent figure in her life, but she had to struggle with a lump that had suddenly come into her throat—a horrid choky lump, and she fought back her tears, for Howard mustn’t see how wretched she was.

“Promise me that you’ll run in and see the mater to-morrow after I’ve gone, Barbara—that might buck her up. And you will look after Cecily a bit—her beastly cough has come back, poor little girl, and I’m afraid she’ll miss me badly; we have always been such pals.”

Howard talked very fast, in sharp, broken sentences. Generally he was slow of speech, but to-day was an exception to any other day.

“All right. I’ll call on your mother to-morrow, and I’ll look after Cecily as well as I can.”

Barbara drew a deep breath. Why wouldn’t Howard go? This long-drawn-out leave-taking was awful, and Aunt Ann, who had got over her adieux earlier in the afternoon and made her escape into the garden, the green garden drenched with the moist perfume of spring, must be wondering what was passing in the drawing-room—imagining a proposal was taking place, most likely.

“Thank you, Barbara.” Howard paused, then drew closer to the girl. “I’ll write to you; and you won’t forget me, I hope.” His voice shook a little. “I have my way to make in the world, so it would be unfair—unfair to both of us—if we—” He paused and did not finish the sentence.

Barbara glanced up, flushing to her forehead. For years—ever since her sixteenth birthday—she had built all her dreams round Howard, and had always believed that he would ask her to marry him one day; and now he was passing out of her life, and without confessing that he loved her—he was riding away in quest of adventure, leaving her to break her heart.

She longed to tell Howard that she was ready to wait for him for years if he would only ask her to, but her pride forbade such an open confession—her pride forced her to be calm and self-contained, for she would not thrust herself on any man. So she shook hands silently and watched Howard walk steadily out of the room, his head held a little more erect than usual, his tread very firm and assured.

“I’ll write to you; and you won’t forget me, I hope.”

Barbara repeated the words to herself as the door closed behind Howard, then she suddenly began to laugh, but it was strained, angry laughter, and her eyes were very fierce.

“He has treated me shamefully—shamefully. He knows I love him—he must know it—but he doesn’t want to bind himself to me; he wants to feel free.” She paused and bit her lip. “I suppose Howard would argue that he has been acting honourably—that a poor man has no right to ask a girl to wait years for him; but that’s only a selfish masculine theory—women don’t agree to it at all.”

Barbara walked up and down the quaint, old-fashioned drawing-room of her aunt’s cottage, for she couldn’t sit down any more than she could have followed Howard out into the garden and watched him walk down the road.

“He doesn’t love me, that’s pretty certain. He has been amusing himself all these years—oh, I could almost hate him. For what a fool I shall look—everybody about here has been coupling our names together for years—and now—now!”

She choked down a dry sob, dreading having to meet the kind, simple neighbours to-morrow whom she had known all her life—the gossipy old ladies and gentlemen who had quite settled in their own minds that she and Howard would marry each other, smiling, as old age is wont to smile, at anything that approaches romance.

They had forgotten, these good people, that Howard, who was the only son of a former vicar of Sandstone, had no money, and was merely a nice young fellow leading an idle, aimless life at home, and that it was a blessing, as far as the young man was concerned, that a cousin who was doing very well in Rhodesia had offered him employment. An offer Howard had accepted with alacrity, for he could not live on his mother indefinitely, he told himself—the mother who found it quite a hard enough task to make both ends meet, and could not possibly afford to put Howard into the army, a profession which he himself would have chosen, neither could she set him up in business, for she had no capital at her disposal.

Barbara was also unendowed with worldly goods. She was an orphan—the sole offspring of an improvident marriage, and her parents had both died when she was quite young—cut off by the cholera in India.

Reginald Carvel’s unmarried sister, Ann Carvel, had adopted Barbara, however, and taken the child to live with her in her little cottage on the edge of the village of Sandstone, and here, for over twenty-three years, Barbara had passed a peaceful, if somewhat dull existence, her principal occupation in life being the tending of her aunt’s garden and looking after Miss Ann’s pets—two small Blenheim spaniels, an elderly canary and a beautiful tortoise-shell cat.

Miss Ann did not go out much into society. The county certainly called on her, and she returned the visits of her rich neighbours twice a year, driving out in a hired fly, but her limited means prevented her from accepting a great many invitations which came her way, for she could not afford to be constantly hiring a carriage, nor to entertain in her turn. Still, she had no lack of friends, for there was quite a little coterie of poor gentry in the village of Sandstone—retired naval officers and their wives, old generals living on their pensions, and the widow of a minor canon.

So Miss Ann had her own little circle of elderly folk, but there were few young people for Barbara to associate with, and she had been thrown constantly into Howard’s society in consequence. And now Howard was going away, and Barbara had to realize that in all probability his part in her life was over.

Somehow she had never imagined that Howard would leave England. There had been an idea that he would settle down as an estate agent ultimately, when such a post could be found, so the young man’s sudden decision to join his cousin out in Rhodesia had come as a great shock to Barbara. Not that she blamed Howard for going. If she, a girl, found life in a little village irksome—irksome in the extreme—what must a young man find it—a healthy, strong young man like Howard? He had no horse to ride, and he could barely afford a day’s shooting, on account of the tips he was bound to give the gamekeepers.

Yes, Howard had done wisely in deciding to try his luck abroad, but he had behaved unfairly to Barbara in not proposing before he went. He had treated her cruelly—there was no other word for it—cruelly, for he had led her to believe he cared. He had paid her devoted attention for years, and now he was taking himself calmly out of her life, leaving her to face the maddening sympathy of her neighbours, and to play the sorry part of a forsaken girl, and there could be no excuse for his conduct—no real excuse.

The drawing-room door opened and Miss Ann Carvel walked in. She was a pretty old lady with a cloud of soft, white hair and delicate, refined features. Her father had been a rich man and had owned a fine property in Kent, but imprudent speculation had obliged Squire Carvel to sell his old home—the home which his forbears had bequeathed him—shortly after his marriage, and Ann Carvel had never known what it was to be rich. But she was proud of the bygone glories of her house. She was pleased to remember that a hundred years ago the Carvels of Elm Court had held their heads as high as anybody. Vain of nothing else, she was vain of her long descent.

She eyed her niece sharply as she entered the room. She expected to find a flushed and excited Barbara—a girl who had just been listening to a confession of love, but her expectations were not realized.

“Well, dear?” she questioned eagerly. “Has Howard spoken? Are you engaged?”

“No,” Barbara answered. “No, he doesn’t care for me in that way, Aunt Ann. We are merely good friends.”

A long pause fell. Outside in the garden a thrush could be heard singing, and the moist perfume of lilac—dew-drenched lilac—floated into the quaint, old-fashioned drawing-room, the room with its faded chintz and dark, spindle-legged furniture.

Barbara drew a deep breath. She was aware that her aunt was gazing at her in silent consternation, and she knew that Miss Ann was bitterly disappointed by the unexpected turn of events, and Barbara felt raw with shame in consequence.

“Well, Barbara, Howard has behaved disgracefully—wickedly, for we all believed that he loved you. He has certainly given you every reason to think so.” The old lady paused. “You would have waited for him, my dear, wouldn’t you? You love him?”

Barbara winced.

“I don’t know, Aunt Ann—indeed I’m not at all sure. We are just good friends.”

Barbara flushed as she spoke, for she knew that she was lying, and Miss Ann knew it too and shook her head gravely.

“Don’t try and deceive me, Barbara—what’s the use? You do care for Howard, and why shouldn’t you? The young man has been paying you great attention for years, and he deserves to be horsewhipped—going away without proposing! But he wouldn’t have treated you so badly if you had only had a father or a brother alive—some masculine relative to ask him his intentions.”

Miss Ann quivered with anger, and she moved towards a small table that stood in the centre of the room—a walnut-wood table laden with old-fashioned ornaments—and played nervously with a gold-mounted snuff-box, a snuff-box containing the miniature of her great-great-grandfather.

“Everybody will be talking—discussing Howard’s conduct,” she continued, after a brief pause, her voice a little tremulous, indignation flushing her cheeks with faint colour. “It will be a nine days’ wonder in Sandstone, for all our friends believed that Howard loved you, and they will wonder why he hasn’t proposed—they will be sorry for you. Oh, Barbara, I feel so furious—so incensed!”

She rubbed the gold mounting of the snuff-box with a flimsy lace handkerchief, her agitation very evident. But what Miss Ann felt was nothing to what Barbara was suffering, and she hated Howard for the moment because of the humiliation he had put upon her, and thought it would be easy to forget him. But how could she make her friends believe this—how could she force them to believe it?

“Aunt Ann, don’t be so silly and think I’m upset and disappointed, for I’m not—I assure you I’m not.” She drew herself up to her full height and stared her aunt bravely in the face. “I tell you that there’s nothing between me and Howard—there never has been. We are just good friends. Perhaps you will believe me when I get engaged to someone else one day.”

“Yes, I shall believe you then, Barbara,” Miss Ann answered tartly, “but certainly not before.”

Barbara flushed hotly.

“Very well, Aunt Ann, I’ll get engaged as soon as ever I can, just to prove to you that I am not pining for Howard—that I am quite heart-whole.”

She spoke with a burst of temper, but Miss Ann was not the least annoyed—in fact she nodded her head approvingly.

“Nothing would please me better, Barbara. I should like all our friends to realize that you are not breaking your heart over Howard; but where is the other man to come from?”

“Thank you so much, Barbara dear, for having come round to see me this afternoon. It was sweet of you—Howard would be pleased.”

Mrs Burton smiled sadly at Barbara and put a thin hand on the girl’s arm as they stood side by side in the porch of Mrs Burton’s cottage, then lowered her voice confidentially.

“I know you miss Howard too—that’s what makes it such a comfort to speak to you—we are common sufferers.”

Barbara made an impatient, angry movement. She had called on Howard’s mother that afternoon because she had promised that she would do so, and Barbara always kept a promise, but she hated to feel that Mrs Burton was so sure that she loved her son, for all through the tea-drinking the widow had thrown out hints implying that she knew Barbara’s secret.

“I expect you will not miss Howard so much in a day or two, and let us hope that he will do very well for himself in Rhodesia and come home quite a rich man.” Barbara spoke in cold, curt tones. “Now I must say good-bye,” she added, “or Aunt Ann will be wondering what has become of me.”

“Well, dear, I mustn’t detain you.” Mrs Burton walked down the narrow garden path with her guest. She was a fair, rather stoutly-built woman with a pleasant face and rather simple manner. “Oh, it seems years since Howard left me, and yet he only departed yesterday. Don’t you feel that he has been away for ages? Don’t you miss him frightfully?”

Barbara shook her head.

“No,” she answered, “I cannot say that I miss Howard very much. But then I’m no relation—merely an old friend.”

The widow glanced up sharply.

“Something more than a friend, Barbara. Ah, my dear, I know—” She paused, a little startled by Barbara’s forbidding frown and feeling that she had gone too far, then she added in low, rather shaky tones: “I am travelling up to London for the day to-morrow and taking Cecily with me. I am not happy about her cough, and I want her to see a good lung doctor. I waited till Howard had sailed to do this, for I did not want to worry him. You know how devoted he is to his sister.”

Barbara nodded her head curtly. Every reference to Howard galled.

“Yes,” she answered. “Well, I hope the London doctor will say that there is very little the matter with Cecily, but it is best to have a good opinion.”

She stooped down and kissed Mrs Burton lightly on the cheek, then took her abrupt departure, and as she walked up the long village street her cheeks flamed with hot resentment. For she told herself that Howard’s mother evidently fancied that she was dying of love for her son, and doubtless the whole village shared this belief, and were wondering how Barbara was standing her lover’s desertion.

She was glad old Admiral Coles had gone to Bath for a month—he was always so fond of teasing her about Howard; and General Grey was laid up with an attack of lumbago; but Mrs Rendel—the canon’s widow—was watering the roses in her garden, and the two Miss Spindlers were with her. The three ladies had evidently been drinking tea together, and doubtless discussing the departure of Howard and what Barbara must be feeling, and they all waved their hands as the girl hurried past, staring at her with frank, undisguised interest.

“It’s hateful to live in a village where everybody knows everybody,” Barbara reflected, and she quickened her steps, for she wanted to get home and lock herself up in her own bedroom. “I only wish I could show everybody at Sandstone that I’m not the broken-hearted idiot they imagine me to be—the love-lorn maiden. My feelings for Howard have quite changed since he has treated me so badly, for how could I love a man who has made me an object of pity to all my friends?” She frowned and bit her lip. “If some other man would only turn up and pay me serious attention, oh, how thankful and delighted I would be! That would be turning the tables on Howard with a vengeance.”

She smiled rather bitterly and hurried on. Miss Carvel’s cottage stood just outside Sandstone, at the bottom of a long and very steep hill, and as Barbara approached the quaint, old-fashioned little residence she noticed with some surprise that a small crowd of rustics had gathered in the road, right in front of her aunt’s garden gate, and as Barbara drew nearer to Old Cot she realized that an accident to a motor-car had been the means of drawing the crowd together, for a huge white touring car lay on its side, having apparently been driven right into the hedge.

“What has happened? Has anyone been injured?”

Barbara addressed herself to an old bowed and bent shepherd who was just turning away from the scene of the catastrophe, and the silver-haired old fellow nodded his head.

“The car—she come too fast down the bend of the hill, missie, dashing along an’ almost into some school-children hurrying home from school, but he as was driving steers right into the hedge rather than crash into those little ones. Oh, ’twas finely done! Over tops the car into the hedge, same as ye see, but them little kiddies wasn’t hurt.”

“And the motorist—what happened to him? He is a brave man, whoever he is.” Barbara’s eyes flashed.

“The gentleman as was driving—he’s hurt his shoulder badly—put it out, they tell me—an’ he must be a mass of bruises all over his body. But your aunt, missie, has had him carried into Old Cot—Miss Ann she witnessed the accident herself.”

“Why, this is quite exciting! I must go and see this unexpected guest.”

Barbara waved her hand lightly to the shepherd and ran on. She was young enough and sufficiently unsophisticated to feel keenly excited over what had happened, and anxious to meet the man who had driven his motor into the hedge. She loved courage—it was in her blood to do so—and the story the old shepherd had just related had stirred her fancy.

She made her way into the cottage and entered the drawing-room, drawn there by the sound of voices, but she paused as she crossed the threshold, for as she stared into the room her eyes were caught and held by other eyes—the eyes of a man who was lying on the sofa and who was evidently the injured motorist.

He gazed at Barbara intently, drinking in her fresh, young beauty—keenly appreciative of her charm—drawn to her as men are drawn suddenly to women.

Miss Ann was standing by the side of the sofa, a roll of lint in her hand, and she started as she caught sight of Barbara, then beckoned the girl forward.

“There has been an accident just outside our gate,” she explained, “and I have persuaded Mr Maloney to wait here till the doctor comes. Mr Maloney has wrecked his car and hurt his shoulder badly, I’m afraid.” She turned to the motorist. “Let me introduce my niece—Miss Barbara Carvel.”

Pierce Maloney smiled at Barbara. He was slight and lean in build, with a brown skin and bright brown eyes, and thin, sharply-cut features. He was handsome in his way, and he looked as if he could fight; there was something of the wild cat about him—he was Irish to his backbone.

“Did I say mine was an unlucky accident a minute ago?” he exclaimed. “Did I blame myself for tumbling out of a car right up against a lady’s doorsteps? Why, the saints were having me in their keeping all the time—they were helping me to make acquaintance with Miss Barbara Carvel.”

He tried to rise from the sofa but his gallantry cost him dear, for he sank back with a moan, fainting quietly away. Barbara, running forward to support his head, noticed that there were blood-stains on his coat, and guessed that even whilst he paid his gay compliments he must have been suffering agony, and she straightway exalted Pierce Maloney into a hero, telling herself that he was the bravest man she had ever met, unaware that it comes as naturally to an Irishman to be brave as to lose his heart—that it is all part and parcel of the day’s work.

“Oh, Aunt Ann, is Mr Maloney very badly hurt, do you think?” Barbara whispered anxiously to her aunt. They were both bending over the sufferer, seeking to revive him, and Miss Ann’s old servant hovered in the background, a big salts bottle in her hand.

“I don’t know, dear, but I shall be most thankful when Dr Cowper comes—he has been sent for.”

Pierce Maloney opened his dark eyes, and Barbara, fanning vigorously, exclaimed with intense relief:

“You are better—oh, thank God!”

“Ye’re thanking God for me?” Maloney whispered. “Shure, ’tis too much. I should be thanking my Creator for bringing me in sight an’ touch of you.”

“Shure, I don’t know how to be excusing myself, Dickie, I really don’t. I’ve smashed your fine motor-car for you, putting you to no end of trouble an’ expense. Och, why did ye ever come to think of lending your car to such a fool of a fellow as Pierce Maloney—why did ye, now?”

Pierce Maloney, lying back in bed keeping invalid state in Miss Ann’s guest-chamber, smiled quaintly at the visitor who had just called to see him, but the tall, somewhat austere-looking man who stood by his bedside only frowned in answer.

“Never mind about the car, Pierce. The motor’s fully insured, and even if it wasn’t I shouldn’t be worrying myself about the smash-up. All I can think of is what a merciful escape you’ve had—not that you look very brilliant at the present moment.”

“I was within an inch of going to glory, Dickie! Shure, I thought it was all up with me as I bumped the car into the hedge. There goes the soul of Pierce Maloney, I told myself, and there goes my Lord Revelstone’s new forty-horse-power Daimler.”

Richard Revelstone gave a dry little cough.

“It would be like you, Pierce, to be thinking of the car at such a moment,” he remarked, “forgetting that you’re the only man in the world I care about—my one friend. But when are the doctors going to let you get up? You’ve been in bed for four days, haven’t you? It was kind of Miss Carvel, or whatever she calls herself, to take you in and look after you.”

“ ’Twas more than kind; but she’s the sweetest old lady in the world, is Miss Ann Carvel. When I protested against her putting me up here an’ begged an’ prayed the good soul to have me moved to the inn—for Sandstone boasts its little pot-house—she wouldn’t hear of any such thing happening—squared her old shoulders an’ shook her head. An’ the doctor backed her up, declaring it would be doing my shoulder harm to be moving me. Besides, to confess the truth to ye, Dickie, I wasn’t in any such great hurry to go; ’twas only because I didn’t want to trouble the good old lady that I suggested changing my quarters. Faith, I was an unselfish man that day!”

“It would have been a great mistake if you had been moved,” Lord Revelstone answered. “I’ve driven through Sandstone once or twice in my car, and purchased petrol at the most miserable little inn—a regular wayside pub; you would have been most uncomfortable there. Of course if you could have borne the journey to Grey Towers that would have been a different matter.”

“Now, Dickie, be reasonable. Was it myself that would be returning to Grey Towers in disgrace, having smashed up your fine car? Why, what would your sister have said to me? Wouldn’t my Lady Bridget have been in one of her tantrums—furious with me for having been the means of smashing the Daimler. She wasn’t at all pleased when you lent me the car last week so that I could drive to the Dover races like a prince, an’ may the devil admire me, but the bad luck I had—the shocking luck. Never a horse I backed came in—something was wrong with the beauties. But maybe there was a reason for it, for luck at cards and luck in love never go together, they say—no, nor ever will.” He paused, then added, with a sudden change of tone: “But is it true that ye must really be departing? Miss Ann spoke of having tea sent up. Tea!”—he made a wry face—“tea! Now isn’t that just like a darlint old lady to be thinking of offering a man tea in front of a long motor drive, with a wet wind blowing an’ the scent of rain in the air! ’Tis a drop of whisky ye ought to be having, Dickie.”

“I want neither tea nor whisky,” Lord Revelstone interrupted. He spoke with a certain decision. “Just let me get off quietly, Pierce. Pay my compliments to Miss Carvel for me, won’t you, and thank her for allowing me to come here and see you. I have brought her over some hothouse fruit and some flowers, if you’ll give it with my compliments after I’ve gone, and explain that I hate to be thanked. Tell her that I’m a surly curmudgeon—a regular bear.”

“I’ll tell her that ye’ve got a heart of gold an’ manners that would disgrace a hippopotamus,” Pierce laughed, then he suddenly stretched out a long brown hand and beckoned Lord Revelstone to him.

“Dickie,” he whispered, “before ye go I have news to tell ye—grand news. I’ve lost my heart—my poor battered old heart.”

“You fool, Pierce.” The words fell hoarsely from Richard Revelstone’s thin lips, and he shook his head at the sick man. “What’s this new madness?” he demanded—“and who is the girl? It wouldn’t be like you to be thinking of making a sensible marriage—making it with a sensible woman.”

“Who is the girl?” Pierce half closed his eyes again, and a smile stole over his face. He drew a deep, lazy breath. “Why, listen to the beautiful name of her—Barbara! Isn’t that a name to bless God for? Isn’t it sweet an’ wholesome an’ good to listen to—isn’t it a darlint name?”

“It’s just an ordinary name like any other,” Lord Revelstone answered. “And who is this piece of perfection?”

“Barbara is Miss Carvel’s niece,” Pierce answered slowly. “She’s been nursing me, Dickie—sitting by the side of my bed looking for all the world like a holy angel. She’s read poetry to me by the yard, an’ shure I couldn’t take in the words for thinking how beautiful her voice was. An’ she droops her head a little when she reads, so that you can see the little red-brown curls at the nape of her neck, an’ myself wanting to kiss the curls all the time, an’ the soft creamy neck.”

“You talk like a raving lunatic.” Lord Revelstone shrugged his shoulders. “I only hope you haven’t been such a fool as to make love to the girl.”

“I’ve been making love all the time,” Pierce answered simply. “Faith, I should have made love to anyone, lying in my bed with nothing else to do, an’ with a crushed shoulder for my torment, an’ to be in the same room with Barbara an’ not make love would be impossible. I tell ye she’s the most beautiful creature in the world—the Lord Almighty never made such another—she’s perfection. An’ I do believe that she’s turning to me—that I’m by way of winning her heart. I kissed her hand this morning when she brought me in my soup at eleven, an’ she blushed an’ smiled, but she wasn’t angry; an’ to-night—to-night”—he half raised himself in his bed—his eyes gleamed—his cheeks glowed—“why, when she brings me in my cup of milk this evening—’tis the women be always choking food down a man’s throat, ye know—by the great gun of Athlone I’ll be trying to snatch a kiss from her lips. Ye couldn’t see her mouth an’ not long to kiss it—no man could. I’ve loved other women in my time—an’ I was fond enough of poor Mary, as ye know, but I never knew what a wonderful madness love can be—what a passion. Why, I’d lay me down an’ die for Barbara—die willingly. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her—there’s naught I couldn’t do. If she’ll only marry me I’ll show ye that there’s fine stuff in Pierce Maloney yet. I’ll make her a husband worth the having, an’ she shall have everything that she wants—everything.”

“Everything! Why, what nonsense are you talking, Pierce!”

“I’m not talking nonsense at all,” Pierce retorted with some show of anger. “I was never more in earnest in my life. Dickie, ’tis turning over a new leaf I am—’tis making a clean start. Why, if I can only persuade Barbara to marry me—”

The door opened as he spoke, and Barbara entered the room. She was dressed in a white gown, and she carried a small tea-tray in her hands, and she made a very gracious and beautiful picture as she stood in the doorway.

“Pardon me for interrupting you at your talk.” Barbara inclined her head graciously towards Revelstone as she spoke. “My aunt was so afraid that you might go away without having tea, Lord Revelstone, so I have brought up a cup myself. We are just having our tea in the drawing-room.”

“It is very good of you, I am sure.” Richard Revelstone flushed, but his voice was surly and his manner was surly. “I never touch tea,” he added—“and I must be going at once.”

“But don’t let me feel that I have hurried you away,” Barbara interrupted. “Mr Maloney was so counting on your visit to-day. He told me he had so much to tell you.”

“An’ haven’t I had a great deal to tell ye, Dickie?” Maloney interrupted.

“You’ve been talking a deal of nonsense, certainly,” Lord Revelstone answered.

Then, a frown still darkening his face, he shook hands with Barbara and the invalid and hurried out of the room, explaining that he must take his immediate departure—that he had stayed too long as it was.

Barbara, left alone in the sick-room, turned to Pierce Maloney, her eyes full of concern.

“Is Lord Revelstone angry with me?” she inquired. “Was he annoyed because I brought him up a cup of tea?”

“No, indeed,” Maloney answered. “As if anyone on earth could be annoyed with you, Miss Barbara. But poor Dickie has the worst manners in the world, an’ he’s a bear with a sore head, as I often tell him. Besides it’s jealous he is at the present moment—jealous, an’ jealous of you.”

“Jealous of me?” Barbara glanced at Pierce Maloney with some surprise. “Why should he be jealous?”

“Because he’s so fond of me,” Maloney answered. “Bosom friends we’ve been all our lives, Dickie Revelstone an’ myself, an’ I’ve just been telling him that I’m head over ears in love with ye, Barbara—I’m fathoms deep in love. Och, my darlint, ye’re not going to turn away your head; look at me, Barbara—look at me!”

He sat up in bed and stretched out his arms, fixing his eyes full on Barbara, and it seemed to the girl as if she could not resist those dark glowing eyes. Slowly, as one drawn by invisible cords, she moved closer and closer to the bedside till at last she stood there trembling in every limb, her heart beating wildly, her breath coming and going, powerless to contend with this new influence that had come into her life.

“ ’Tis myself that loves ye so dearly, Barbara. Promise me that ye’ll marry me—that ye’ll let me take ye home to my castle in Ireland—’tis a fine old place. But ’twill be a proud day for Castle Glenns when you cross the threshold, Barbara, an’ all the peasants will love ye, an’ go crazy over ye. An’ I needn’t be tellin’ ye, need I, that I’ll be giving ye everything that ye want—that I’ll be as good to ye as a man can be. There shall be nothing that ye can ask of me that I’ll deny. Ye shall have the half of my kingdom—it shall all be yours!”

She was dazzled by his passionate language—by his rich promises. She saw herself the mistress of a fine property—a rich woman, and she thought of all the lovely things that money can buy—of all the luxuries and comfort that Pierce Maloney could give her. And above all, what a wonderful lover he made—what a splendid lover! And how good it would be to be able to prove to her little world that she was not breaking her heart because Howard Burton had left England without proposing to her. Her woman’s tow caught fire from the man’s flame; her eyes answered Pierce’s eyes; her lips met his in sudden and sweet surrender.

“Oh, my prince, how good you are to me,” she cried—“how good!”

“Prince ye’re callin’ me?” He laughed loud—laughed triumphantly. “Shure, if I’m a prince ye’re a queen, an’ ye shall have the best that I can give ye—the best of everything, my darlint—my wife to be. Ye shall be mistress of Castle Glenns. I’ll give ye the keys of my home, an’ the keys of my heart. There never shall be a woman better loved—never—never.”

He forgot his injured shoulder—he forgot everything except his wild love, and he made Barbara forget everything else too. She felt as if she and her lover were being whirled through space in a chariot of fire—whirled into a new and wonderful country, and she told herself that she was surely the most lucky girl on earth. For love and riches were awaiting her. She was to be the queen not only of Pierce Maloney’s heart but of his Irish castle, and she forgot that there are such things as castles in Spain—castles built on sand.

“My wedding day!”

Barbara murmured the words in low, happy tones. She was standing in front of the dressing-table in her bedroom, gazing at herself in the looking-glass, and she was pleased with her white satin wedding-gown—she was more than pleased; she knew that the filmy folds of a bridal veil gave a mysterious softness to her face, and she felt that Pierce would be pleased with her, too.

She blushed as she thought of her lover—the man whom she had known for little more than three weeks but whose wife she was to become to-day, and it seemed to Barbara that there had never been such an ardent, breathless wooing as her wooing. Why, Pierce had given her no time to reflect—to deliberate; he had insisted on the shortest engagement possible, and he had even talked Miss Ann over—Miss Ann, who was so elated at the thought of the fine marriage that her niece was making that she was ready to give way to Pierce in everything—to bow to his decision.

Pierce had hurried to London as soon as his injured shoulder would permit him to travel, and had succeeded in getting a special licence. There was also some necessary business that he had to attend to—business which had detained him in town for over a week, and Barbara had not seen her lover for over seven days, but she had heard from him every morning. He had written her the most impassioned letters a man could write—letters enclosed in boxes of hothouse flowers, and he had sent her gloves—beautiful French kid gloves, expensive bottles of scent, and huge boxes of sweets. A diamond ring had also arrived—a splendid diamond ring, and Barbara had begun to realize how delightful it must be to be rich. The news had been noised through the village of the fine match she was making, and all her friends were congratulating her—she was the heroine of the hour.

And now, as she stood in front of her glass, it seemed to Barbara as if she were the happiest girl in the whole world, and the luckiest. And yet she felt a stranger to herself—a perfect stranger. Could it be possible that she was really Barbara Carvel—the girl who had not known Pierce Maloney a month ago, and who had believed herself to be in love with Howard Burton? How much can happen in a month—how much!

A knock came at the door, and Miss Ann entered the room. She was dressed in grey silk for the wedding.

“Barbara dear,” she exclaimed, “old Admiral Coles has just come round, and wants particularly to see you. He has hurried back from Bath on purpose, he says. Though I told him that you were dressing for the wedding he was so persistent that I didn’t like to say no. Could you see him for a minute, my darling—just one minute?”

“Why, of course I will, Aunt Ann.” Barbara laughed happily. “It is sweet of the old admiral to rush back for the wedding. I expect he has brought a present, and wants to give it to me himself. Oh, dear, I feel so excited!”

She ran out of the room, catching up the train of her white satin wedding-dress and swinging it lightly over her arm. And she sang as she tripped down the stairs—sang happily and at the top of her clear high voice:

But the words of her song died away in her throat as Barbara ran into the drawing-room, for old Admiral Coles looked at her so strangely—so intently, and he did not congratulate Barbara. He stood up stiff and stern, a tall, grey-haired old man—a typical old sailor.

“Why, Admiral Coles, what’s the matter? Are not you going to wish me joy? Am I not a lucky, lucky girl? But of course you haven’t met Pierce yet; never mind, you’ll see him to-day.”

“No, I have not met Pierce Maloney yet,” the old admiral interrupted, “but I have hurried back from Bath on purpose to ask you to reflect on what you are doing. For do you really mean to tell me that you intend to marry this Irishman to-day—this man of whom you know nothing except what he has been pleased to tell you—nothing at all.”

“And why shouldn’t I marry Pierce?” Barbara exclaimed resentfully. “What do you mean by talking to me in this way? I ought to consider myself the luckiest girl on earth. He is charming—he is rich, and oh! so much in love with me.”

“How do you know he is rich? Is he making any settlements upon you—proper settlements?”

Barbara shook her head.

“No,” she answered, “but he has promised to give me everything I want. He told Aunt Ann I should lack for nothing, and he has got a beautiful castle in Ireland. Besides, he is Lord Revelstone’s friend, and you know what a rich man Lord Revelstone is.”

“Yes, Revelstone’s rich enough certainly,” the old admiral grunted, “but everyone knows how eccentric he is. And as to this Irishman of yours having a castle in Ireland—that counts for nothing. I know what these Irish castles are.”

“Admiral Coles, if you had met Pierce you wouldn’t speak like this.” Barbara drew herself up to her full height, and addressed the old admiral with some dignity. “You have only to look at him to realize that he is one of the most honourable men, and he would never deceive a girl—never.”

“You say that because you are in love with him—or you think you’re in love with him. But I tell you, Barbara, Mr Maloney has had no right to hustle you into matrimony like this, not giving you time to turn round and think matters over, even. You’ve only known the fellow for three weeks, so what knowledge of his real character can you have? Say he’s the rich man he makes himself out to be—and mark you, I doubt it—you don’t know him well enough to marry him. You’re buying a pig in a poke, my dear, that’s what you’re doing, and I want you to put off this marriage for a few weeks, Barbara, so that some inquiries may be made about Mr Maloney’s prospects and that your friends may know a little more about him than they do at present—your best friends.”

Barbara hesitated. It suddenly occurred to her that the old admiral was right. What did she really know about Pierce? What means had she of proving that all he had told her was true? She was taking a leap in the dark—a tremendous leap—and with a man who was practically a stranger. She was trusting herself blindly to Pierce Maloney, and was it a wise thing to do—was it a safe thing?

She put up her hand to her forehead. Her head had suddenly begun to ache, and she felt afraid. And then, as Barbara hesitated, she heard a sound that made her start—start and quiver. The ringers had commenced to peal her wedding bells. It was too late to draw back now—it was much too late. All the village would be flocking to the little grey church to see her married; the clergyman would be there—the old clergyman who had confirmed her, and Pierce would be waiting for her. No, she couldn’t draw back now—she simply couldn’t. Her sudden decision to marry Pierce Maloney had raised sufficient comment as it was—had made the whole village hum and buzz with excitement, and what would be the talk and stir if she postponed her wedding? Besides, what would Pierce think? He would never be able to forgive her utter lack of trust—never.

Barbara caught at her tulle veil and pulled it over her face. She did not want the old admiral to see how pale she had turned.

“Listen!” she cried. “Do you hear my wedding bells? Do you think I could draw back now, even if I wanted to? It is too late, Admiral Coles—too late.”

She moved towards the drawing-room door, aware that the carriage would be round in a few seconds to drive her to the church, and she had to pin some orange blossom to the bosom of her dress.

“Barbara, my dear child, don’t be so rash—so reckless. I tell you that there is still time to draw back if you want to. Remember that it is your whole life that is at stake—your whole life. You are trusting yourself utterly to a man who was a total stranger to you three weeks ago, remember, and you are taking a grave risk.”

Barbara hesitated. Was there time to draw back—was there really? Would Pierce be very angry if she put off their wedding for a few weeks? But of course he would be—of course.

“I am not going to put off my marriage.” She glanced back over her shoulder and looked at the old admiral with a faint defiance. “I tell you I trust Pierce—I trust him absolutely. I have promised to marry him to-day, and marry him I will.”

“Good luck, and heartiest congratulations, Mrs Maloney—the very best of luck!”

Barbara started and blushed as the old village doctor addressed her for the first time by her new name—a name that had a strange and unfamiliar ring about it, and then, just as if Dr Malcolm’s speech had been a signal, it seemed as if everybody in her aunt’s pretty old-world drawing-room were calling her Mrs Maloney—laughing—congratulating—talking at once—pressing round the bride and bridegroom.

Barbara had to stare at the brand-new wedding-ring upon her left hand to be convinced that she was not dreaming, and then she stole a shy glance at her husband, and she thought how handsome and debonair Pierce looked, so fine a figure in his wedding garments, and he was smiling and bowing—talking in the gay, inimitable Irish way.

Admiral Coles tramped up and kissed the bride gravely on her cheek, but Barbara had no smile for the old man, for she felt she could not forgive him for nearly upsetting her just before she had started for church. It was really too bad of the admiral—he had no right to come and scare a bride, and Barbara was ashamed of herself for ever having listened to Admiral Coles and taken his words to heart. Why, she had actually thought of postponing her wedding, and what a fool she would have looked had she done so—what a fool she would have been!

“God bless you, Barbara my dear.” There were actually tears in the old admiral’s eyes; then he turned abruptly to Pierce. “Be good to her, Mr Maloney. She’s a mere child still, and she’s put her whole trust in you. Be worthy of it.”

The old sailor spoke with a certain sternness, but Pierce gave him a bright, flashing smile.

“Ah, Admiral dear,” he answered, “ ’twould puzzle anyone not to be good to Barbara, I’m thinking. As for myself, I’m her slave—hers to command till the day of my death.”

He threw immense fervour into the words, and no one could have doubted that they came from his heart. The old admiral made no answer, however—merely strode on and mingled with the wedding guests, and Barbara had to turn and greet other friends and extend a soft cheek for affectionate kisses.

She felt extraordinarily happy. No one could pity her now—the girl Howard Burton had left behind—the girl he had not proposed to. A sense of elation came over Barbara as this thought occurred, and she stroked a fold of her soft white bridal satin, conscious that she had made a great success of things—that everything had worked together for good.

“Barbara dearest, don’t you think you ought to go and change into your going-away dress? Time is passing, you know.”

Aunt Ann swept up and whispered into the bride’s ear—such a radiant smiling Aunt Ann, but Barbara laughed and shook her head.

“I must cut the cake first. Shall we all go into the dining-room, Pierce and myself leading the way?”

Aunt Ann nodded swift consent, and a few minutes later Barbara was accomplishing the task of cutting her wedding-cake, and then her health and Pierce’s health were drunk. Champagne corks flew and toasts were the order of the day, and there was a great deal of laughter and talking—all the infectious excitement that a wedding usually provokes.

Barbara had to leave the dining-room at last, for time was passing, but she did so reluctantly, for she was really enjoying her wedding, pleased to find herself the centre of attraction, and aware that she made an extremely pretty bride.

She had decided that she would have no one with her whilst she changed her dress—a lot of people talking and buzzing round would only distract her—so Barbara was rather surprised when, just as she was finishing her toilette, a somewhat timid knock came at the bedroom door.

“Come in,” she cried, wondering who her visitor could be, but her surprise was great when the door opened and Mrs Burton made her unexpected appearance.

Howard’s mother had studiously avoided Barbara since the latter’s engagement to Pierce Maloney had been announced, and had refused an invitation to the wedding, and now she flushed a little as she crossed the threshold of the bride’s room and fumbled nervously with her gloves.

“I’m so glad to see you, Mrs Burton.” Barbara smiled and held out both her hands. “I should have been very sorry to have left Sandstone without saying good-bye to you—very sorry indeed.”

Mrs Burton raised her pale eyes and looked at Barbara strangely.

“I wonder at that,” she murmured rather reproachfully. “You seem to have forgotten Howard very easily, so why not his mother?”

Barbara caught her breath. She thought it very unfair of Mrs Burton to speak to her like this—most unkind, but she did not want to quarrel with anyone on her wedding day, so she repressed the natural indignation she felt.

“I have not forgotten Howard, Mrs Burton; why should I? I hope I shall never forget old friends, and that’s all that we ever were to each other, your son and myself—friends.”

Barbara threw peculiar emphasis into the last word, then she straightened her hat—the most expensive and becoming hat that she had ever worn in her life—before the looking-glass, but her hands trembled a little as she stuck in the hatpins, and she flushed, flushed to her forehead.

“You are not speaking the truth, Barbara!” Mrs Burton spoke with quite unusual tartness. “You and Howard were more than friends—much more. He loved you, and you know it. He loved you dearly, and I thought you cared for him. I looked forward to the idea of having you for a daughter-in-law one day, but directly my son’s back is turned and a richer man appears on the scene—well, Howard’s chances are all over.”

Mrs Burton wiped her eyes as she said the last words. She was obviously very agitated, but Barbara turned on her passionately, feeling the injustice of the accusation which had just been levelled against her—the rank injustice.

“You have no right to speak to me like this,” she protested. “It is unkind and unfair. Howard paid me a great deal of attention, I don’t deny that, but he never asked me to be his wife—to wait for him. He never told me he loved me. He just went abroad leaving me quite uncertain as to whether he cared or whether he didn’t care.” She spoke in short broken sentences. “It was unfair of him—it was a very unfair thing to do. For suppose I waited for him—waited for years—and he had met some other girl abroad and taken a fancy to her and married her, what could I have said? Why, nothing—just nothing, for Howard had never spoken to me; he had left himself free to do just what he pleased.”

“But you knew he loved you.” Mrs Burton laid a gentle hand upon the bride’s arm.

“What reason had I to think that Howard loved me?” Barbara flashed the words out. She was very angry now. A red spot of colour was burning in each of her cheeks; her eyes blazed. “If he loved me he was a coward,” she continued, “a coward not to speak before he left England—cruel to himself and cruel, perhaps, to me. No, not cruel to me”—she corrected herself sharply—“kind. For I love the man whose wife I have become to-day—I love Pierce with all my heart, and I’m sure I hope that Howard will fall in love with some nice girl in the future and be just as happy as I am—every bit as happy, and we will all be friends together—the best of friends.”

She paused, her anger dying away, for brides have no right to be angry—happy brides, then she suddenly bent towards Mrs Burton.

“Kiss me,” she said gently, “and wish me joy. Don’t be cross with me any longer.”

Mrs Burton hesitated, then she suddenly flung her arms about Barbara and strained the girl to her tightly.

“God bless you, my dear,” she whispered. “I do wish you every happiness—I do indeed, and I am sorry if I hurt you by what I said just now. But I believed—I really did believe that there was some sort of understanding between you and Howard. I made a mistake, I suppose—a foolish mistake.”

She wiped her red eyes, then she suddenly gave a low choking sob.

“Oh, Barbara, I am in such trouble. You know I went up to London with Cecily, so that she should see a doctor—a great lung specialist? Well, the specialist’s report has just come in, and it is not at all favourable—it is the very reverse of favourable. He says—Sir James Duncan says that unless Cecily is sent to Davos immediately he holds out little chance of saving her life. Her lungs are affected, you see, but she might recover if she went abroad; anyway, she would have a good fighting chance. But how can I send my darling to Davos?”

Mrs Burton wrung her hands.

“I haven’t got the money to do it, and there’s no possibility of raising any money either, for my poor little income is in trust—securely tied up, and even the furniture of the cottage isn’t my own. I cannot sell it, for it was lent me by a cousin who is living abroad and didn’t want to store her furniture. There’s nothing I can sell—nothing.”

The poor woman looked utterly woebegone, and a quick pang of pity shot through Barbara; tears came into her eyes. She was fond of Cecily; the girl had always been delicate, and not much of a companion to Barbara in consequence, but she was a nice little person in her way. Besides, it was so terrible to think that anyone so young as Cecily should have been attacked by such a foul disease; it seemed so cruel—so hard, and it was a dreadful thought that owing to lack of money Cecily’s life would in all probability have to be sacrificed. But there was a chance of escape for her if she could take it. Davos might restore her to health if she could only get there—but the means were lacking.

“Dear Mrs Burton, I am so sorry. I wish I could help you.”

Barbara turned sympathetically to the weeping woman, then the thought suddenly struck her that she could help Mrs Burton—yes, and perhaps save Cecily’s life. She was no longer poor; she was a rich man’s wife—the wife of a man who would give her everything she wanted—a man who had promised to gratify her lightest caprice.

“Don’t worry, Mrs Burton; Cecily shall go to Davos, and she shall come back quite strong and well. It is all right—it is quite all right.”

Barbara laughed triumphantly, and Mrs Burton gazed at her in dumb amazement, then she shook her head.

“My dear, what can you do?” she asked.

“Why, Pierce will give me the money to send Cecily to Davos,” Barbara retorted. “I have only got to ask him and he will do it at once—I know he will. How much will you want? A hundred—two hundred pounds?”

Mrs Burton’s lips trembled. She gazed at Barbara as she might have gazed at an angel of deliverance.

“My darling Barbara,” she exclaimed, “I never thought of this. How good of you—how kind! Oh, a hundred pounds—or say a hundred and fifty—would be quite enough, I should think—heaps, and indeed I will try and pay it back by small instalments.”

“There’s no need to pay it back.” Barbara laughed happily. “I am so glad to be able to help you. I will ask Pierce for the money at the first opportunity I get, and I will send the cheque along in two or three days’ time.” She glanced at the clock ticking away on the mantelpiece. “Oh, I am late,” she cried, “I mustn’t stay talking another minute.”

She ran out of the room. She was wearing a tussore silk dress with a long coat to match trimmed with rich embroidery, but it was her hat that pleased Barbara most, her black Tagal hat with the emerald green plumes—the emerald green a special compliment to Pierce, and she looked young, beautiful, exultant, as happy a bride as the three kingdoms could boast—a girl in the full flush of her summer; and it was little wonder that the wedding guests greeted Barbara with enthusiasm as she came running down the stairs, everything that was sad and painful forgotten for the moment, her heart throbbing happily, excitement kindling her cheeks and giving sparkle to her eyes, and Pierce, waiting for his bride at the foot of the stairs, caught her in his arms as she came down and kissed her before all the wedding guests.

“What a bride the fairies have sent me,” he cried. “Oh, asthore—asthore!”

He took Barbara by the hand and led her up to Miss Ann.

“There’s just time to say good-bye,” he cried, “and then we must be off, or we shall lose our train to a certainty, for what’s this they tell me about trains here in England not waiting for anyone—not even for brides from fairyland!”

Miss Ann bent down and kissed her niece.

“Good-bye, my darling,” she whispered. “Good-bye, and God bless you.”

Then the pelting with rice began, and it was with a shower of rice following them that Pierce and Barbara ran down the garden path into the carriage that was waiting for them outside, and they drove down the little street to the cheers of the village folk who had known Barbara all her life. But more than one old dame shook her head reflectively as the carriage dashed by, and muttered that it was ill done that Miss Barbara had gone away in green.

But Pierce, pressing Barbara’s hand under the carriage rug, told her that she had never looked more beautiful.

“Shure, the fairies won’t be having a grudge against ye for wearing their colour,” he laughed; “an’ ’tis myself will make ye happy, Barbara—my love—my wife!”

“Tell me, are ye happy, Barbara—tell me now.”

Pierce bent over his bride and fixed his gaze full on her face, and Barbara gave a gay little nod of her head, her eyes dancing with joy.

“Happy? I should just think so! Why, I am the happiest and luckiest girl in the world, Pierce. You are goodness itself to me.”

“I try to be.”

The Irishman smiled. After three days of wedlock he was more in love with his bride than ever, and he showered all those delicate attentions upon her that mean so much to women.

Bride and bridegroom were staying at a big hotel overlooking the Embankment—one of the fashionable hotels that Barbara had read about in the past, and wondered vaguely if it would ever be her lot to visit, and now she was ensconced with her husband in a delicious little suite of rooms; their sitting-room boasted a balcony overlooking the river, and she was taking the keenest interest in her new surroundings, enjoying everything with the frank pleasure of an utterly unspoilt nature.

Pierce was spending money lavishly, but though Barbara pretended to scold him for his extravagance, she really enjoyed seeing him throw his gold about. She remembered all the pinching and screwing that had gone on at home, for Miss Ann, owing to her limited means, had been obliged to economize severely, and the contrast was delightful; for Barbara—like every other pretty young woman—took very kindly to wealth.

She liked stalls at a theatre and supper afterwards at some smart restaurant. She enjoyed lunching at Prince’s and staring at the gay and varied company assembled there. She gazed with frank interest at two pretty actresses lunching together, and was delighted when a much-discussed and criticized Cabinet Minister made his appearance. Her zest for information was marvellous—she was always appealing to Pierce to tell her who people were. Shop windows were a continual delight, and her bridegroom was always buying her big boxes of chocolate and expensive sprays of flowers.

But Barbara’s time in London was drawing to a close. To-morrow Pierce would be taking her home to Ireland, and the bride dwelt with excited anticipation over the welcome she would doubtless receive at Castle Glenns.

She longed to see her new home. Pierce had spoken very little about the castle lately, but perhaps that was because he wanted everything to be fresh to Barbara, and she felt rather like this herself. She did not wish to have Glenns described to her. She felt sure that Pierce was taking her to a beautiful home—a home where she would delight to reign as mistress, and though she was sorry, in a way, to leave London, still, Barbara had a great longing to see her husband’s country—Ireland that was her own country now.

“Shall we go to another theatre to-night, darlint? Or what do you say to the opera—ye’ve never been to the opera, have ye?”

“The opera! Oh, that would be delightful!” Barbara clasped her hands together tightly. So she was going to have yet another new experience! Oh, how good Pierce was to her—how kind! “I have never been to an opera,” she continued, “and I have always longed to go. Which one are they giving to-night?”

“Tristram and Iseult. ’Tis the most wonderful love music in all the world ye’ll be hearing. Wagner composed that opera when he was head over ears in love with a woman, an’ he put all his love-sick longing into it—all his passion. Oh, it’ll be fine to sit an’ listen to the music together, won’t it, Barbara? We’ll have a box—a little box.”

“It will be lovely.” Barbara danced about the room. She was so happy that she didn’t know how to express herself in words. “What shall I wear?” she continued.

“It doesn’t matter what you wear,” Pierce smiled fondly, “ye’ll be the most beautiful creature in the whole opera-house, darlint; but I wish I could string ye with jewels, Barbara, that I do. I’d like to buy a rope of pearls an’ hang it round your neck an’ put a crown of diamonds on your head.”

“I’ll twine a green ribbon in my hair,” Barbara interrupted; “it will do just as well as a diamond crown—the colours of your country, Pierce—my colours.”

“You dear—you darlint! ’Tis the whole world I’d like to be giving ye, Barbara. I’d like to climb up to heaven, shure an’ I would, an’ pluck a star out of the skies for ye to wear on your forehead. Oh, there’s nothing in all the world I could deny ye—nothing.”

“You’re spoiling me.”

Barbara laughed gaily, then she crossed over to where Pierce was sitting and knelt down by his side, her face very close to his face.

“Do you know I’m going to ask a favour of you,” she whispered. “I want you to do something for me.”

“Shure, ’tis the first time ye’ve ever asked anything of me,” Pierce answered. “Is it likely I should refuse ye—is it likely?” He began toying with her hair—the soft hair that he loved.

“I want you to lend me some money.” Barbara flushed a little as she spoke, and yet why need she feel uncomfortable at asking anything of Pierce? Wasn’t he her husband—her rich husband?

“Money?” Pierce started; a curious look came into his eyes; his lips tightened. “Now what would ye be wanting money for?” he demanded.

“A friend of mine whom I’m awfully fond of is ill—very ill,” Barbara answered hurriedly. “She has something the matter with her lungs, and the doctors say that she must go abroad—that she must be sent straight away to Davos. That is the only chance of saving her life.”

“Yes—yes?”

Pierce spoke in dull, rather strained tones, and he ceased to stroke Barbara’s hair. He was gazing straight in front of him, a set look on his face; half-unconsciously he bit his lip.

“I knew you had plenty of money, Pierce; you’ve told me so many times that I could have anything I wanted, so I promised my friend’s mother that I’d give her the money to take her to Davos; it would be about a hundred to a hundred and fifty pounds.”

“A hundred to a hundred and fifty pounds?” There was blank consternation in Pierce’s voice.

“Yes, I know it’s a lot of money,” Barbara murmured humbly, “an awful lot, but if you would only let me have a cheque for the amount, Pierce, I promise you I’d be very economical with regard to my clothes and everything—I’d hardly spend anything. Oh, my dear, you will let me have the money, won’t you? You see, I have given my word.”

Barbara’s voice trembled a little. The hideous suspicion shot through her brain that perhaps Pierce was not as generous as she had thought—that he didn’t mean all he said. For why should he hesitate to grant her request—why?

“It’s all right, Barbara, you shall have the money.”

Pierce spoke very slowly, as if he was making an immense resolution, then he rose from his chair and looked at his bride strangely.

“Ye mustn’t be thinking that I’m made of money, ye know, Barbara. And now, tell me about this poor girl—an’ is she a great friend of yours?”

He spoke with an effort, and Barbara realized that she had displeased her husband; and yet she had only taken him at his word, she told herself, so why should he be angry? It really didn’t seem quite fair.

“Yes, Cecily is a very great friend of mine.” Barbara steadied her voice in her turn. “She has always been very delicate, poor girl, but perhaps she will recover her strength at Davos, and if she does she will owe her life to you, Pierce.”

“No,” he answered, “it will be to you she will owe it—not to me.”

He walked up to a small writing-table which stood in the corner of the sitting-room, opened a dispatch-box which stood upon it, and took out his cheque-book, but he frowned as he bent over the book; but he finally wrote a cheque out and handed it to Barbara—a cheque for a hundred and fifty pounds.

“Here’s the cheque, Barbara, you can send it to your friend at once.”

He held out the fluttering piece of paper, but Barbara, glancing down at it, noticed that he had dated it a week ahead.

“You’ve made a mistake in the date, Pierce,” she remarked, but Pierce frowned at her—frowned and bent his brows.

“Are ye thinking that the cheque won’t be met?” he answered. “Ye needn’t be afraid of that, Barbara. Your friend will have her hundred and fifty pounds all right when she sends in that piece of paper, for if there’s one thing we Maloneys pride ourselves upon ’tis the payment of debts of honour, an’ this is a debt of honour, isn’t it?—’tis the fulfilment of a promise.”

Barbara hesitated for a second, then she put her hands on Pierce’s shoulders and raised her face to his.

“I want to kiss you for what you’ve done,” she whispered. “I—I am so very grateful, Pierce; it has been awfully good of you.”

He bent his head and kissed her, and as if the touch of her tips had wrought a miracle, his old glad mood returned—he laughed gaily.

“Now we’ll be enjoying ourselves for the rest of the day,” he announced. “I’ll go downstairs and telephone for the box at the opera for to-night, and that’ll be the end of our gay time for the present. It’ll be Ireland to-morrow—Ireland and home.”

“And home will be the nicest place of all,” Barbara whispered, nestling up against her husband. “Fancy me the mistress of a fine big castle, though—poor little me!”

Pierce Maloney made no answer, but that might have been because he was kissing his wife’s hair.

“Oh, I do feel so excited, Pierce. I’m simply tingling all over, longing to arrive at Innisgrey. And yet I don’t know; this journey is lovely.”

Barbara spoke in low tones, her face pressed against the railway carriage window, her eyes shining, a happy smile playing upon her lips.

The train in which the bride and bridegroom were sitting was taking its slow and leisurely way through the Connemara district, and Barbara had already fallen in love with the wild and rugged scenery she was passing through, for the Green Isle was weaving a spell upon her—a dreamy, mysterious spell. She was impressed by the gloomy mountains, their peaks shrouded in a white veil of mist; the surf-beaten coasts pleased her—the little thatched cabins. She refused to move from the window, and made Pierce explain all the local landmarks; her enthusiasm was delightful—so fresh and unforced.

“We shall be reaching Innisgrey in about a quarter of an hour. I’m glad ye like this wild Connemara district. It’s a very lonely part of the world, I’m thinking.”

“The scenery is so beautiful,” Barbara interrupted, “and I rather admire these lonely, deserted-looking tracts of country; it all appeals to me—oh! enormously.”

Pierce watched her closely. Yes, she was in earnest. Barbara did not mind the grey isolation of the landscape—the sombre sadness that prevailed. She was unaware that the picturesque-looking cabins were literally rotting to pieces; she was simply viewing Ireland from the sentimental side.

He slipped his arm round her waist.

“ ’Tis a fair land, but a sad land,” he whispered. “Ireland is but a proud poor country, ye must know; ’tis to England ye must go for the money.” He paused abruptly. “Ye’re shure, Barbara darlint, that ye don’t fear the loneliness here? We’ve no neighbours near us, I ought to tell ye. Ye won’t get sick of my company?”

Barbara laughed and shook her head, but she felt just a little disappointed to hear she would have no neighbours. She had counted on being entertained by Pierce’s old friends, for she had heard a great deal about Irish hospitality, and she had looked forward to wearing her pretty trousseau gowns and the grand white satin wedding-dress.

“I’m glad ye care so little for society—the hunting-field for the man an’ the fireside for the woman—”

Barbara turned sharply round.

“Do you hunt, Pierce?”

“What a question!” He laughed heartily. “There’s not a Maloney who isn’t for more at his ease in the saddle than in any armchair. Shure, they say of us as a breed that we can love an’ ride an’ fight against any men in Ireland; ’tis tremendous fighters we’ve always been, Barbara, an’ there’s only one foe we have never been able to conquer.”

“And what’s that?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Our bad luck—we are not a lucky family.” His brows met together in a heavy frown. “Never mind all that,” he added, “the good luck has come at last, I do believe—ye’ve brought it.”

He stole an arm round Barbara’s waist, then pulled her to him in a close and swift embrace.

“Shure, here we are,” he cried. “The train’s running in to Innisgrey station now; ’tis a mighty poor little station, ye’ll be thinking.”

Pierce released his clasp of his wife’s waist, and began to pull down Barbara’s dressing-bag from the luggage rack and to collect a large cardboard hat-box. Barbara told herself how nice it was to be taken care of, and to pity all the poor unmarried girls who have to take long and tiring journeys by themselves.

Barbara and her husband were the only passengers to alight from the train; but a solitary porter rushed forward to greet Pierce, and the man commenced to congratulate the bride and bridegroom, gazing admiringly at Barbara, and then he proceeded to bundle all the luggage on a sort of wooden cart and to trundle it out of the station.

Barbara followed him quickly. She supposed a motor or a fine carriage would be waiting for her, and she drank in the misty sea-scented air with keen delight. But when she got out of the station she stared in dumb amaze at the rusty-looking trap that waited outside, and it was not till the coachman bent down from his lofty position and greeted her with much suavity that she realized that she would have to drive to her new home in this shabby old-fashioned affair.

“You have not got a motor, Pierce?”

She murmured the words in her husband’s ear—for Pierce had made his appearance on the scene by now—and he flushed a little and shook his head, then proceeded to stroke the old horse and exchange a few words with the coachman, whom he called Tim; and a second later he helped Barbara into the trap, sprang up himself, and took the reins, the coachman sitting behind.

“Ye’re thinking this isn’t much of a conveyance?” He shot a keen glance at Barbara, who merely smiled in answer, telling herself that doubtless Pierce hadn’t troubled much about things whilst living a lazy bachelor existence; but of course everything would be different now he was married.

“I rather like a drive in an open cart. One can see the country so much better. Oh, Pierce, how grand it is here, and how wild!”

She tasted the salt sting of the sea, and she noticed how the distant hills appeared to frown. She was impressed by the gloomy aspect of the deserted fields. There was not a soul to be seen for miles, and an ineffable sadness seemed to hang over the whole countryside—a sadness bequeathed by a tragic, unhappy past.

In spite of herself Barbara shivered. She could hear a sea-bird shrieking to its mate in the far distance, and the bird’s cry sounded like the mournful wail of a lost soul, whilst the sea mist fell over the low hedges like a shroud—a sad grey pall.

“Ye’re cold?” Pierce touched up the horse upon its flank, and the animal cantered down a steep incline at a dangerously accelerated pace, and a few minutes later Barbara was peering through the mist with quickened interest, aware that the trap had sped past two rusty iron gates—gates flung back as wide as they could go, and that the old horse was careering down an avenue shadowed by overhanging trees—a very bumpy avenue or drive.

Pierce gave a final flourish of his whip, and the trap drew up outside the shabby door of a large melancholy-looking house. Barbara caught a glimpse of stone pillars, a rusty balcony, and some unlighted windows, and she saw this was a big house crumbling to ruin as fast as it could. A dignified mansion a century ago, decay had set its seal upon it now; there was a poverty-stricken look about it—a hint of tragedy. Oh, surely this couldn’t be Castle Glenns—the fine castle Pierce had boasted about?

She looked at her husband with big, frightened eyes and Pierce, for his part, was glancing at her anxiously.

“Welcome home, darlint,” he said softly. “We have reached our journey’s end.”

Barbara made no answer to Pierce’s tender whisper. She was waiting for the door of Castle Glenns to open, waiting with a strained and nervous impatience.

The heavy black oak door swung back at last and a shabby old man-servant peered out, his face lighting up when he caught sight of the couple who waited on the steps.

“ ’Tis themselves—glory be to God!” he announced, speaking over his shoulder to two or three women-servants who hung together in a group at the back of the long dark hall. “ ’Tis the masther an’ the new misthress.”

“Yes, Blake, here we are. Are all the candles lit? I gave orders there was to be a blaze of light everywhere—I wanted my wife to see things to advantage. We seem all in the dark.”

The old man shrugged his lean shoulders.

“The light isn’t always as kind as the darkness,” he grumbled. “Besides, candles cost money.”

Barbara listened to this colloquy with gathering surprise. Did they save candle ends here as they did at Aunt Ann’s? She compressed her lips tightly together and crossed the threshold of her new home. She was paler than a bride should be, and her eyes roved restlessly about the dark hall till she tripped in a hole in the carpeting and nearly came down.

Pierce put a hand out to steady her.

“ ’Tis a shame now that more candles were not lit,” he exclaimed. “It’s the old house needs a mistress, Barbara darlint. Ye’ll have to take us all in hand.”

Barbara smiled. She must not be stupidly disappointed, she told herself, because things looked shabby and neglected at Castle Glenns. Pierce, out of sheer masculine laziness, had been allowing things to fall into rot and ruin. Well, it would be a delightful task—almost the most delightful task a woman could have—making this old house beautiful again, restoring, improving, and spending money lavishly on the purchase of fine old furniture, rich hangings, soft carpets.

“Show me the drawing-room, Pierce—my room.” Barbara’s voice thrilled with excitement; her eyes had grown softer.

“You’d be seeing the drawing-room? Why, surely—surely.”

Pierce pressed his wife’s arm tenderly, then he led her down the long hall, past the women-servants in their print gowns, who all smiled and bobbed, and he finally opened the large door of a room on the left-hand side.

“Shure, this is the drawing-room,” he announced. “They tell us—faith, ’tis one of our boasts—that the prettiest women in Ireland have lit up this room in the past. There was Bridget Maloney, my great-aunt, lived here—a toast in her day—and my grandmother, Ethnee Maloney. They fought a duel over Madame Ethnee, did two hot-headed young sparks, but I’d stake my soul that your equal has never entered the room, asthore—that I would.”

He laughed triumphantly, then, linking his arm through Barbara’s, he drew her across the threshold, and the first thing that confronted the young bride was a large blank space right over the fireplace, a space where a picture had evidently hung till quite lately. And Barbara noticed how old and faded the wall-paper was; the blue pattern was almost grey, the gilding had blackened.

It was very much the same with the brocade window-curtains. They were torn and rent, and they fluttered like rags whenever the breeze moved them, and the carpet was worn and in holes. But the chairs and sofas were splendid—finely-carved black oak—but the chintz was very faded and sadly torn, and two handsome china cabinets standing one on either side of the fireplace were destitute of china—their shelves empty.

Barbara gazed about her eagerly. She was not at all dismayed by the poverty-stricken aspect of the fine old room—she merely thought what a pleasure it would be to restore it to its former splendour, and so much more interesting than coming to a house which needed no doing up. And she exclaimed with pleasure when she caught sight of an old-fashioned spinet standing in a dark corner, a spinet that Pierce’s mother had drawn sweet tinkling tunes from, doubtless, and his grandmother before her.

“Ye like the room? ’Tis a dull, old-fashioned setting for such a jewel as yourself. The furniture has seen its best days, I’m afraid—the wall-paper has faded.”

Pierce glanced about him rather critically. Four candles were alight on the mantelpiece, set in heavy candlesticks of Irish silver, and others were burning in two candelabra on the walls, flaring with a certain fierceness; but, for the most part, the big room was in heavy shadow.

“We can turn this into a most lovely drawing-room, Pierce. Money must be spent, of course—a good deal of money—but the result will be perfection.”

Barbara clasped her hands together eagerly. She was already wondering what sort of window-curtains it would be best to buy—she hankered after green moiré. But Pierce glanced at her anxiously, an uneasy look coming into his eyes. He said nothing, however.

“I do like that old spinet. It must surely be very, very old. But tell me, Pierce, why is there this blank space on the wall? Whose portrait hung here, and why has it been removed?”

Pierce hesitated.

“ ’Twas a Romney hung there,” he said at last, “the portrait of my great-grandmother. An’ she was called Ethnee, an’ I believe my grandmother was named after her; ’tis the name we give our daughters. There is always an Ethnee in the family—” He hesitated and looked strangely at Barbara.

“Why has the Romney been taken down?”

Pierce bit his lip.

“For a good reason, asthore. But come, there’s the rest of the house to show you—the big rambling mansion it is too. Ye’ll admire the carved mantelpiece in your bedroom, I’m thinking—’tis a fine piece of work.”

Barbara smiled softly; she was still gazing about her.

“Don’t hurry me, Pierce. I am making all sorts of lovely plans with regard to this room. I see just how it ought to be furnished.”

She got no further in her speech, for the door opened suddenly at that moment and a couple of children rushed in—wild, untidy-looking children, who appeared to have been spending the whole day out of doors.

The children—a boy and girl—rushed up to Pierce, taking no notice of Barbara, pushing roughly past her. But they gave the master of Castle Glenns a boisterous welcome, clinging to his arms and pressing up to him, shouting for joy.

Barbara gazed at the children curiously. The girl, who looked as if she might be clever, was certainly extremely pretty, with a clear, olive skin, dark brown hair, and deep blue eyes. But the boy was splendid—a lad of about nine; he had his sister’s olive skin, but his eyes were a clear hazel, and his brows very level. He had a proudly-held head, and it was easy to see that warm blood glowed in the olive skin, and that the spirit that danced and gleamed in the hazel eyes was the spirit of dauntless, imperious youth.

“I suppose these children are young cousins.” So Barbara reflected, then she suddenly realized that the girl was calling Pierce “father.”

Barbara turned her head sharply and glanced at the little group, the slight, tall, olive-skinned man with the olive-skinned children clinging to him, and she realized the truth in a flash. These were Pierce’s children—she had married a widower!

Barbara turned very hot. Her first feeling was one of almost passionate indignation, for what right had Pierce Maloney had to deceive her so shamefully—so cruelly?

She put up a hand to her flushed cheek. A lump in her throat was threatening to choke her, and words completely failed the young bride. She wanted to cry, but was too proud; these children should not see her with tears in her eyes—these wild, unruly children.

“That will do, Ethnee. Down with you, Patrick lad. Didn’t I write that the two of ye were to stay quietly in the schoolroom this afternoon till I came to seek ye? I said I’d a great surprise in store.”

Pierce spoke in short and very jerky sentences, and he glanced rather nervously at Barbara. But the girl Ethnee faced him with a certain fierce defiance, her dark brows meeting, her blue eyes blazing.

“Shure, why should we be shut up in the schoolroom? Haven’t we always run free? An’ as to the great surprise you have in store for us, we want none of it. ’Tis a new mother you’d be giving us, but our mother’s dead an’ no stranger will ever take her place.”

“Hush, Ethnee, hush.” Pierce put a hand upon his daughter’s quivering shoulder, but she flung it off indignantly and burst into a very passion of sobs, tears simply streaming from her eyes.

“I won’t hush, I won’t be quiet! Why have you brought a stranger back with you—an Englishwoman? Who wants an Englishwoman here? Why, no one. Fancy an Englishwoman in our mother’s place—our mother who was a Miss Ashlyn of Castle Downey—Irish to her backbone. I’ll never call the Englishwoman ‘mother,’ nor will Patrick. Why did you want to marry again, father, to make us all unhappy?”

The speech that had begun so proudly and defiantly ended in a sudden rush of wild tears, and Barbara, for all her own anger and dismay, felt exceedingly sorry for the little girl. But as for young Patrick, he threw a thin brown arm about his sister’s heaving shoulders.

“Take things more easy, Ethnee,” he cried. “Don’t be breaking your heart like this. What’s done is done an’ cannot be mended, an’ anyway,” he raised his dark head proudly and spoke with a knowledge out of all proportion to his years, “there’s one good thing, if father has another son I shall still be heir to Castle Glenns—’tis my birthright.”

“Be quiet, Pat. Do ye hear me now? Be quiet.” Pierce flushed—a dull, angry red—then he raised a clenched hand. “I am angry—furious—with the pair of ye, so be off to the schoolroom at once. I’ll be punishing both later—indeed an’ I will.”

The girl sobbed louder, but the boy held his ground.

“Whip the flesh from my bones if you like,” he cried, his dark eyes ablaze. “I don’t care—I’ll never be friends with your new wife, father, never.”

“Have a care what you say, Patrick.” Pierce’s voice was hoarse. “I’ve never laid a rough hand on ye before, but ye’re trying me too hard, my lad—”

“Don’t be angry with your son, Pierce.” Barbara swept forward, and her voice was as cold as her cheeks were scarlet. “The boy and the girl are not to be blamed—they are to be pitied.”

“We don’t want your pity, Mrs Maloney.” Ethnee ceased to sob and turned on Barbara like a young wild cat. “We—we hate you!” The child threw immense passion into her voice, then she suddenly caught her brother by the hand. “Come, Pat,” she cried, “we’re not wanted here—neither you nor I; let’s go.”

Both children raced to the door. Their faces were quite pale with emotion, and their eyes were dark with anger, but Barbara could not help admiring the two slim young creatures. They were so fierce and yet so graceful, and their torn clothes—their broken boots—failed to give them a shabby appearance; their air of race could not be dimmed.

Pierce waited till the door had closed behind his son and daughter. Then he turned somewhat apprehensively to Barbara and he studied her for a second silently.

She was standing in the centre of the large room, and of her anger there could be no question. Her cheeks flamed hotly her eyes blazed, and she looked taller—or so Pierce fancied. She seemed to have grown in dignity; she was no longer a happy young bride, she was an indignant woman.

“Barbara—Barbara darlint.”

He walked up to her and would have put his arm about her waist but Barbara drew back hastily.

“Don’t touch me,” she cried, and her voice warned Pierce to beware. “You have deceived me and I am angry—very angry. Why did you not tell me that you were a widower with two children? I shouldn’t have married you had I known.”

“Shure, that was just why I didn’t tell you,” Pierce retorted quickly. “Maybe I acted wrongly by you—unfairly—but I don’t know. Shall I make ye the worse husband because I buried my first wife when Pat was just six months old? Don’t you realize that you mean more to me than any woman living or dead? Why, I’m so deep in love that I’m foolish, Barbara—foolish. ’Tis the madness is on me—the pleasant madness. I could commit a thousand follies for your sake. I could sin for you—anger my God—break His commandments.”

His voice quivered—his rich, beautiful voice—and his dark eyes pleaded for him—his compelling eyes. But Barbara hardened her heart.

“You have deceived me,” she repeated sternly. “That’s what I can neither forget nor forgive.”

“Darlint, don’t be so merciless,” he eyed her wildly. “Don’t all men and women deceive each other more or less? An’ what great harm have I done after all? Will the children be in your way? Sorra, not a bit of it, an’ ye wouldn’t be jealous of the poor soul asleep in the churchyard? We were boy an’ girl when they married us to each other, an’ poor Mary was only twenty-two when she died. But it’s not a boy’s love I’m giving you—’tis a man’s deep passion.”

He flung his arms round Barbara and strained her to him.

“Oh, forgive me—love me. This is the hour of our home-coming, an’ if I’ve done wrong ’twas because I adore ye so passionately. Barbara, don’t be so cold or ye’ll drive me to suicide. ’Tis my very soul that ye possess—my very soul. Maybe I ought to have told ye about poor Mary an’ the children, but I feared to take the risk—for just suppose ye had refused to marry me on that account.”

“I should have refused.” Barbara spoke with a certain stubbornness, but she did not repulse Pierce as he clasped her in his arms; she yielded to his kisses.

“You’d have refused? Then glory be to God that I never told you one single word—glory be to God!”

In spite of herself Barbara had to smile. So much for Pierce’s penitence, and yet his air of triumph was so delicious that it helped to swallow up the gravity of his offence, for as well be angry with him as with a delightful but wholly irresponsible child. It was impossible to maintain an air of stiff reserve with such a husband—it simply couldn’t be done.

“Really, Pierce, you ought to feel ashamed of yourself.” She tried to frown, to show righteous anger, but failed.

“For having had the sense to hold my tongue for once in my life? Why, the saints must have been keeping me under their special protection. To think now that ye wouldn’t have married me had I told ye about the children—that I should have lost ye.”

He bent his dark head and kissed Barbara on the nape of her soft, creamy neck, and the touch of her husband’s warm lips proved too much for Barbara; she succumbed to Pierce’s magnetic charm. He had behaved very badly, of course, so she told herself, but that had been because he loved her so madly and had been afraid of losing her, so he must be forgiven. And as for the children, well they were handsome, high-spirited young creatures. And Barbara loved children; besides, Ethnee and Patrick were such an interesting pair, and it would be a grand thing to win their love.

“Pierce, I’m not going to be angry with you—really angry—I couldn’t if I tried. But it wasn’t fair not to tell me about Patrick and Ethnee, and that you had been married before.”

She spoke gravely, but her voice was no longer cold. Her eyes were kind, and Pierce took instant advantage of her softer mood.

“My girl—my Barbara—I knew ye’d forgive me, so ’twas the best thing not to say a word, but just to wait till I’d got ye here. Shure, I’d have been a fool if I’d acted otherwise.”

Barbara looked at her husband in amaze. He was smiling and evidently congratulating himself on having done just the right thing, and she realized with a sudden shock the extraordinary difference in their temperaments and how they would always see things from different points of view.

What could she say to him, though, this devoted but irresponsible Irishman whom she had taken for better or for worse—this husband whose ways were not her ways? She hesitated—quite at a loss for words—and Pierce, linking his arm within hers, drew Barbara gently from the room.

“We’ll be going round the castle,” he whispered. “Ye must see your home, darlint.”

He led Barbara into the long dark hall again. He had picked up one of the big silver candlesticks, and the figures of the husband and wife cast long fantastic shadows on the bare and lofty wall. From the servants’ quarter came the sound of soft Irish voices, all talking at once, and the moaning wind—for a storm was evidently getting up—wailed and shrilled round the house, and rain beat fiercely against the window-panes.

“There’s a storm rising—maybe my great-grandfather will ride round the castle to-night. He likes a wet evening—a wild storm.”

Pierce smiled, but Barbara glanced up in puzzled bewilderment.

“Your great-grandfather?”

“Yes, or rather, his ghost—the ghost of Anthony Maloney. He rides his black horse an’ he has his hounds with him. Oh! there’s many have seen him hunting the hounds across the countryside at midnight. He was a great sportsman in his day, was Anthony Maloney, an’ now it’s not his grave that will hold him.”

“Why, Pierce, you surely don’t believe in ghosts?”

Barbara laughed a little scornfully, but her new husband nodded his head and looked graver than she had ever seen him.

“Of course I believe in them, darlint. We all do over here; we—we have to. All our homes are haunted houses, an’ there are few of us can rest in our graves.”

In spite of herself Barbara shivered. Pierce spoke with such intense conviction. Then she roused herself to glance round the big dining-room into which they had just entered.

It was a fine apartment. Two long curtained windows broke the hard severity of one of the walls, and portraits, mostly stiff and very badly-painted portraits of dead-and-gone Maloneys, stared down from their canvases. A peat fire burning in the huge fireplace cast a warm glow over the room, and Barbara noticed four massive silver candlesticks that stood on the dinner-table.

Half-unconsciously she spread out her hands to the glow cast by the peat and stood bathed in rosy light, a slim and very graceful figure.

“I like this room,” she decided, “I like it immensely.”

Pierce smiled.

“That’s good.” He raised the silver candlestick high over his head. “Now for the rest of the old castle. I’ll take ye into rooms that have been shut up for years—an’ ye mustn’t mind dust and cobwebs.”

“I’ll mind nothing,” Barbara answered gaily thinking of all the grand improvements she would be making in the future. And she only laughed when she tripped and nearly fell as she ran up the stairs owing to a bad rent in the worn carpeting.

“This is our bedroom—the state chamber.” Pierce flushed a little as he opened the door of a huge bedroom, and Barbara blushed warmly in her turn. But as she stepped across the threshold she shivered—shivered all down her spine, and the air of the room felt chill.

She gazed about her. There was a large four-post bedstead, and the furniture was stiff, dark and old-fashioned; faded window-hangings fluttered as the wind blew, but it was the tapestry on the walls that Barbara disliked, cruel pictures from the Old and New Testament—Abraham offering up his only son, the mothers of the Holy Innocents mourning their slaughtered babes, Jael bending over Sisera, St Stephen dying gloriously.

“Oh, Pierce, the tapestry looks alive; all the figures dance and move in the candlelight. And what grim, painful subjects for a bedroom!”

Barbara stared about her somewhat nervously. The wind was howling outside, and the moaning sea in the distance made the girl think of the sobbing of lost souls. And were dead fingers tapping restlessly upon the window-pane, skeleton fingers, or was it merely the crackling and rustling of boughs?

Someone was knocking though, knocking at the door, and Pierce, turning his head, shouted to the intruder to come in.

An old woman made her hurried appearance, one of the women who had been standing in the hall when the bride first entered the house.

“Ah, wisha, Mr Pierce,” she exclaimed, addressing her master by his Christian name instead of using his surname, “ ’tis the children are nowhere to be found. ’Tis out of the house they ran a while ago—Miss Ethnee looking like a ghost, but Masther Pat’s cheeks on fire—tears in their eyes, the darlints, an’ the black sorrow at their hearts.”

The old woman addressed herself pointedly to Pierce—quite ignoring Barbara—and Pierce looked very angry as he turned on the servant, more angry than Barbara had ever seen him.

“Why should the children be crying, Biddy? They have nothing to cry for—this is a lucky day for all of us.”

“ ’Twas yourself spoke harshly to the poor craters—an’ maybe they are thinkin’ of their dead mother. I’m meanin’ no disrespect to you, ma’am.” Biddy Gallaghree turned to Barbara and dropped a stiff curtsy. “Miss Ethnee is just as wild an’ shy as a bird, an’ all this has been a shock to her. We never knew the masther was married till his letter came this mornin’—an’ Pat—well, he wouldn’t believe it first of all.” She paused, her face working a little—the shrewd, puckered-up old face that was just like a winter apple. “I’m distressed for the children. ’Tis a black wet night for the pair o’ them to be traipsing the country. There’s the lake as full of water as it will hold, an’ the sea running in across the dark sands.”

“Hush, Biddy, you are frightening my wife.” Pierce spoke in sharp, authoritative tones, noticing how pale Barbara had turned. “I’ll go out with a lantern and have a look for those troublesome children. They are behaving shamefully, running off like this—another of their wild mad pranks!”

He hurried out of the room with a muttered word of apology to Barbara. It was evident that he felt anxious, and Biddy Gallaghree followed him, wringing her hands, so the bride found herself left alone.

She glanced uneasily about her. The tapestry figures looked horribly alive, for they really seemed to move whenever the candle flickered, and how loudly the wind was howling, whilst the rain positively beat against the pane.

“What naughty children! Why, the wretched little creatures will get wet to their skins, and I think it serves them right!”

Barbara murmured the words half under her breath, then sat down in a big armchair, her brows meeting in a frown.

“Why should they have taken such a dislike to me—those children?” she muttered. “What have I done to offend them? It is perfectly insulting their running out of the house like this. It shows how thoroughly they are prepared to hate me, and it’s all Pierce’s fault—he is to blame for everything. And what am I going to do in the future—how will these children treat me? They will regard me as a cruel stepmother, I suppose—the cruel stepmother of the fairy stories, and it’s a shame—oh, it’s a wicked shame.”

She rose impatiently from her chair. Angry as Barbara felt, she could not get Ethnee’s pale face out of her mind, nor Patrick’s angry eyes, and she felt as if she was responsible for having driven these children out of their home into the cold wet night. Yet she knew she was not to blame really—all the blame lay at Pierce’s door.

Time passed on. Barbara could hear the slow, solemn ticking of a big grandfather’s clock that stood outside in the passage, and the ticking so got on her nerves that she felt that she could not be alone in her bedroom any longer, so she left the room, making her way down the dark passage till she had reached the top of the stairs.

There she paused irresolutely. She felt very angry and horribly depressed. This was not the triumphant home-coming she had expected, and the wailing wind and the pelting rain added to her sense of general misery and discomfort. She could have cried, she felt so horribly disappointed—so disillusioned.

When Biddy suddenly made her appearance in the hall below she did not see her master’s new wife standing on the stairs, for her apron was thrown over her head, and she was moaning and lamenting aloud in the wild unrestrained Irish way.

“Och, the black day! An’ where will the children be now—the precious pair? Would the darlints be drowning themselves in the lake? ’Twould be like Masther Pat to think of such wickedness—he’d be following other footsteps, too—an’ Miss Ethnee, she’d go wherever Pat went—”

“Biddy, don’t talk like that; it’s absurd—foolish. Please be quiet.”

Barbara ran swiftly down the stairs, and Biddy, letting her apron fall from her face, turned to confront her new mistress—turned with flaming cheeks and blazing eyes.

“Absurd—foolish—is it? Then perhaps ye’ll be telling me, ma’am, where the childer are—catching their deaths of cold.”

“I’m sure I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

Barbara stamped her foot. She was in a very overwrought and excited state, angry with everybody, and though at the bottom of her heart she felt a certain amount of sympathy for Patrick and Ethnee she was not going to let this appear.

The big hall door suddenly opened and Pierce strode into the castle. He was holding his two children by the hands, dragging the wet pair with him, and he was wet too, streaming with rain and moisture; but notwithstanding his drenched and sorry appearance Pierce smiled at his wife with the gaiety that never forsook him.

“Shure, here’s some drowned rats for ye, Barbara,” he remarked. “Give those wicked children a good scolding, and then, maybe, a kiss.”

Barbara caught her breath. The children were looking at her sullenly, as at an enemy, and a wild anger came over her; she felt trapped—trapped in this Irish castle.

“Manage your children yourself, Pierce,” she cried. “Scold them or praise them as you like. They don’t want to have anything to do with me, and I don’t wish to have anything to do with them. Now I am going to my room, and I shall not come downstairs again. I—I hate everything here, I think—and everybody.”

She turned on her heel and ran wildly up the stairs, her heart hot within her, her eyes smarting with unshed tears, and presently the hasty slamming of Barbara’s bedroom door proved that the bride had shut herself in her own room—the bride whose home-coming had been such a ghastly failure.

The morning sunlight streaming through the blinds woke Barbara up, and she realized that a fresh day had begun. She stirred somewhat lazily in her big four-post bed and tried to recall in a hazy way the events of the night before. She remembered how she had run upstairs and shut herself into her room, furious with Pierce—furious with everyone, and she was grateful for the tact her husband had displayed in not intruding upon her.

A supper-tray had been sent up to her room half an hour later, and Biddy Gallaghree was also the bearer of a tender and most contrite little note from Pierce, a letter in which Barbara’s husband begged her forgiveness for not having told her of his first marriage or of the fact that he was the father of two children, and explained how well he realized that Barbara had a perfect right to be angry. But he knew she was over-tired, and he hoped and trusted that she would feel happier in the morning after a good night’s rest. He had a great many business letters to write, he went on to explain in his note, and as he would have to sit up late in his study writing, he would sleep in his dressing-room that night, so as not to disturb Barbara. He ended his letter with a thousand protestations of the deepest devotion, and Barbara’s anger had evaporated a little as she read Pierce’s contrite epistle.

Now a good night’s rest was making her feel infinitely more cheerful, and as she gazed about her big bedroom she told herself that the room did not look so eerie in the morning as it did at night. The tapestry was certainly very handsome, and though the window-curtains were faded and the carpet old and shabby, the oak wardrobe was quite a beautiful piece of work, and the four-post bedstead was splendidly carved; also the linen sheets were peculiarly fine, and the pillow-cases beautifully embroidered, but Barbara noticed a rent in one of them, and she also observed that the sheets had been very carefully darned.

“I wonder if I was very cross last night?” Barbara reflected as she nestled back amongst her pillows. “But I had every reason to be, for any girl would have felt upset under the circumstances. Besides, I was so tired, and it was such a wet, miserable night; everything conspired to give me the blues.”

She paused, and ran her fingers through the thick masses of her hair.

“I’m going to buck up to-day and take an interest in everything and try and be happy. It’s no good crying over spilt milk, and what’s done is done. And as to those children, Patrick and Ethnee, I must do my very best to make them like me; they are as much to be pitied as I am, poor little souls.”

She sat up in bed, her hair falling over her shoulders, her eyes bright and shining, and a softer look came over Barbara’s face as she thought of her husband, and how devotedly in his own way Pierce loved her, and she told herself that it would be an interesting task—there could be no doubt of that—to set to work to make Castle Glenns a really comfortable home—a beautiful home. It would be just the sort of work an energetic girl like Barbara would love, and she was convinced that Pierce would yield to her wishes in every way and be guided by her taste in all things.

A knock came at the door and Biddy entered the room, carrying a small breakfast-tray.

“Now, ’tis yourself that’s feelin’ ever so much better this fine mornin’, isn’t it?” she inquired. “There’s nothin’ like a good night’s rest, an’ here’s the sun shining as bright as anything. I am just bringing ye a cup of tea, ma’am, an’ a fried egg an’ a bit of bacon, by the masther’s orders, for he wants ye to breakfast in your own room an’ take it aisy like.”

Biddy Gallaghree smiled as she addressed Barbara. The old woman had wisely realized that it would be as well to be on good terms with the new mistress—besides, she admired Barbara as the girl sat up in bed. The Irish peasant is always susceptible to beauty, and Biddy was no exception to her class.

“I feel ever so much better this morning, Biddy, thank you, worlds better, and I had a splendid night—I slept like a top.”

“Shure, I don’t wonder,” Biddy answered with easy familiarity—the familiarity which is never offensive of the Irish servant. “ ’Twas tired out ye were—exhausted.”

“Well, I feel as hungry as a hunter this morning. Help me into my dressing-jacket, will you, please?”

“I declare ye look just like a girl!” the old woman exclaimed as she assisted Barbara into a silk dressing-jacket. “Why, ye might be taken for Miss Ethnee’s sister, that ye might. An’ what do ye think of Castle Glenns? ’Tis a fine old place, isn’t it?—an’ it’s stood in the same spot for over three hundred years, that it has.”

“I love the castle,” Barbara answered. “It only needs a little money to be spent over it to make it quite attractive. I must have a new carpet for this room, new curtains, a comfortable sofa, and a couple of big armchairs and a nice little writing-table—oh, and of course a new toilet set—I notice there’s a piece out of the jug of the present one.”

“Begorra!” The old woman clapped her hands together. “ ’Tis yourself is going to do all this?” she asked, her eyes glittering. “ ’Tis a fine match the masther’s been making, an’ no mistake. Why, we shan’t know ourselves here presently, the place will be so changed.”

Biddy rubbed her hands together. There could be no question of the old woman’s pleasure.

“An’ will ye be refurnishing the drawing-room?” she questioned. “ ’Tis the curtains be almost dropping, they’re so old, an’ as to the carpet, ’tis a disgrace; it might be a lace mat for the holes in it.”

“Of course the drawing-room is going to be refurnished,” Barbara answered gleefully. “I think silk tapestry curtains would look lovely against that old oak, don’t you?—and we must get a beautiful carpet, and all the chairs must be re-covered, and I want a piano—a grand piano.”

“A grand piano?” Biddy fairly quivered with excitement. “Holy saints help us!” she continued. “ ’Tis the good day that’s comin’ to Castle Glenns—the grand day, an’ praise the Holy Mother that I’m alive to see it. I’ve stuck to the family in their poverty, an’ now it’s the day of riches, an’ blessings on ye, ma’am—God’s blessings on ye!”

She caught one of Barbara’s hands between her work-hardened palms and raised the girl’s slim fingers to her lips, kissing them fervently, then added, lowering her voice to a confidential whisper:

“Shure, the masther isn’t sellin’ the picture after all, then—the Romney? I declare I nearly cried myself sick when the picture-dealer from Dublin came an’ took it down two days ago. I said Madame Ethnee’s ghost would haunt us if her picture was removed from her home, but maybe the masther was only mindin’ to have it put into a new frame now that the drawing-room is to be so fine—an’ shure, the old frame was black with dirt, an’ needed regilding badly.”

“Yes, I expect the picture has been sent away to be cleaned or something,” Barbara answered thoughtfully, then she began to eat her breakfast, and whilst she drank her tea and nibbled away at a piece of toast—for she was far too excited to eat her egg—old Biddy kept up a running fire of questions, asking if the linen cupboard was to be replenished, and explaining that the tablecloths and sheets were all in bad repair—eaten up with holes.

“Faith, there’s nothin’ here that isn’t rags an’ tatters,” she concluded by saying—“except some good old wine in the cellars an’ the silver—there’s a heap of beautiful silver. But as for the diamonds that ye ought to be wearin’—Mr Pierce’s father parted with them for a card debt years ago; but maybe ye’ve got diamonds of your own?”

“Diamonds of my own?” Barbara repeated. She put down her tea-cup on the tray and glanced at old Biddy with amused eyes. “Why, indeed I haven’t. You mustn’t imagine that I’m rich—I haven’t got a penny of my own—not a penny; your master is giving me everything.”

She made the admission rather proudly, for it was good to feel how generous Pierce was—besides, it proved the depths of his love for her; but a look of blank dismay came over Biddy Gallaghree’s face, and her old hands trembled.

“Shure, I was a fool to think that the black cloud would ever lift,” she muttered, but so low under her breath that Barbara failed to hear her—“the black cloud that hangs over Castle Glenns, an’ ’twas just like the masther to be bringin’ home a portionless bride.”

“What are you whispering to yourself, Biddy?” Barbara smiled radiantly, then she pushed the breakfast-tray away. “Get my bath ready, please, for I want to get up and dress. And give me a list of the linen later on, won’t you—the linen that you think we ought to buy. I do love nice tablecloths and all that sort of thing.”

Biddy squared her shoulders and looked at Barbara curiously.

“I’ll make the list if ye want me to,” she answered, “but I’m thinkin’ it’ll be labour lost. Ye’ll have to have the bath out of the masther’s dressing-room, for we’ve only got one bath in the castle, an’ if ye’re wantin’ hot water, ’tis myself that will have to go down an’ see to the heating of the kitchen fire.”

“Oh, a cold tub will do all right,” Barbara answered cheerfully. “Only one bath, did you say, Biddy? Well, that will have to be looked to; but I think Pierce must build a bathroom—it’s uncivilized not to have one.”

Biddy made no answer but hurried out of the room, and as she closed the door behind her the old woman shook her head.

“She’s got a lot to learn, has the masther’s wife,” she muttered. “God forgive Pierce Maloney if he’s been trickin’ that pretty young crater into believin’ that he’s made of money, for shure, he’s but a beggar man when all’s said an’ done, an’ this is Beggarman’s Hall.”

“Oh, what a lovely old garden, Pierce! But you have let the weeds grow up terribly. If you don’t look out they will choke all the flowers.”

Barbara gazed about her as she spoke. She was standing in a square, old-fashioned garden, gazing about her with great interest; her eyes were once more bright and shining, and a happy smile played about her lips.

Pierce had met her in the hall as she came downstairs half an hour ago and had taken her in his arms and kissed her, and that warm kiss had wiped away all misunderstandings and had made everything right between husband and wife again, or so, at any rate, Barbara had told herself.

“Ye’re feeling better?” Pierce had inquired—“rested—an’ more able to see beauty in poor old Ireland than last night, perhaps?”

He had gazed at his wife somewhat anxiously as he had asked the question, but Barbara’s frank smile had reassured him.

“I feel as fit as possible,” so Barbara had answered. “I am sorry if I was very cross last night. I want to be nice to your children, Pierce, I really do, and I will try to make them a good stepmother; but they will have to meet me half-way, you know.”

“Shure, the children will be no trouble at all,” Pierce answered hurriedly. “They’re just as good as gold when they’re taken the right way, an’ ye’ll manage them divinely, Barbara. They’ll be a little wild an’ shy at first, but in a week or so’s time they’ll be hanging round your skirts—ye won’t be able to move without one or the other. They’re lovable little creatures, as ye’ll find when ye know them better, an’ Ethnee’s going to be a real beauty one day—or so they tell me.”

He smiled proudly—a complaisant fatherly smile—and Barbara reproached herself for feeling an odd twinge of jealousy for a second, for it was wrong and wicked, she reflected, to be jealous of Pierce’s love for the children—it was abominable of her.

“I think Patrick’s a very handsome boy.”

“So he is—so he is,” Pierce retorted cheerfully. “Well, the children will be giving ye no trouble to-day, Barbara—no trouble at all, for ’tis myself that’s sent them over to his riverence to spend the morning there. They’re as fond of Father Matthews as ever they can be.”

“Are your children Roman Catholics?” Barbara’s Puritan ancestors stirred in her as she spoke—she had not known she was so firm a Protestant before.

“Shurely—shurely.” Pierce nodded his dark head slowly. “My poor wife was a Catholic, and she had the children brought up in her own faith. It was agreed between us that this should be so at the time of our marriage.”

“I see.” Barbara gave a little sigh. So the children were not of her own religion. Doubtless they would regard her as a heretic. It would all add to the difficulty of the situation.

“You will like Father Matthews when you meet him, Barbara. He is the kindest old soul in the world; he’s got a heart of gold. The poor folk simply worship him.”

Barbara made no answer. She remembered all the stories she had been told about the extraordinary influence of the Roman Catholic priests in Ireland, and she mentally decided that she would not like Father Matthews, and that doubtless Pierce had been imposed upon by a clever old Jesuit. She had no idea of the simple lives that some of the Irish priests lead. She believed them to be wolves in sheep’s clothing.

“Take me into the garden.” She turned impulsively to her husband, feeling that it would be good to get out of doors and to breathe the fresh air of heaven. There was a musty atmosphere hanging over Castle Glenns—it smelt of the past and of dead men’s bones. Here the moth had its habitation, and the flitter-mouse, and cobwebs hung thickly from the ceilings, and rats scratched behind the wainscot. She wanted to get out into the sunshine—she had had enough for the time of shadow and heaviness.

Pierce said nothing, but put his arm affectionately about Barbara’s waist, and led her gently down the hall, and Barbara appreciated his silence. He certainly knew how to manage a woman, she reflected, and it would never be any good to argue.

She smiled a little when Pierce opened a small side door which led into the garden and she saw a wide stretch of lawn stretching directly in front of her, for though the lawn was very rank and coarse and needed mowing badly, still, there was a delightful hedge of old-fashioned yew trees which took Barbara’s fancy, and the garden paths were bright with early summer flowers, such as columbines, Canterbury bells, and vivid sweet-william. But it was a pity that there were so many weeds, and Barbara felt obliged to draw her husband’s attention to the fact.

“Weeds? Och, Ireland’s a grand country for weeds!” Pierce laughed lazily. “They grow everywhere. Isn’t there a saying, ‘Ill weeds grow apace’?”

“Weeds ought to be plucked up and burnt.” Barbara spoke with decision. “I don’t think you have got a very good gardener, Pierce.”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Faith, what can ye be expecting of poor Shane O’Connelly when he’s got the two horses to look after as well as the garden, to say nothing of the pigs an’ the cocks an’ hens. ’Tis a wonder the man has time to devote any attention to the flowers.”

Barbara bent her brows.

“What, do you mean to say that you only keep one man and that he has to combine the duties of coachman and gardener and—and pig-man?”

“He’s a wonderful fellow is Shane O’Connelly. His father an’ his grandfather and his great-grandfather spent their lives in the service of the Maloneys, an’ he’d work for me till he dropped.”

“But, Pierce dear”—Barbara laid an eager hand upon her husband’s arm—“things must be very different now. I don’t think you ought to expect one man to do so much work, however willing he may be and devoted to you or to your family. You need at least three gardeners for a place like this, and then you ought to have a coachman, and a chauffeur if we keep a motor, and a boy to look after the pigs and the chickens. Yes, dear, I really don’t see how you can manage with less than three gardeners if there’s anything in the kitchen garden, and you ought to have a little glass.”

She smiled proudly, aware that she was making excellent suggestions, and telling herself triumphantly what a different place Castle Glenns would be in a few weeks’ time; but Pierce Maloney did not smile—he only gazed anxiously at his wife, his face turning rather pale.

“Why do you look so grave, Pierce—so troubled? Are you annoyed with me because I want to improve our home? But surely not—you wouldn’t be.”

“Annoyed? Good Lord, no. But ’tis myself that I’m angry with, an’ my forbears, for ’tis a wild, foolish lot they’ve always been—extravagant spend-thrifts. They’ve let fine fortunes slip through their fingers—they’ve drunk and gambled away a splendid heritage, an’ they’ve left me an’ mine to drink up the dregs of their cup, an’ faith, ’tis bitter drinking.”

He spoke with quite extraordinary bitterness, and for a few seconds he looked old. All the light had faded out of his face—all the brightness, and Barbara wondered what on earth had come over Pierce, and what the trouble was.

“Pierce dear, you are talking in riddles. What about this cup, the dregs of which you are drinking? I am only a plain everyday English girl, and I don’t understand this poetical way of talking. It beats me—it’s above my head.”

“There’s nothin’ in the world I wouldn’t give ye if I could, Barbara; will ye understand that? An’ also will ye understand your will is my law, an’ that I’d be glad to obey your lightest wish—to gratify your wildest caprice.”

He spoke with extraordinary vehemence, fixing his eyes full on Barbara, who smiled and nodded her head.

“That’s very nice, Pierce. Well, I’ll try not to ruin you, and I really don’t intend to be extravagant—not very extravagant, but there are certain things that really ought to be done if Castle Glenns is to be made a habitable dwelling-house.”

“Don’t let’s talk of such things this morning.” Pierce drew his wife to him with a fierce and hungry impatience. “Let’s talk of ourselves, my darlint, and of our love.”

Barbara disengaged herself gently from his warm embrace, smoothing her ruffled hair, and wondering if she would ever understand the excitable Irish temperament.

“Dearest, we must be practical sometimes—have our sober business talks together, for I want to set to work at once to make Castle Glenns lovely. Oh, you will be so comfortable in a month or so’s time that you won’t know what to do, Pierce, and you’ll wonder why you never thought of spending a little money before; but I suppose men when left to themselves get into a very lazy sort of way—they just let things drift and drift.”

Pierce made no answer, but he put his arm through Barbara’s and he led her down the garden, under an arch in the yew hedge, and into another small garden. There was a fountain in this garden—a fountain in an old-fashioned stone basin—a basin in which lazy goldfish swam. A little stone Cupid was the presiding genius of the fountain—a dimpled Cupid blind-folded and blowing a little pipe, and spray jetted out from the pipe when the fountain was turned on.

“What a darling quaint garden!” Barbara exclaimed. “I see it is surrounded by a yew hedge, just like the other. Oh, what a lot of rose bushes—and the lavender—the lovely lavender!” She sniffed the air with keen delight, smiling appreciatively. “I like that jolly little stone Cupid,” she declared. “Look how covered with moss he is getting! Oh, isn’t it all old-world and charming. I feel as if it belonged to a hundred years ago.”

“ ’Twas my great-grandmother used to come here and feed the carp,” Pierce answered meditatively. “There’s a bowling-green a little beyond this garden—or what was once a bowling-green.”

“And must be again,” Barbara corrected quickly. “Oh, Pierce, what a lovely thing it will be to make this place as beautiful as it was in the past! We won’t spend any money on frivolities, but just set all our energies to the task of restoring Castle Glenns, and I shall be so proud of my beautiful home when our work is finished. I shall ask nothing better than to spend my whole life here.”

Pierce gazed down at the ground.

“I’m wondering if I oughtn’t to be telling ye something, Barbara,” he muttered, “an’ yet I don’t like to dispel any fond dreams ye may have been indulging in, an’ on this day of all days. Maybe I should have spoken out more plainly before, but it never struck me exactly that—”

He paused, and did not finish the sentence; Barbara suddenly turned cold, and she gazed at her husband strangely.

“Have you got any more shocks in store for me, Pierce?” There was an icy ring in her voice, and the fresh colour died away from her cheeks; she grew pale in her turn.

“It depends on what ye would call a shock,” Pierce answered guardedly. “But tell me, Barbara, why did ye marry me? ’Twas for love, wasn’t it—just for love?”

Barbara hesitated.

“Yes, I love you—of course I love you, and I wouldn’t have married you if I hadn’t—no, not for all the money in the world. I would never, never have sold myself to a man I didn’t love.”

“Thank God for that!” Pierce drew a deep breath. “Now, ’tis myself can look ye boldly in the eyes, for ’twas Pierce Maloney ye married, didn’t ye—not the money-bags ye might be thinking Pierce Maloney possessed?”

Barbara trembled. She had a vague idea of what was coming. A dim suspicion of the truth was beginning to dawn upon her. Once more she felt she had been deceived—shamefully imposed upon.

“Answer me one question.” Her voice took on a sudden note of command. “Are you, or are you not, the rich man you passed yourself off to be, or have you been lying to me all the time?”

Pierce flushed to his forehead.

“Lying to ye?” he cried. “If ye were a man ye should answer to such words, but being a woman I suppose ye feel ye’re justified in saying whatever ye like. But I’ll have ye know, Barbara, that I’ve never been called a liar before, either by man or by woman, an’ that I’ll not be taking such an affront calmly.”

He spoke with real anger, and for the first time Barbara felt afraid of her husband. She realized that there were depths in Pierce Maloney’s nature that she had yet to understand. She had fancied that she could say anything to him, but she had made a mistake.

“I am sorry if I have annoyed you, Pierce, but I think you owe me some explanation. You always led me to believe that you were a man of substance. When you spoke of your castle in Ireland you spoke of it as if it were a castle indeed—I never imagined that it was a tumble-down ruin. You offered me the half of your kingdom. You swore that there was nothing I could ask of you that you would refuse to give me. I am quoting your very words.”

Barbara faced Pierce defiantly. Her eyes flamed. Her face was deadly pale, but Pierce was whiter—livid.

“And what I said was the truth—the naked truth”—he spoke with hoarse anger—“an’ I dare ye to say otherwise—I dare ye. All that I’ve got it in my power to give ye I’d give ye, but what I haven’t got to give how can ye have? I didn’t know that gold meant so much to ye—that money was everything. I thought a man’s love counted for something—a man’s heart.”

“You have deceived me—you know you have deceived me.” Barbara trembled with passion. She felt she was in the right, but how could she prove to Pierce that he was in the wrong? And it was hateful the way he was trying to turn the tables upon her and make her out as a mere mercenary girl. Oh, it wasn’t fair; it was wicked—it was cruel!

“How have I deceived ye?” He flung his head back. “Castle Glenns will be Castle Glenns till the stones crumble to dust an’ the roof falls in, an’ ye’ll always have enough to eat here an’ good wine to drink. There will be money for your clothes an’ a horse for ye to ride—a few old faithful servants ready to wait on ye an’ to carry out your bidding; an’ what more than a warm fire, food, an’ clothes an’ shelter is a wife to expect from any man, unless she married him for his money?”

Barbara burst into a storm of angry tears. Pierce was so reasonable in his speech, and yet so unreasonable—so fair, and yet so unfair. He was twisting things round—he was making black white. In the wrong himself, he was trying to put Barbara in the wrong.

“It is mean of you to talk like this,” she protested—“it’s simply hateful. You know perfectly well that I married you because I loved you—but at the same time I thought you were a man of property; you deliberately tried to give me that impression. Without actually telling me in so many words that you were a rich man, you conveyed the suggestion of wealth. You led me to understand that I was coming to a wonderful house, and that you were in a position to gratify all my wishes, even my most extravagant caprice. Besides, how did you get that money that you gave me the other day if you are not a rich man—the money I sent Mrs Burton?”

“Shure, I sold the Romney,” he answered simply. “An’ God forgive me for wronging the children so terribly, an’ for the sake of such a one as yourself!”

“You sold the Romney—your great-grand-mother’s portrait?” Barbara’s lips blanched—she shivered. “But why did you do it—why?”

“Because I promised ye the money,” he answered, facing her with a curious pride—the hauteur of a grand seigneur. “An’ I’d have ye be knowing, Barbara, that an Irish gentleman’s word is his bond.”

He put his hand on his heart and he made his wife a low bow, and as Barbara wiped her streaming eyes she felt as if the whole world were rocking and shaking under her feet, and as if she hardly knew what was true and what was false. Was Pierce genuine in really believing that he had not deceived her with regard to his prospects, and that she had no real right to be angry? And as to this sale of the Romney—oh, it was hateful to feel that she had been responsible for the transaction—that she was so deeply indebted to her husband.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you were a poor man when I asked you for the money? It would have been more fair—it would have been more kind.” Her voice was angry—almost as angry as her eyes.

Pierce made no answer for a second, then he brushed an imaginary speck of dust from his coat.

“I promised to give ye all that it was in my power to give ye,” he answered slowly. “I was but keeping my word.”

They gazed at each other and a heavy silence fell over the garden, and both Pierce and Barbara were aware that they had come to a tremendous moment. All their happiness was at stake—all their love; they faced shipwreck—but who would be the first to give way—who?

Barbara drew a deep breath. She knew that she was in the right and that Pierce had behaved very badly, but she felt that he would never realize this, and what was the good of quarrelling? The little rift within the lute stretched far enough as it was.

She held out her hands.

“Let’s make a fresh start, Pierce. I know everything now, you see. I am aware that you are a widower with two children, and that you are by no means a rich man—there’s nothing more to learn.”

She spoke with a faint tinge of bitterness, for she still felt somewhat resentful; but Pierce sprang forward, caught her up in his arms, and strained her to him.

“Och, my darlin’—my darlin’,” he cried. “Please God we’re going to be the best of friends again—lovers to the end of all things—wedded lovers. Why, ’tis the most foolish people in the world we were a minute ago, glaring at each other like Kilkenny cats—on the very edge of a quarrel, an’ all about nothing, too.”

“All about nothing?” Barbara’s brows bent together. So it was quite a minor matter in Pierce’s eyes that he happened to be a widower instead of a bachelor, and a poor man instead of a rich man! He was quite easy in his own mind with regard to the way he had deceived her. He was not the least bit ashamed or penitent, and it would be no use her getting angry with him—it would only make things more difficult in the future. She must take Pierce as he was; she must realize that she had married an utterly irresponsible man—she must make allowances at every turn for the Irish character; having put her hands to the plough she must not turn back.

She aged—aged in a breath, for as Barbara stood in the weed-choked garden of her new home, facing the man who had made such fine promises to her and who had led her to believe that he was able to give her everything that the heart of woman could desire, it seemed as if her youth left her—her bright optimism. She realized the difficulties that would lie ahead—she felt the weight of her new responsibilities. She straightened her shoulders to a burden that she never expected to carry—a heavy burden.

“Ye do love me, Barbara—ye’re certain that ye love me?”

Pierce asked the question somewhat wistfully, peering up into his wife’s face, and an extraordinary tenderness came over Barbara as her husband addressed her—a tenderness that was almost maternal. She understood the weakness of Pierce’s character, and her anger melted away. She could not be hard on Pierce whilst he looked at her with such pleading eyes.

“Of course I love you.” She addressed him with a new gentleness, then she laid a hand on his shoulder. “We must make allowances for each other, Pierce—I see that. I must try and understand your temperament—it is different from mine—and you must do the same by me. But as long as we love each other everything will be all right, and I will try and do my duty by you and by your children. I will make you as good a wife as I know how—I swear it, Pierce, and I mean it.”

Her eyes glowed—her cheeks flushed. Barbara knew what she was about; it was no vain promise that she was making. She intended to do her duty by her husband, and not to fail Pierce in any way.

“Ye’re too good for me, Barbara—ye’re miles too good.” Pierce raised Barbara’s left hand to his lips and kissed the finger that wore his wedding-ring. “But mark ye, we’ll be happy together,” he continued cheerfully, “as happy as two birds in a nest, an’ everything that I can do for ye I will do—there’s nothing ye can ask of me ye shan’t have.”

“Except the things that are absolutely out of your power to bestow,” Barbara interrupted, nor was she to be blamed if she spoke a little coldly, for it was irritating to hear Pierce talking in his old bombastic way again. “You won’t be able to refurnish the drawing-room for me, I suppose, or to put new hangings in our bedroom—to have this garden seen to—this poor neglected garden?”

Pierce hung his head. A red flush stole over his face—his eyes grew dim and misty.

“Shure, ye’re drivin’ my poverty home to me rather harshly, Barbara,” he murmured. “But if my luck ever turns ’tis everything ye want ye shall be having—everything.”

“Yes, I know.” Barbara tapped the ground somewhat impatiently with her foot. “But let’s get to facts, Pierce—down to the solid bed-rock of things. I want to know exactly how we stand. You haven’t got enough money put by to start making any improvements in the castle, I suppose—I must just take things as I find them?”

“That’s so,” Pierce answered cheerfully, “an’ we shall do very well, my darlin’, very well indeed. There’s good wine in the cellars, an’ we can always manage to ask a friend or two to dinner if they’ll just be content to sit down to plain fare—a turkey an’ a smoking ham, an apple pie an’ custard, an’ maybe a bit of fish. An’ as to the fruit in the poor old garden—well, the fruit trees an’ the bushes bear wonderfully, an’ there’s no lack of fresh eggs an’ good milk an’ cream, so ye won’t starve.” He laughed, but a shade of constraint came into his manner. “I can give ye a horse to ride; poor we may be—an’ I don’t deny it—but my wife shall have her horse—an’ there’s the jaunting-car to get about in.”

“I see.” Barbara gazed down on the ground—her face had grown strangely reflectful. “How about your children, Pierce—are they well provided for? Have you money laid by for their education? Patrick will have to be going to school presently.”

“Och, Patrick’s doing well enough. Father Matthews gives him lessons, an’ is teaching him finely. He goes down to Father Matthews every morning an’ works with the dear old man three or four hours, an’ Ethnee is a day boarder up at the convent—the convent of the nuns of the Sacred Heart. We’ll be making a soldier of Patrick in the future.” He paused. “They’ve got a little money of their own, the two of them—their mother’s money—which amounts to about a hundred and fifty pounds a year. The money was left to me till my death.”

“But it must be spent on the children,” Barbara interrupted; “it must be devoted entirely to their education. And later on, when Patrick is in the Army, he will be needing an allowance, I expect, and Ethnee will be wanting pin-money.”

Pierce shrugged his shoulders.

“Do ye think that all that money ought to be spent on the children, Barbara—do ye think so indeed? ’Tis a big slice out of a small income. But ’tis true that Patrick will be needing an allowance when he enters the Army—still, his schooling doesn’t cost much as matters stand at present. ’Tis little that Father Matthews will take for teaching him—mighty little.”

“But Patrick ought to be sent to a proper school,” Barbara interrupted. “It isn’t fair on the boy to give him a poor education. Besides, he will never get into the Army if he can’t pass his exams.—never.”

“There’s always the Militia,” Pierce answered. “But there, Barbara, we won’t be bothering ourselves about the children to-day, an’ their future; we’ll just be happy—happy. We’re still in the first month of our honeymoon, remember—we’ll forget pounds, shillings and pence for a while. Let me be taking ye down to the seashore—ye’re fond of the sea.”

“Yes, I love the sea, but I want to get things straightened out in my own mind,” Barbara retorted. “I want to understand exactly where we are and how we stand, for we must cut our coat according to our cloth, Pierce, and mark you, dear, I am quite prepared to do this. I am not afraid of poverty—not a bit, but I want to know what is the full extent of our income.”

Pierce laughed lightly.

“Well, I’m the last man in the world that can tell ye that. ’Tis mostly a question of whether the rents come in or not, an’ if it’s a good harvest or a bad harvest. I’ve got some railway shares, an’ a little money tied up in a brewery—that’s money that comes in regularly; but for the rest—” He laughed gaily, and chucked Barbara under the chin. “Why, ye look as grave as an old woman, my darlint. Hang the money, I say—’tis no use bothering about it. Spend it whilst it is in your pocket, an’ take no heed for the morrow—let the morrow take heed for itself. That’s an Irishman’s way of regarding the great financial question, an’ faith, my dear, ’tis the best way.”

He put an arm about Barbara’s waist and tried to draw her to him, but Barbara felt in no mood for dalliance. She wanted to straighten things out a little at Castle Glenns, and she longed to set about the task. The house must be made more comfortable—something must be done to build up its tottering walls. Things had been suffered to fall into neglect long enough. She must take unto herself the part of the new broom and sweep the cobwebs away.

“Responsibilities cannot be evaded.”

Barbara spoke with a certain precision, and she gazed down the path, having suddenly caught sight of Biddy Gallaghree’s portly figure, and Biddy was hurrying towards her, waving an envelope in her hands.

“ ’Tis a letter for the mistress,” she announced in her broad Irish voice. “Faith, an’ it’s come a long way, I’m thinking, to judge from the foreign stamp on it.”

She held out the envelope to Barbara, and the young bride noticed that Biddy had evidently been washing, for soapsuds still clung to her hands and she had damped the envelope with her fingers, and all that was fastidious in Barbara’s nature revolted. She thought of the well-trained maid at home—her Aunt Ann’s maid—who would never have thought of bringing a letter without putting it on a silver salver, and who allowed no free and easy familiarity to creep into her speech, but was respectfulness itself.

She glanced at the handwriting on the envelope, and recognized Howard Burton’s, and as she made this discovery Barbara flushed—a blush that she would have recalled if she could.

“A letter from abroad? From one of the poor boys who hadn’t the luck to win ye, I expect, Barbara.” Pierce laughed softly. “Well, I’ll be making my way to the stables. I’ll leave ye to read your letter by yourself. Let’s hope the poor fellow isn’t too heartbroken—I’d be blowing out my brains if I were in his shoes.”

He laughed, and strode down the path laughing, but Barbara winced. It was like Pierce to jest like this, she reflected; but he little guessed how near he had got to the truth, for there had been a time, and not so very far back, when she had flattered herself that Howard Burton loved her, and she had loved him. But of course this letter was merely the letter of a friend to a friend.

So she told herself; but her fingers trembled a little as she tore open the envelope, and her heart beat with undue rapidity, for what could Howard be writing about? He would not have had time to hear of her engagement yet, far less of her marriage. He would think of her still as a free and unattached girl.

Barbara caught her breath. She guessed what this stilted beginning was leading up to. She knew what was coming, and her flush deepened as she turned the page.

Barbara read no more. She crushed up Howard Burton’s letter, her face very set and pale, for her colour had faded away and she had turned white to her lips.

“So he loved me—he loved me all the time,” she muttered, “and he thought I understood it—that I knew.”

Her eyes grew very sombre and reflectful. She leaned absently against the fountain, and the little marble Cupid appeared to watch her steadily with inquiring, unblinking eyes, but Barbara took no notice of the small deity—her thoughts were far afield.

She was still standing by the fountain when Pierce presently strolled back, looking very pleased with himself and things in general.

“Well, Barbara,” he called out cheerfully, “have ye read your letter? Did ye find it full of news?”

She shook her head.

“The letter ought to have reached me earlier than it did,” she answered slowly. “As it is—it came too late.”

Barbara laid down her pen when she had got thus far in her letter to her aunt, and bit her lips.

How on earth was she to explain to Miss Carvel that Pierce was a widower with two children without making her husband appear a most deceitful man? And yet the letter must be written; Miss Ann would be expecting to hear from her niece, for Barbara had promised to write to her directly she reached Ireland. But now, as Barbara sat in the big drawing-room of Castle Glenns, in front of a buhl writing-table, she realized what an extraordinarily difficult letter this would be to write, for Barbara did not want to blacken her husband in Miss Ann’s eyes, and yet she must admit to the existence of Pierce’s children.

She took up her pen again, her brows meeting in a frown.

Barbara laid down her pen again and drew a deep breath of relief.

“There, I have taken the jump,” she muttered. “I have got over the fence. Now the rest of the letter will be plain sailing.”

The door opened at that moment, and Patrick and Ethnee made their appearance. They came in hand-in-hand, and they looked at Barbara with eyes that were frankly hostile, but Barbara could not help admiring them—they really were such handsome children, and though Ethnee was dressed in a torn and shabby blue serge, she held herself like a young princess; but her hands were dirty, and the finger-nails needed attending to, and Patrick’s stockings had a big rent in them—a large hole at the knee.

“Well, children, what do you want? I didn’t see you at breakfast this morning.”

“We’re hardly ever in for breakfast.” Ethnee spoke in clear, decided tones. “ ’Tis a sup of bread an’ a cup of milk we have, an’ then we’re off for a swim. ’Tis the finest thing in the world—a swim in the early morning; no late breakfast for us!”

She tossed her head with its mane of rich but untidy hair—riotous, tangled locks, and Patrick nodded his head too.

“I expect you both swim like fishes.” Barbara smiled pleasantly. “Now, I know you have come here to tell me something,” she continued; “out with it, young people.”

“Well, ’tis this,” Patrick answered. “Father wants us both to take a holiday for a week. He says I needn’t go down to Father Matthews for my lessons every day, an’ he’ll be writing to the nuns not to expect Ethnee down at the convent. He’s giving us this holiday so that we can become better acquainted with you, but we’d rather not take it. ’Tis myself and Ethnee will be happier out of this house than in it now—much happier.”

He spoke with a sturdy defiance, and Barbara realized that she had come to another difficult moment. So much depended on how she met the children at this particular juncture; she must be firm with them, but not too firm—she must be kind, but not weak; but it was horrible to feel that Pierce’s children were so antagonistic to her—that they disliked her, for Barbara had always been popular with everyone at home, and now these children hated her, and possibly with a hatred that would endure.

“There’s no need for either of you to take a holiday if you don’t want to.” Barbara leant back in her chair and tried to speak calmly and coolly, but her voice trembled a little, and her heart fluttered in her breast. “There will be plenty of time for us to get well acquainted with each other in the future. Besides, I shall be very busy these next three or four days myself. I want to do a lot of tidying and sorting out here. I want to make your home more comfortable than it is at present—your father’s house.”

Patrick frowned.

“We find no fault with Castle Glenns,” he announced proudly.

“Now, don’t take me up like that, Patrick. What does a boy like you know about things?” Barbara spoke with a faint touch of asperity. “You are both of you children—do you understand me—children, and though you’ve been spoilt and allowed to run wild in the past, I intend to take both of you in hand now. And oh! my dears”—her voice suddenly changed and became very soft and tender—“don’t begin by disliking me and making my task harder than it need be. I don’t want to tread on your corns in any way, or make myself needlessly disagreeable, I don’t indeed, but you must treat me with respect—you must remember that I am your father’s wife. I am no chance stranger; I am the mistress of Castle Glenns, remember, and you must realize this.”

She paused. The children had both turned very white—their eyes looked dark and sullen. The situation was getting painfully strained.

“Do try and love me.” Barbara bent forward. “I want to love you both. I have always got on well with children—children have always come to me. Look on me as an elder sister; God knows I don’t want to take your mother’s place in any way, but I want to help you both. And, Patrick”—she turned to the boy—“I have heard that Irish gentlemen are most chivalrous to women, so show a little chivalry to me. And as for you, Ethnee—oh, my dear little girl, you do want someone to look after you—you do really. To look at you at the present moment you might be a beggar-child. There’s a rent in your frock and your hands are quite black, and so are your finger-nails. Your hair wants brushing and combing. I really must freshen you up a little, and do take all that I have to say in a kindly spirit. Ethnee, you will try to like me a little, won’t you?”

A curious smile played about Ethnee’s lips—a smile that was at once mocking and ironical, then she shook her untidy head and walked slowly and defiantly out of the room, and Patrick followed her, slamming the door behind him as he went.

Barbara bit her lips. She had been ready to take Pierce’s children to her heart a minute or two ago, but now she was consumed with anger, and she would willingly have boxed their ears.

“The horrid, ungrateful little monkeys—the defiant little wretches!” She rose passionately from her chair. “They want a good whipping, both of them. So it’s going to be war between me and my step-children, is it—war to the knife? Oh, I’ve got happy peaceful days ahead of me—I have indeed!”

She began to walk up and down the room, taking long impatient steps, and she told herself she had made the greatest mistake of her life in marrying Pierce Maloney. She remembered the letter she had received only the day before from Howard Burton—the letter she had hidden away in the small box in which she kept her trinkets and tried to forget—for what was the good of thinking of what could never be? Besides, she was a wedded wife, and she must not allow herself to remember that another man loved her—a man who was not her husband.

But now, as Barbara stood up in the huge poverty-stricken drawing-room of Castle Glenns, she told herself what a fool she had been to marry Pierce Maloney in haste to repent at leisure. Why hadn’t she waited a little longer, and not been in such a desperate hurry? She ought to have trusted Howard—she ought to have known that she would have heard from him sooner or later. His mother had practically told her that he loved her, and Mrs Burton had been right.

Barbara bit her lips. She contrasted Howard with Pierce, and very much to Howard’s advantage. How straightforward Howard was—how quiet and deliberate! He would never deceive a girl in any way—no castles in Spain for Howard! His word could be implicitly relied upon; he was a real tower of strength—a sturdy, strong Englishman.

“He will get on—he will make a lot of money abroad; he will be quite prosperous before he dies.” The words fell brokenly from Barbara’s lips. “But I—I shall have to stay here all my life in this God-forsaken place. I shall have to live in a house that is crumbling to ruins—that is mouldering under my very eyes—rotting. I shall be cut off from all my old friends, for who could I ask to stay here? And those children will always be with me—those hateful children; and as for Pierce—oh, if he talks any more about giving me all that he has in the world, in that high-falutin’ way of his, I—I shall feel inclined to hit him, I really shall, for what has he given me as yet—my God, what?”

Her breast heaved. She gazed about her with angry eyes, but as her glance fell on the bare place on the wall—the place where the Romney portrait used to hang—Barbara flushed with swift contrition and clenched her hands.

“Oh, I mustn’t be unfair to Pierce,” she muttered. “He has made a great sacrifice for me—he certainly has. He sold the Romney so that I could have the money to send Cecily abroad, and I expect he really thinks all the world of Castle Glenns himself. He doesn’t realize it’s a barren, poverty-stricken place. He lives in a world of his own—a highly-coloured, imaginative world, but I am too matter-of-fact to dwell in a castle in Spain. I see things as they are, I’m afraid—I almost wish I didn’t.”

She glanced about her searchingly, and her heart sank as she gazed at the tattered window-curtains, the worn carpet, the faded, washed-out chintz, the torn brocades, for she knew that as she had made her bed so she must lie upon it, and Barbara hated poverty, dirt and disorder, and she had found all these at Castle Glenns.

She clasped her hands together impatiently and threw her head a little back.

“What on earth am I to do to render this room habitable? It needs pounds and pounds to be spent on it, and, as far as I can see, there’s no money coming in from anywhere, and things will only go from bad to worse. Each day the curtains will get a little more rotten, the brocades a little more frayed, the carpets a little more holey, but Pierce won’t notice—Pierce won’t mind, and his children are like him. They are proud of their poverty—I really believe they like to go about in shabby rags, but I—oh, I hate it all—I hate it.”

Tears sprang into her eyes—hot, rebellious tears, and she pictured to herself the sort of home she would have had with Howard in the future, had she only waited. A neat, comfortable, precise Englishman’s home, with a smart parlour-maid to wait upon her, a good cook to cook her meals, pretty wall-papers, fresh dainty chintz, a trim garden, and a smart little carriage or motor, possibly, for Howard would never have wanted to marry her till he had made enough money to keep a wife comfortably; he would put comfort before everything—even before romance.

“I hate Ireland.”

The words broke slowly—rebelliously—from Barbara’s lips, and as she muttered them the door opened for the second time that morning, and Biddy Gallaghree thrust in her frowsy, untidy head.

“ ’Tis his riverence come to see ye,” she announced—“Father Matthews.”

Barbara frowned. She wished Father Matthews at the bottom of the sea for the moment; she did not feel at all in the mood to receive visitors, and above all a Roman Catholic priest. But when the old man made his appearance Barbara could not help being impressed by the curious sweetness that redeemed a somewhat plain and weather-beaten face, and there could be no withstanding the geniality of Father Matthews’ manner, nor ignoring the friendliness of his smile. His garments were very worn and shabby—green with age—and his hands were brown and wrinkled, and they were the hands of a peasant, but Barbara could not withstand the magic appeal of Father Matthews’ smile. This was a good man, she realized instinctively—a man with a heart of gold.

“An’ glad am I to find the mistress of Castle Glenns at home! Shure, a woman’s presence has been badly needed here all these long years; but Pierce has met the right wife at last—a wife, if I’m any judge of character, who is as good as she is bonny.”

He shook hands heartily with Barbara as he spoke, and she found herself blushing under the old priest’s approval; but she shrugged her shoulders the next minute.

“Don’t form too high an opinion of me, Father Matthews, or you will only be disappointed.” Barbara motioned the old priest to a chair. “I’m feeling in a vile temper just now,” she continued. “I don’t like Castle Glenns a little bit; the whole place is in such bad repair, and I thought I was going to be so happy here.”

Barbara spoke with a sudden burst of impulsive frankness, and Father Matthews looked at her searchingly. It seemed to the young bride that there was no need to make any further explanation; she felt he knew everything—that he had guessed the truth.

“Shure, ’tis only natural that ye should be disappointed.” His voice was very soft and sympathetic. “Pierce has been tellin’ ye fine tales of his old house, belike—grand tales, an’ ye didn’t realize that it was an Irishman talkin’ to ye? But all the better—all the better. ’Tis you who will have to be making Castle Glenns into the fine home it ought to be; an’ ye’ll do it—ye’ve plenty of courage, an’ ye’ve youth on your side, an’ strength.”

“Where’s the money to come from?” Barbara asked bluntly. “You can’t make bricks without straw. Pierce tells me that he hardly ever has a balance at his bank—that as fast as the money comes in it goes out again.”

“Ah, but there might be more money than there is,” Father Matthews whispered, “if the dear boy wasn’t so fond of the cards. Besides, ’tis ‘light come light go’ with Pierce, an’ so it was with his father before him, an’ he doesn’t do his duty by the land, so how can the land do its duty by him? ’Tis the heedless farmer makes the bad harvest as oft as not. But now that Pierce has married a wife things will be different—that is if the wife puts her shoulder to the wheel. Why, ’tis a grand task lies ahead of ye, Mrs Maloney—a fine task. Ye’ve been brought here to be the good angel of this house—the lady with the lamp; an’ isn’t it better to make a home than to step into one ready-made—eh? Tell me that, ma’am; isn’t it finer—grander?”

Barbara shook her head.

“It’s no good, I shall only prove a failure here. Pierce’s children hate me for one thing; they didn’t know they were going to have a stepmother, and they loathe me in consequence.”

“Ye’ll be winning them to ye directly, an’ that will be a grand step gained. The boy’s a good boy when all’s said an’ done; an’ as to little Ethnee, she can be as sweet as honey when she’s minded to be. Och, ye’ll be having no trouble with the two of them presently—no trouble at all.”

“They’ll never like me, any more than I shall ever like Castle Glenns.”

Barbara spoke with conviction, but the old priest shook his grey head.

“ ’Twill be just as ye decide,” he said gravely. “Ye can gain the love of these two wild children if ye apply yourself to the task, just as ye can grow to care for your husband’s house, an’ to take a pride an’ a pleasure in it—ah, an’ bear up the pillars of it. I’m not denyin’ that the task will be a difficult one, an’ ye’ll need all your patience—all your tact, but the thing can be done, Mrs Maloney, if ye’re minded to do it—but it all rests with you. Maybe it will be said of you in the future as it was said of the wise woman in the Proverbs:

The old priest rose up as he spoke, and Barbara felt as if he were uttering a benediction over her, and she gave a little nervous laugh.

“I’m afraid I shall not fulfil your expectations; I—I haven’t the strength. It would need a frightfully capable person to put order into this house and to pull things together.”

“Ye know where strength is to be found.” The old priest looked at Barbara fixedly. “An’ where there’s a will there’s a way, Mrs Maloney. Besides, ye’re never going to tell me that with a face like yours ye couldn’t manage your husband—an’ the Lord didn’t give ye your beauty for nothing. Beauty in a woman can either be a blessing or a curse—’tis the one thing a man can’t resist. Ye’ll be getting Pierce to give up his cards, an’ he’ll be putting the management of his affairs in your hands; an’ before many years are over—mark my words—Castle Glenns will be a very different place, an’ ’twill be yourself will have done it—your bright self.”

He spoke with cheery confidence, and he took Barbara by the hand.

“Ye’re not quite of my faith, my daughter,” he whispered, “but I’m ready to give ye an old priest’s blessing, all the same, an’ an old priest’s prayers. God has called ye here to do a great work for him. ’Tis the saving of a grand old family is in your hands—the raising up of a fine old house.”

Barbara hesitated, then, yielding to the magnetism of Father Matthews’ words, she determined to devote herself to the task ahead.

“Yes, give me your blessing, Father Matthews,” she muttered huskily. “I will do what I can, I promise you that—I will do what I can.”

Barbara sat in the window-seat of the large poorly-furnished room that was called by courtesy the library at Castle Glenns. There were dismal gaps amongst the torn and tattered volumes bound in faded leather that lined the walls, for the best books of what had once been a fine collection had been sold years ago by Pierce’s father—sold to pay a card debt.

Barbara had taken a great fancy to the library. It commanded a fine view of the coast, for one thing, and she loved to gaze out over the long stretching line of wide green fields that spread from Castle Glenns to the shore. Low shelving rocks made the sole boundary, and that a natural one, against the encroachments of the tide, and seaweed lay in dank wet masses upon the gleaming yellow sands. This morning the ocean was very calm and passionless—a silent sea, and the spirit of subdued and resigned silence that seems to hang motionless over Ireland was more evident than ever.

Barbara had some needlework in her hands. She was making a cool summer frock for Ethnee—a pretty muslin. She was a clever dressmaker, and had always made her own blouses and morning frocks at home, so she was turning her clever fingers to good account now; not that she fancied that Ethnee would be the least grateful, for Pierce’s boy and girl still treated her with a sullen antagonism. They were outwardly civil to her, but she knew that the two children resented her presence at Castle Glenns fiercely, and she had begun to despair of ever gaining their love.

Over a month had passed since Pierce had brought Barbara home to his Irish castle, and it had been a month that had left its mark upon the girl. She had tried so hard to accommodate herself to her new and strange surroundings and be true to the promise she had made Father Matthews. But there had been times when Barbara’s patience had almost failed her, and she had longed to shake the dust of Castle Glenns from her shoes and make her way back to her Aunt Ann, a bitterly-disappointed and disillusioned young woman, only she knew she would never have the heart to do so.

Pierce was so hopelessly improvident, so facile and shiftless, and day by day the fact came more clearly home to her that she had married a bombastic spendthrift—a failure; yet she loved her husband, and therein lay the tragedy of the position, for Barbara knew in her innermost soul that if the choice had to be made again she would still marry Pierce Maloney, and that she preferred Pierce to Howard Burton, if the truth were known.

She had fallen under the spell of the Irishman’s wayward charm. She was aware that Pierce possessed a natural dignity and distinction—a fine, light-hearted chivalry—qualities hopelessly lacking in honest, prosaic Howard, but she was cross with herself all the same for loving this spendthrift husband so foolishly. Why, she knew, and Pierce knew, that in her darkest moments of discontent he could win a smile from her if he chose to take the trouble, and she could never be really angry with him—a fact that annoyed Barbara extremely.

She had been lecturing him all the month, trying to make Pierce take himself seriously, but though her husband listened to all her exhortations meekly enough, they seemed to go in at one ear and out at the other. He agreed that it was wasteful to keep three hunters, but the horses were not sold, neither was any work started in the neglected kitchen garden. Beggar folk were still allowed to troop into the kitchen and be fed with broken meat, but bills were left unpaid. Magnificent silver was used in the dining-room every day, whilst Pierce kept on forgetting to order a new dinner-service from Dublin to take the place of the broken crockery against which Barbara had made really vehement protest.

Barbara was thankful for one thing, however. Since his marriage Pierce had apparently abandoned the card-table, for though a certain horse-dealer living in the neighbourhood—a man famous for his card-parties and rough bachelor hospitality—had asked Pierce twice during the last month to ride over to his place and try his luck with the cards, Pierce had steadily refused to leave his young wife.

No other invitations had come to Castle Glenns, and Barbara had begun to feel cut off from the world, and she had told herself somewhat ruefully that she really needn’t have troubled to buy pretty dinner-gowns; but she had not realized, when purchasing her trousseau, what a wild part of Ireland she was going to live in. Why, the nearest neighbours, a certain Major and Mrs O’Connell, lived over sixteen miles away, and they were staying in Dublin just now. Some distant connections of Pierce had certainly motored over and left cards on the bride, but Barbara had been roaming on the seashore and so missed the visitors, and when she had suggested returning the call Pierce had cheerfully shrugged his shoulders.

“Shure, they wouldn’t be expecting us,” he remarked. “They know that I haven’t a motor. ’Tis over forty miles from here the Denis Maloneys live.”

Barbara sighed, but made no further protest, for since it was her fate to live in cloistered seclusion she might as well resign herself to it and not kick against the pricks. Still, the pretty frocks hanging up in her wardrobe fretted her sorely at times, as was only natural, for she longed to wear them before they got old-fashioned, and to be fêted like any other bride, and asked out to dinners and parties.

She was feeling quite happy this morning, however, as she sat sewing at the window, and Pierce wrote at his desk. Some overdue rents had come in the night before, and Pierce had promised Barbara some new curtains for the drawing-room and a fresh set of chintz. He had even undertaken to write to a firm of Dublin upholsterers with whom he had had dealings in the past for chintz patterns, and Barbara smiled as she watched him writing the letter, and her smile was very caressing and tender.

“There—that’s done.” Pierce folded up his letter and slipped it into an envelope. “I’ve told the shop people to send us a fine collection of patterns for ye to make your choice from, an’ patterns of silk tapestry for the window-curtains. ’Tis a great drawing-room ye’ll be having before so many weeks are over. I’ll be having to put a new carpet down for ye presently—eh, Barbara?”

“That would be lovely!” Barbara let her work drop into her lap and clasped her hands together. “I’m awfully keen on having a really nice drawing-room, Pierce—a room I can be proud of.”

“An’ so ye shall.”

Pierce smiled good-humouredly, then he started and frowned as the door was flung open somewhat jerkily and a young servant-girl made her appearance.

The girl obviously hailed from the kitchen, and she was a great slattern. Her stockings were in holes, her dirty apron had a great jagged tear in it; she was carrying a letter, and her grimy hands had already sullied the envelope.

“What do you want, Mary? You shouldn’t come into the library with such black hands.”

Barbara addressed the servant-girl somewhat reproachfully. These Irish servants were really a great trial to her, and scolding them was no good. They certainly promised amendment, but kept on offending cheerfully.

“Shure, I’d no idea at all at all my hands were so black, ma’am—but I was in the middle of my pots when the groom rides over from Rathlin. He’s brought a letter for the masther, an’ he’s to wait for an answer.”

Mary Hagan handed the envelope she had been smudging to Pierce as she spoke, and then stood back in the doorway watching him whilst he opened it. She was a tall, full-bosomed girl with a head of magnificent red hair—coarse-looking and dirty, but handsome in a big, bold way.

Pierce frowned as he read his letter, then he glanced somewhat uneasily at Barbara.

“ ’Tis a nuisance this, Barbara—’tis really a nuisance. Here’s a letter come from Mike Cregan—that horse-dealer fellow at Rathlin. He’s giving a party to-night—a bridge party—at Rathlin, and one of his men has failed him suddenly, throwing the whole party out.”

Pierce paused and looked at his wife somewhat uncertainly. Barbara rose from the window-seat and stood up, her needlework still clasped tightly in her hands, conscious that a struggle of some sort was going to take place between herself and Pierce—that her fight for the mastery of her husband’s soul was commencing in real earnest; and she remembered—oh, she would never be likely to forget—the warning Father Matthews had given her with regard to Pierce’s love of the green table and the fatal glamour of the cards. And now she realized instinctively that she had got to combat the gambling taint in her husband’s blood—the taint that had come down to him, a reckless heritage, from his dead-and-gone forbears.

“You’re not going to leave me, Pierce, surely. Why, we haven’t been married six weeks yet.” She tried to laugh carelessly, as if the matter was of small account, but her heart beat with undue rapidity, and the hands grasping the needle and scissors grew cold.

Pierce shrugged his shoulders.

“ ’Twould be but for a few hours, my darlin’. I’d be back before the dawn broke—that I’d promise ye, an’ I shouldn’t like to behave in an unfriendly way towards Cregan. He’s only a horse-dealer, but he’s well born, an’ he’s been a good friend to me for many a long year—backed bills for me in the old days. Besides, I’ve drunk his wine an’ he’s drunk mine.”

He tapped the letter meditatively with his fingers. It was obvious that he wanted to go to the bridge party—only too obvious.

“You mustn’t think of leaving me, Pierce—you really mustn’t. I should feel most frightfully hurt.” Barbara paused for a second, then turned to Mary Hagan. “Go back to the kitchen,” she said. “Your master will be writing an answer to this letter directly. Tell the groom to sit down and wait.”

“An’ be givin’ him a drop of beer whilst ye’re about it, Mary, an’ a bite of bread an’ cheese,” Pierce interrupted, and as soon as Mary Hagan had left the room he walked up to where Barbara was standing and threw an arm lightly about her shoulder.

“Shure, ye wouldn’t have me fail an old friend?” he demanded, his voice taking on that low, caressing inflection which always worked so powerfully on Barbara. “Ye’ll just be sparing me for a few hours this evening, won’t ye, my darlin’? Ye wouldn’t have it said about me all over the county that I’m tied to my wife’s apron-strings. It isn’t as if I’d had a set invitation to this party, now is it? I’d have declined it as I’ve declined the two other invitations to go an’ play cards that Mike’s already sent me, but this is different. Shurely ye see the difference, Barbara. He’s in a hole; one of his players has failed him, an’ there are not so many good bridge players in this part of the county—divil a few, in fact.”

“I don’t want you to leave me all the same, Pierce.”

Barbara felt, even as she said the words, that her husband might justly deem her conduct unreasonable, but how could she explain her secret fear to him? How could she tell Pierce that she dreaded his falling under the spell of the cards? If he were really a gambler it would only annoy him—annoy him furiously.

“No, ye must let me go this time, Barbara—ye must really. ’Tis to oblige a friend, ye know.”

Pierce spoke with sudden resolution, and his face took on an obstinate expression. He crossed over to the writing-desk which stood in the corner of the library, sat down, and began to write a letter. Barbara watched him, frowning, annoyed at realizing that she had so little influence over Pierce after all—displeased with her husband and displeased with herself.

“Will the stakes be high to-night?” she asked meditatively.

Pierce laughed.

“Shure, don’t be askin’ me that,” he answered. “But I shouldn’t think so, Barbara. ’Tisn’t as if we were playing poker—but I shouldn’t be at all surprised if the evening ended up with baccarat. But I won’t be stopping for that—I won’t indeed.”

“I wonder.” Barbara’s face clouded over. She wanted to plead with Pierce not to go to this party to-night, but she was too proud. Something held her back from throwing her arms round her husband’s neck and entreating him by their love to stay with her. She was a Saxon, and she had all an Englishwoman’s dislike of scenes, but she made Pierce conscious all the same of her displeasure—uneasily conscious.

“There, that’s done!” He directed an envelope and slipped his letter inside, then turned and glanced at Barbara over his shoulder. “Give me a kiss an’ wish me good luck to-night. But shure, I am in luck; I feel it—I know it. Haven’t I won the prettiest girl in all the three kingdoms for my wife—the dearest girl in the whole world, if it comes to that?”

He moved towards Barbara as if to take her in his arms, but she drew back coldly.

“Don’t kiss me, Pierce,” she cried hoarsely. “I don’t want any of your ridiculous love-making; I’m tired of it, I tell you—tired of it.” Her breath came hard and fast—her bosom panted. “I ask you to stay at home with me to-night, and you refuse. You prefer to go and play cards with a common horse-dealer, and to sit up gambling till God knows what hour of the morning. I should have thought you would have had the decency to give up playing cards now that you are married, and to turn over a new leaf.”

“An’ why shouldn’t I be playing cards?” Pierce cried hotly. He faced Barbara somewhat defiantly, and he looked extraordinarily handsome for the moment. His eyes blazed—his cheeks were flushed with colour. “Is it a gambler ye’re thinkin’ me?” he continued. “Well, an’ haven’t all the Maloneys been gamblers? ’Tis in our blood—’tis in our very souls. We drink hard an’ we play hard an’ we die hard, an’ few of us have died in our beds.” He made his wife a low, somewhat mocking bow. “ ’Tis an Irish gentleman ye’ve married,” he continued—“an’ I’ve got all the faults of my countrymen an’ few of their virtues, belike. But ye’ve got to put up with me, Barbara, and to fall in with my ways, for I’m your husband, remember.”

“Yes, and most bitterly do I regret that fact.” Barbara blazed with anger. “Oh, I was a fool to marry you, knowing nothing whatever about you, and now I am reaping the fruits of my folly. Here I am stuck down in this miserable, wretched, old castle—shut off from the whole world. I’ve got two step-children foisted upon me—a horrid little boy and girl who are as rude to me as they can be, and you expect me to be pleased, I suppose, and to be delighted with my marriage?”

“Ye seemed happy enough this morning when we were ordering the new chintzes for the drawing-room. Ye were singing like a bird last night.”

“Because I was trying to persuade myself that I was happy,” Barbara retorted bitterly—“striving to make the best of things; but I’m sick of it all, I tell you—sick of it.”

Angry tears sprang into her eyes—tears she brushed away with a trembling hand.

“Go to your wretched bridge party,” she continued. “I don’t want to stop your going. It’s what you’re best fitted for, I should imagine. But oh, if I’d only known what I was letting myself in for when I married you, do you think I’d have made such havoc with my life? Never—never.”

She spoke wildly, and Pierce listened to her, keeping a chilly silence, then he rang the bell. His face had turned quite pale—his lips were livid, but he managed to stop himself from speaking.

The door opened, and Mary Hagan poked in her red untidy head.

“Did ye ring, sor?”

“Yes, I rang,” Pierce answered. “Tell Tim to have Lightning saddled for me immediately. Say I am riding over to Rathlin at once—that I’ll be spending the day there.”

Mary nodded and withdrew, and as soon as the door had closed behind the girl Barbara turned to her husband.

“So you’re going to Rathlin at once, are you?”

“Yes, at once,” he retorted. “Why, by the Lord who made me, I’d sooner gallop straight to hell than sit in the room with ye for another hour after the words ye’ve just spoken. ’Tis a cruel tongue ye’ve got, Barbara, but ye’ve gone too far with me; may the devil admire me, but ye’ve gone too far.”

He strode out of the room, slamming the door behind him, his anger at white heat, and Barbara shivered from head to foot; but she was too proud to run after Pierce and entreat his forgiveness and try and make things up. All she did was to take up the muslin dress she was making for Ethnee and stab it sharply, fiercely, with her scissors, jagging and spoiling the material.

“I wish—oh, how I wish that I was back in England again,” she muttered, “and that I’d never married Pierce Maloney.”

But even as she said the words Barbara knew that there was but one man in the whole world for her, and that was the man who had just left her in wrath.

“I want to speak to Father Matthews, please. Will you ask if I can see him in his study?”

Barbara spoke in low, somewhat unsteady tones. It was the day following on her scene with Pierce, and she had just made her way to the little house where Father Matthews lived—a modest little house fronted by a neatly-kept patch of garden. It was quite early in the morning—scarcely nine o’clock, and she thought that Father Matthews’ housekeeper—a sturdy widow woman, a certain Biddy Mawn—looked at her rather curiously, but Barbara did not care; all she wanted was to see the old priest.

“His riverence is alone in the study at the present moment, so I’ll be showin’ ye straight in to him.”

Biddy led the way as she spoke through a tiny wainscoted hall, the floor of which was covered with shabby oilcloth, and threw open the door of a dark and very dingy-looking room.

Father Matthews was sitting in front of a rickety table, busily engaged in writing a letter, but the old man got up as soon as he caught sight of his visitor and came forward to meet Barbara with outstretched hands.

“Now, here’s a sight for sore eyes!” he exclaimed, smiling a hearty welcome. “Shure, ’tis good of ye to have found your way to my poor abode, Mrs Maloney. Ye’ll be sitting down, won’t ye, an’ having a talk? Now, take your ways out of the room, Biddy, there’s a good soul”—he turned to his old housekeeper—“an’ mind ye, I’ll be seeing no one whilst Mrs Maloney’s here—not a soul.”

He waited till his housekeeper had withdrawn her presence, then turned to his visitor, and his voice softened as he addressed Barbara.

“Ye’re in trouble of some sort, an’ maybe ye’re minded to unbosom your heart to an old priest. Well—well—I can tell ye one thing: nothing that’s said in this room is ever repeated outside.”

“I am sure of that, Father Matthews.” Barbara glanced up at the old man gratefully. She was struck by his benign expression, by his kind and sympathetic smile, and she felt she had come to a good counsellor. “I am awfully worried about my husband,” she continued. “We quarrelled yesterday morning. I’ll just tell you how the quarrel started.”

Barbara sat down in the chair which Father Matthews dragged forward for her—a big, somewhat shabby leather armchair—and told the old priest all that had happened; how Pierce had been asked to play cards by Mr Cregan, and had gone against her express wish, and had not yet come home; and Father Matthews listened attentively to the story, nursing his chin in one of his big coarse hands, his eyes resting on the floor.

“Ye’re worrying because Pierce hasn’t come back, are ye?” he demanded at last. “Shure, I shouldn’t be troubling myself at all. When Cregan has one of his card-parties they play till dawn, sleep for a few hours, an’ then start fresh again, an’ in broad sunlight, more the shame to them, the gambling crew. Maybe ye’ll be having Pierce back to-morrow, but ’tis no good expectin’ him before. If he won last night he’ll be staying on to give revenge to those who lost, an’ if he lost he’ll be hoping that his luck will turn to-night.”

“He was so angry with me.” Barbara’s lips quivered; she suddenly began to cry. “Oh, perhaps if I’d spoken differently to him—had been more loving—more tender—he wouldn’t have gone, but I lost my temper, Father Matthews; I spoke out, and I said what I didn’t mean.”

“ ’Tis a habit common to all of us.” Father Matthews smiled gently, and his smile was at once very pitiful and apprehending. “Shure, I shouldn’t be grieving too much. Pierce isn’t the lad to bear malice—he isn’t indeed. He’ll be coming home to ye with maybe an aching head to-morrow, an’ an empty purse, an’ he’ll be the first to own that he was in the wrong. But don’t let Cregan get hold of him another time. Put your arms around your man an’ hold him tight; be his sheet-anchor.”

“I will—I will indeed, Father Matthews.” Barbara spoke with sudden resolution. “I believe I could manage Pierce if I went the right way about it,” she continued. “But I rubbed him up the wrong way yesterday, and oh! he was so angry—so frightfully angry.”

“His anger will have cooled down by to-morrow,” Father Matthews muttered. “I know the lad an’ his ways. He’ll be as repentant as anything—ready to kiss an’ be friends; but I warn ye that the chances are that he’ll come back to ye broken to pieces, with a head on him, an’ parched lips; he’ll have been drinking hard—ye must take your account to that. ’Tis a white-faced spendthrift that will creep back to ye at dawn to-morrow, unless I’m much mistaken—an’ deal gently with the prodigal as ye trust to Almighty God to deal gently with ye at the end. Be good to your husband an’ give him of your pity. Cleanse his poor stained face with your tears, for that’s the only way ye’ll be saving Pierce Maloney’s soul for him. ’Tis poor weak clay that he’s made of, that’s the truth, but maybe ye can do something towards the shaping of that clay yet.”

“Is he really a gambler, Father Matthews? Does Pierce drink?”

Barbara spoke in low, very subdued tones, and she shivered a little, for all that a bee was humming outside in the garden, and that the sweet fragrance of mignonette filled the study—for there was a bed of mignonette just outside the open window.

“Shure, he drinks at times, just as he plays cards at times. But there, we’ve all got our failings, haven’t we, an’ our weaknesses—our besetting sins? Get ye home now, Mrs Maloney, an’ set to some household task. Don’t let your mind go dwelling on what’s passing at Rathlin. There’s gooseberries to be picked in your garden, I’m thinkin’—gooseberries ripe for preserving. I’d be spending an hour or two in the kitchen with old Biddy making jam, that I would. There’s nought so good for a sore heart as busy fingers. An’ have the children in to help ye with the jam-making—’tis a fine treat ye’ll be giving them.”

“They don’t deserve a treat,” Barbara retorted, her brow clouding over. “You can’t imagine how rude and disagreeable they still are to me.”

“Try them with the jam-making,” the old man counselled—“an’ remember we are all froward children in the eyes of the Almighty. Come, Mrs Maloney.”

He took Barbara gently by the arm and led her to where a small picture hung on the wall—a portrait of the Madonna.

“There’s a mother for ye!” he exclaimed. “There’s a holy woman whose breast was pierced with a sword, but whose love towards humanity has never dimmed in consequence. She draws us all to her; she pities, and she forgives—she pleads—she intercedes. An’ every woman has a mother’s soul in her, or should have; why, ye’re all Madonnas, every one of ye.”

Barbara smiled faintly.

“You’re very comforting, Father Matthews,” she said, “and I’ll take your advice. I’ll go home and I’ll make jam, and—and Ethnee and Patrick shall help me.”

She walked towards the door. She looked pale, and her face had aged a little during the last few weeks, or so the old priest fancied; but Father Matthews noticed at the same time that Barbara’s countenance had gained in strength.

He escorted her to the door and walked with her down the little garden path, pointing out his flowers to her—the gillyflowers he was so fond of, and a few bright pinks; then he suddenly stooped down and picked a little bouquet of mignonette.

“Here’s a posy for ye,” he exclaimed. “Mignonette isn’t so showy as most flowers, but the perfume’s grand, an’ ye can trust it to go on blooming for a long time.”

Barbara sniffed gratefully at the flowers.

“You’re very, very kind to me, Father Matthews,” she whispered, and her voice trembled a little.

Father Matthews laughed.

“Tush, tush,” he answered; “I’m only a blunt old parish priest, but come to me whenever ye’re in trouble, my daughter, an’ I’ll do what I can to help ye.”

“You have helped me,” Barbara answered slowly. She lifted the latch of the garden gate and walked slowly away, and Father Matthews watched her meditatively.

“There she goes, Pierce Maloney’s wife,” he muttered, “an’ with all her troubles before her, poor creature. But a brave heart goes many a mile, they say, an’ I’m glad, anyway, that I’ve set her down to be making jam. As long as she’s busy an’ finds work for her hands to do, there won’t be so much fretting an’ heart-aching for Barbara Maloney. ’Tis the idle women who pull the longest faces, not the busy housewives.”

He gazed with a kindly smile after Barbara’s tall figure, and he shook his head.

“Will she ever be able to carry things through at Castle Glenns, I’m wondering?” he questioned anxiously. “ ’Twill just be a question of how much love she and Pierce have for each other—love and patience.”

“Barbara, will ye ever be forgiving me? Can ye find it in your heart to forgive me? I’ve been the greatest fool that ever lived. I ought to be drowning myself in the sea this very moment, an’ not coming home at all; but ’tis three days an’ three nights that I’ve been away, my darlin’, isn’t it, an’ myself promising not to leave ye for more than a few hours.”

Pierce burst with dramatic suddenness into the drawing-room at Castle Glenns. It was quite late in the afternoon, getting on for half-past six, and Barbara was sitting at the spinet, trying to thrum out some old-fashioned melody, and for a wonder Patrick and Ethnee were with her. Both children were fond of music, it appeared—extraordinarily fond, and they had been delighted when Barbara said she would play to them.

It was on this domestic group that Pierce suddenly broke, a white-faced, dishevelled-looking Pierce—a man with an unshaven chin and dark shadows under his eyes, a crumpled shirt collar, and with a certain ineffable suggestion of dissipation about him. The smell of whisky clung to his clothes—whisky and rank tobacco smoke.

Barbara started up from the spinet. For three days and three nights she had been hungering and thirsting for a sight of her husband, and now Pierce had come home to her at last, but a changed Pierce—a man who looked old in the twilight, old and haggard, but who was prepared to play the penitent, it appeared—to kneel at her feet to be forgiven.

She drew in her breath sharply. How was she to greet her husband—in what spirit? Was she to rebuke him for his long absence, or to welcome the returned prodigal with a smile? She tried to think what Father Matthews would advise, and then she glanced at the children, but Ethnee and Patrick were both hanging back in the shadow. They were not watching their father at all; they were watching their father’s wife.

“I am glad to see you back, Pierce.” Barbara spoke in somewhat unsteady tones. “I—I have missed you, dear. You were away longer than I thought you would be.”

“Shure, I know that, Barbara—I know it.” Pierce gave a low groan, then he suddenly fell on the ground at Barbara’s knees. “Don’t smile at me like an angel,” he cried. “Ye should be cursing me, Barbara, indeed ye should, for do ye know what I’ve done? ’Twas the madness got upon me—the wildness, an’ I’ve been playing for higher stakes these three days than I’ve any right to play. The cards mocked me, as they’ve always done. They lured me—oh! you don’t know, you dear saint, how the cards can lure an’ deceive a man. But to make a long story short, Barbara, I’ve lost every day an’ every night, an’ by the time I’ve settled up with Cregan there won’t be a penny left in the bank till next quarter-day comes round, an’ as it is, some of the silver will have to go—the big silver candlesticks that ye’ve taken such a likin’ to.”

He paused. He was cringing like a dog at Barbara’s feet, then he raised bleared eyes.

“Oh, say something,” he moaned, “if ’tis only to tell me that I’m the greatest blackguard that ever lived. Let me hear your voice, Barbara—speak.”

Barbara hesitated for one second, then she laid a cool hand upon Pierce’s shamed, hot forehead.

“That’s all right, Pierce,” she said, and she was astonished at the quietness of her own voice. “You behaved foolishly, but it’s not going to happen again—and, of course, the candlesticks must go; an Irishman always pays a debt of honour.”

The boy Patrick clapped his hands softly and muttered “Bravo!” under his breath, but Barbara hardly heard him; she was gazing so intently into Pierce’s eyes—the poor stained eyes that were raised in half-bewildered amazement to her own—the eyes that seemed to be blinded, as though by a sudden flash of light.

“Ye’re going to forgive me, Barbara? Shure, ’tis an angel ye are, an’ as for myself, I’m the greatest blackguard in auld Ireland, an’ that’s saying a good deal—God’s truth it is!”

Pierce slapped himself melodramatically on the breast as he said the last words, and Barbara could not help smiling. What an actor was wasted in Pierce, she reflected—and yet it wasn’t acting really. He meant what he said, only it was his demonstrative manner, so different from an Englishman’s manner, that conveyed the idea of play-acting; but he was in earnest, this husband of hers—oh, he was in deadly earnest.

“Don’t say any more, Pierce, it’s all right.”

She bent towards him, a little ashamed because her eyes were filling with misty tears, and she didn’t want to cry before the children.

“ ’Tis hanging I deserve—hanging an’ quartering, an’ no less.” Pierce shook his head sorrowfully, then he suddenly caught one of Barbara’s hands and pressed it to his lips. “Hear me now,” he cried. “ ’Tis myself that will give up the cards—the little red an’ black imps that always come tempting a man to his destruction—luring him on till God knows in what quagmires he finds himself, poor devil; but I’ll be swearing to ye on the honour of a Maloney that I’ve done with the cards. D’ye hear me, Barbara—d’ye believe me?”

He laid a cold, shaking hand, the hand of a man who has been drinking hard, on his young wife’s shoulder, and stared wildly into Barbara’s eyes; but she smiled back at him—a smile that was at once half tender and half reproachful.

“Why, of course I believe you, Pierce. You wouldn’t break your word, my dear boy—I know that well enough. Your father is a man of his word, isn’t he, children?”

She turned and smiled at Pierce’s boy and girl, and the children, for a wonder, smiled back at her, and Barbara realized that she had conquered these children—won their wayward hearts, but she didn’t know how she had done it—she had no idea; yet the fact remained that the deed was done.

“Father will be keepin’ his word.” Ethnee stepped forward of her own accord and slipped a little hot hand into Barbara’s, and the child nodded her head shrewdly. “When ’tis the honour of the Maloneys that’s at stake ye could trust all of us to be true to any promise we’d been making—but not otherwise.”

Ethnee laughed and tossed her rich mane of hair about her shoulders, and Pierce’s eyes sparkled as he glanced at his little daughter. He was pleased that the child had such trust in him—such vivid, innate trust.

“Ah, I won’t be going back on my word,” he cried. He drew a deep breath, then put two shaky hands up to his forehead. “Glory be to God, how my head aches. ’Tis as if my brain were on fire. Och, ’tis a fool I’ve been—a blind, outrageous fool!”

Patrick nudged Barbara’s arm.

“Ye’d better be getting father to bed,” he whispered into his stepmother’s ear—“he’s been drinking hard for three nights, ye see; an’ I’d be putting a wet towel about his forehead if I were you.”

Such shrewd and almost uncanny wisdom startled Barbara, and she looked at Patrick pitifully. When and where had the child learnt such knowledge—a lad of nine? Oh, she was glad—more glad than she could say—that she had married Pierce Maloney and come to live at Castle Glenns, for her heart yearned over Pierce’s motherless children—the boy and girl who were so young in some ways and so old in others, and who needed above all things a woman’s care—a woman’s love.

“Have a good rest in your room, Pierce. You look tired out.”

She put a hand upon her husband’s shoulder as she spoke, and led him gently towards the door, and Pierce obeyed her like a lamb.

“Ye’re right, darlint,” he whispered; “shure, ye’re always right. ’Tis my bed I’m in need of. Give me a few hours’ sleep an’ a hot bath to follow, an’ I’ll be myself long before dinner-time. But oh! your goodness to me, Barbara—your goodness!”

His eyes filled with tears—weak, facile tears—he choked down a sob; but Barbara’s face hardened a little as she led Pierce upstairs and finally left him at their bedroom door, for she knew how weak he was now, and to what depths he was liable to fall; and yet she loved him—loved him with a love that was a strange blending of pity and passion.

The children were waiting for her in the hall as she came down the staircase. They both looked grave, and Ethnee stepped forward timidly.

“Ye mustn’t be troublin’ yourself too much about what’s happened,” the girl said slowly. “Father will be as right as rain to-night. ’Tisn’t often that he has a drinking fit upon him. Old Biddy says he never touched a drop till mother died. ’Twas her death—”

“Oh, hush, my dear, hush.” Barbara flushed in a shamefaced way and caught Pierce’s little daughter to her, straining the child to her breast. “Forget all that Biddy has ever told you—don’t remember it. You’re young—far too young to know that men ever drink more than they should. Biddy had no right to talk about such things to you—she ought to have known better.”

Barbara was interrupted in her passionate harangue by the sudden appearance of Blake. The shabby old man-servant came sloping round the corner of the dark hall, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand; he had obviously just made his way from the kitchen. There was a new grease spot on his coat—Barbara noticed that at once—also how frayed his collar was.

“Whisht, misthress!” He held up a warning finger at Barbara and nodded his head. “There’s company comin’ up the drive. Shure, I saw a motor-car through the kitchen window, an’ I hurried up to tell ye. Will I be showing the company into the drawing-room?”

Barbara flushed with excitement. Friends coming to call at last—neighbours coming to pay their respects to the bride! Oh, what a break in the dull monotony of the life she had been leading at Castle Glenns—what an unexpected and delicious surprise! She clapped her hands softly together.

“Why, show the visitors into the drawing-room, of course, Blake,” she cried. “What a mercy I put fresh flowers in the vases to-day! And for goodness’ sake bring in as nice a tea as you can—get Biddy to make sandwiches. And do see that the bread-and-butter’s cut fine, and we’ll have the best china and a clean lace tea-table cloth. For heaven’s sake, Blake, don’t bring in a dirty cloth.”

She addressed the old man eagerly, stamping her little foot in her impatience, so eager to have all her orders obeyed—understood.

The old man-servant nodded his head.

“Shure, I’ll be doing just what ye want,” he answered, then he edged up to Barbara. “An’ what will we be tellin’ the company about the masther?” he demanded. “He’ll be between the sheets by now—sleeping off last night.”

Barbara turned pale. All her elation of manner deserted her. Her eyes fell before Blake’s eyes.

“We shall have to tell the visitors that Mr Maloney isn’t very well,” she answered, “that he has gone to bed with a chill.”

She flushed as she said the words, feeling strangely humiliated, but the old man-servant ambled cheerfully away. But he had hardly turned the bend of the hall before the great bell rang, and Barbara knew that the “company” had arrived—her first visitors; and she would have to receive them alone, whilst her husband slept like a log upstairs—slept sound after three nights’ debauch.

“I’ve brought my sister round to see you, Mrs Maloney. Let me introduce you to each other. Bridget, this is Mrs Maloney—Pierce’s wife—my sister, Lady Bridget Horsley.”

Lord Revelstone, for it was Lord Revelstone and his widowed sister who were the “company” who had so unexpectedly made their appearance at Castle Glenns, addressed Barbara with more friendliness of manner than he generally displayed; but he looked very tall, lean and austere, and presented a great contrast to Lady Bridget, who was a plump, golden-haired woman, enveloped in a voluminous tussore wrap, and wearing a mauve motor-bonnet with a long mauve chiffon veil.

“We ought to be apologizing to you, Mrs Maloney, for calling at such a late hour—apologizing most heartily,” Lady Bridget broke in on her brother’s speech, “but the truth is that something went wrong with the motor. We ought to have been here hours ago—about four o’clock—but we’ve been sitting by the side of the road—at least I have—for the last three hours, watching Dickie grovelling underneath his car.”

She held out a pretty little hand as she spoke and smiled at her young hostess.

“Well, my dear—I really can’t be stiff and conventional with Pierce’s wife—how young you look—quite a child! And where’s that handsome husband of yours—that scapegoat of a fellow—Pierce?”

Barbara’s flush deepened.

“Pierce has got a cold,” she answered, and she knew that her voice sounded strained and unnatural. “He—he is in bed.”

“A cold? Pierce in bed with a cold?” Lady Bridget opened her blue eyes to their widest extent, but Lord Revelstone frowned at his sister—a quick, angry frown.

“The very best place, bed, when a man’s got a chill on him,” he announced. “You save many a doctor’s bill by taking a cold in time—and I’m glad you’re managing to rub some sense into Pierce’s head, Mrs Maloney. If ever a man needed a wife to look after him it’s Pierce.”

He paused a second and cleared his throat.

“We’ve come over this afternoon, Bridget and myself, hoping to persuade you and Pierce to come and stay with us next week at Castle Rathnay. I’m having a shooting-party, and Bridget’s been kind enough to come over to Ireland and play hostess, and it will give me great pleasure—real pleasure—if you and Pierce will pay us a little visit. Pierce is one of my oldest friends, as I expect he has told you, and I want to welcome his bride to my house.”

“Yes, do come, Mrs Maloney,” Lady Bridget cooed. “We shall be asking a good many neighbours to meet you—people who have known Pierce all their lives. They’ll be coming from thirty and forty miles off, dear souls, and if you and Pierce are not staying with us—well, it will be like acting Hamlet without the Prince!”

She smiled, and put a soft hand upon Barbara’s arm.

“Next Monday—you’ll be able to come next Monday? We will send the motor over for you.”

Barbara quivered with pleasure.

“Why, I shall be delighted,” she cried, “and so, I know, will Pierce. It’s simply too kind of you to ask us, though; oh, Lord Revelstone, it is kind!”

She turned to the grim-looking man, her eyes shining with excitement, a happy smile playing about her lips, all her troubles forgotten for the moment—her anxieties.

Lord Revelstone smiled back at her, but his was rather a sad smile.

“The kindness is all on your side, my dear lady. You’ll find Castle Rathnay a dull old hole, I’m afraid, but we will do our best to entertain you and Pierce, will we not, Bridget? And now what about letting me run upstairs and see the invalid, whilst you and my sister have a chat? But, mark you, Bridget, we must only be staying ten minutes, for it’s a long, long drive back.”

“Oh, but you must have some tea—or what about dinner?” Barbara interrupted. “Couldn’t you stay on to dinner and drive home by moonlight? It will only be a very simple meal—just roast chickens and a pudding—but if you’ll stay—”

She smiled—rather a pretty little smile—but Lord Revelstone and his sister shook their heads. They had friends arriving at Castle Rathnay that very evening, and they must be back to welcome them; but Lady Bridget admitted that a cup of tea would be very welcome.

“I’ll have my tea with Pierce, if you don’t mind,” Lord Revelstone said. “Blake will bring me up a cup, I daresay.”

Barbara hesitated.

“Pierce—Pierce may be asleep,” she murmured. “I’d better run upstairs and see.”

She rose from her chair, and as she was about to leave the room the door opened and Pierce himself stood on the threshold. He had bundled on some clothes, but he had not troubled to brush his hair, and the marks of last night’s dissipation were plain to be read in his face. He looked like a man who had been drinking hard for days, and he uttered a great shout when he caught sight of Lord Revelstone and Lady Bridget and ran into the room.

“By the great gun of Athlone,” he exclaimed, “here’s a grand surprise, Dickie! There I was lying like a log in my bed, when Blake bursts in an’ tells me that you and Bridget are here.”

He turned to the plump widow as he spoke and raised her hand gallantly to his lips, bowing over it with exaggerated devotion, but Barbara noticed that his legs shook a little as he stood up, and his pallor was ghastly.

“Yes, quite a surprise visit this, Pierce, isn’t it?” Lady Bridget smiled, but withdrew her fingers rather quickly from Pierce’s grasp. “Your wife’s just been telling us that you were in bed with a cold. You really ought not to have got up and come down; you see we might catch your cold.”

She laughed, and Barbara felt that she was laughing at her—and how Lord Revelstone was frowning! There was a hard look in his eyes as he gazed at Pierce.

“In bed with a cold?” Pierce threw his head back and laughed lustily. “Shure, what an invention Barbara’s got! The truth is I’ve been playing cards for three days an’ three nights—more the shame to me—an’ I’ve such a head as never was.”

“You fool!”

The words fell like a bombshell from Lord Revelstone’s thin lips, then he walked over to where Pierce was standing, put a hand on his shoulder, and led his friend out of the room.

Barbara drew a deep gasping breath, and turned in dumb amazement to Lady Bridget.

“You mustn’t mind Dickie,” the big, fair-haired woman explained. “He’s very unconventional, and he says and does strange things at times. He’s going to preach at Pierce now—give him a lecture, which I expect your husband thoroughly deserves; for it’s really too bad of Pierce to be at his card-playing tricks again, now that he’s married a young girl like yourself. It’s a shame, my dear—it really is.”

Barbara drew herself up to her full height. She was annoyed that anyone should venture to criticize her husband, but she realized at the same time that Lady Bridget did not mean to be unkind.

“You’re annoyed with me, Mrs Maloney—I can see that.” Lady Bridget laughed. “But don’t forget that I’ve known Pierce for years and years—we were all brought up together. He’s a dear fellow, but he’s got his failings, like the rest of us.”

She paused a moment and glanced round the big drawing-room, and her eyes rested somewhat curiously on Barbara.

“How do you like your new home? Don’t you find it a great contrast after England? Are—are you happy here?”

A strange question to ask a young bride, or so Barbara fancied—and Lady Bridget’s eyes were full of veiled curiosity. She was evidently anxious to get at the truth.

Barbara hesitated for a second. Was she going to tell this stranger that her life since she had come to Castle Glenns had been one of constant disillusion and disappointment? Would she admit that she had been deceived—tricked—by her husband into believing Pierce to be a rich man, or that he had carefully concealed the fact of his being a widower with two children from her? No, she would rather die—she would bite her tongue out first. Whatever dirty linen she had to wash should not be washed in public. Whatever tears Fate had ordained that she should shed in her married life should be shed in the privacy of her room, for Barbara did not believe in those women who foul their own nests and make their grievances public property.

“Happy? Why, of course I’m happy,” she answered in clear ringing tones, her head held high. “Ours was a love match, Lady Bridget, and it’s love that makes the whole world go round—or so the old proverb puts it—just love.”

She twisted her wedding-ring round her slim finger as she spoke, and Lady Bridget skilfully turned the conversation into another channel, but there was an amused gleam in her eyes all the same, and a faint ironical smile played about her lips. It was doubtful if she believed Barbara’s statement; she thought that no one so unstable as Pierce Maloney could make a woman happy for long.

“Oh, how pretty—how awfully pretty the table looks! I don’t think I ever saw such beautiful red roses in my life—and how splendid they look massed together in those wonderful silver cups against the dark mahogany of the table. It’s an absolute feast of colour!”

Barbara’s eyes sparkled as she spoke, and she turned enthusiastically to Lord Revelstone, but her host only smiled back wearily—the tired smile of a man who is bored with everything.

“Are you pleased with the appearance of the dinner-table? I am glad, Mrs Maloney. The silver cups have all been brought out in your honour; as for the roses, they grow wild in the garden here. Some of our silver cups are rather fine, I believe, and most of them have a history behind them—a racing history. My grandfather and my great-grandfather before kept fine stables, but personally I take no interest in the Turf—but then I take no interest in anything.”

“Isn’t that rather a strong statement?”

Barbara looked at her host searchingly—this rich man of great possessions, but Lord Revelstone only shook his head.

“No, I think most of us discover, as we get on in life, that ‘Vanity—vanity—all is vanity!’ I made the discovery somewhat earlier than most people, for my part. I hope it will be years before you join in the general chorus—I hope so from the bottom of my heart.”

A little warmth crept into Lord Revelstone’s cold voice as he bent towards his guest, and Barbara remembered the story Pierce had told her a few nights ago about his old friend—the tragedy that had soured Richard Revelstone’s nature.

He had married, when quite a young man, an extremely beautiful girl—married her in the full belief that she loved him. He had no idea that there was another man in the case or that his wife’s parents had literally forced her into the marriage. Three months after the wedding Lady Revelstone ran away from her husband to join the man she loved, and she died a year later—died of some fever caught abroad, having absolutely ruined her husband’s life, for Lord Revelstone’s whole nature underwent a change after his wife had deserted him. He grew gloomy and morose, sour and bitter—a confirmed cynic.

“Oh, no, I cannot believe that everything is vanity, and I hope I never shall.” Barbara spoke with decision, then she turned to her host with an appealing gesture. “Now, don’t say gloomy and depressing things to me to-night, just when I am feeling so bright and happy and you are giving Pierce and myself such a splendid time—for you cannot imagine how much I am enjoying myself this evening, Lord Revelstone. It was good of you to ask us to come and stay with you—it really was.”

She drew a deep breath of happy content, and her eyes sparkled more brightly than ever as she gazed down the crowded dinner-table, encountering kindly and interested glances, for was she not the guest of the evening—the bride? And Barbara was conscious that she was looking her best—that her white wedding-gown did her credit; and everyone had been so kind to her—all the members of the large house-party assembled at Castle Rathnay. Why, though she and Pierce had only arrived at Castle Rathnay about three hours ago, she felt at home with the crowd of visitors already. The women had been so spontaneous in their welcome, and the men had paid the bride such fine compliments. Besides, Barbara had realized for the first time what a wonderful thing Irish hospitality can be—an Irish welcome, and Lord Revelstone spared no pains to do her honour.

He had received her in the hall as if she had been royalty; he had led her to the drawing-room on his arm, and presented her to the guests assembled there, and, most delicate compliment of all, she had found a great bouquet of hothouse blossoms in her bedroom—white flowers to welcome the bride. And now champagne was flowing freely in her honour and in Pierce’s, and Barbara knew she was the heroine of the occasion, and her spirits rose, as was only natural. She quivered with frank happiness; this was her hour—the best hour she had known.

She caught Pierce’s eye every now and then from the bottom of the table, for he had taken in Lady Bridget, and she could see that Pierce was proud of her—very proud; and how well Pierce looked to-night—what a gallant gentleman! Oh, Ireland was a fine country after all, and the Irish were the most delightful people imaginable. But it was a pity, Barbara told herself, that the giver of the feast was taking so little pleasure in the gay scene. She wished she could make Lord Revelstone smile—really smile. It must be so dreadful to take no interest in anything—to have nothing to live for.

She stole a glance at her host, and told herself that his was the saddest face she had ever seen—but it was not an unkind face. He looked like a man who had drunk deep of a bitter cup, and had experienced nothing but disappointments all his life, and Barbara suddenly found herself longing to bring back a belief in a lost paradise to Richard Revelstone—to force him to realize that he had made a mistake in brooding so bitterly over the wrong that had been done him in the past; for what is the good of crying over spilt milk?

“Are you happy at Castle Glenns, Mrs Maloney?”

Lord Revelstone was asking Barbara exactly the same question that his sister had asked a few days ago, but Barbara did not feel annoyed now. She realized that it was friendliness that prompted Lord Revelstone to question her, not curiosity. And he was looking at her searchingly, too, with his sad, weary grey eyes—very searchingly.

“I like Ireland,” she announced. “Life has its ups and down at Castle Glenns, of course, and there are things I should like to alter there, but on the whole I am quite happy, Lord Revelstone. I wish we had a little more money, of course.” She laughed. “That’s a pretty universal wish, isn’t it?”

Lord Revelstone tightened his lips, and a grim smile flickered over them.

“I’d barter a good deal of money, if I had the chance, for a little happiness, but the pedlar who sells the stuff from which dreams are made—happy dreams—is not likely to come hawking his wares in my neighbourhood again. I chose the wrong dream from his pack years ago, as perhaps Pierce has told you. You and Pierce made a wiser choice—you chose each other.”

He paused, drank a little wine, then turned abruptly to Barbara.

“Don’t think me a prophet of evil if I croak something in your ear, Mrs Maloney. Life is a big tragedy; we are all trying to hide the fact from each other, and to pretend that we are playing in a comedy, but it’s not so. We all get disillusioned sooner or later. Don’t expect your happiness to last, Mrs Maloney. Nothing lasts—neither youth nor strength, nor health nor fame, riches nor poverty.”

“What about love?” Barbara questioned gently.

Lord Revelstone shrugged his shoulders. A hard look came into his eyes—he laughed coldly.

“That’s a subject of which I have little knowledge, and can speak with no authority. Love and I parted company years ago. To my mind love is a myth—the greatest myth of all—the will-o’-the-wisp that lures men and women to the quagmire.”

He spoke with profound bitterness, and again Barbara felt that curious instinct of pity—a desire to make Lord Revelstone believe that there was such a thing as love in the world—love and happiness.

Yet suppose he was right after all, and she was wrong? What if love was only a myth, as Lord Revelstone had just said—a will-o’-the-wisp?

Her doubtful eyes fixed themselves on Richard Revelstone’s thin, tired face, and half-unconsciously Barbara sighed.

The house-party danced in the hall that night—footed it merrily after dinner, and Barbara thoroughly enjoyed herself. There were several people staying at Rathnay—a Colonel and Mrs O’Brien, and their two daughters, two young officers from Dublin, and a clever witty Irishman who owned a large property a few miles away, and who was obviously paying attention to the youngest Miss O’Brien, and a Mrs Sinclair—a friend of Lady Bridget’s.

They were all very pleasant folk, and they made a great fuss over the bride. The two young soldiers couldn’t pay Barbara enough attention, and Mrs Sinclair, who was a very rich and smart Society woman, pressed Barbara to come and visit her in town at her flat—an invitation that the young wife longed to accept, only she felt that funds would not run to it. Still, it was nice to know that Mrs Sinclair liked her—and as for Captain Ayrton and Captain Thornton, they talked the most delightful nonsense and waltzed divinely, and the evening passed only too quickly.

Pierce danced a great deal with Mrs Sinclair and his hostess, and looked very handsome and distinguished, and Barbara felt quite proud of her husband. She was sorry that Lord Revelstone did not come into the hall, but retired to his study instead of joining in the dancing.

“Did you ever know such an old hermit as my brother?”

So Lady Bridget remarked airily, but Barbara’s heart smote her. She did not like to think of the lonely man sitting in his big study and bending over dusty books when he might be talking to his friends in the hall and leading the dancing. Why couldn’t he forget the wrong that had been done him in the past and take an interest and a pleasure in passing events? It worried Barbara that her host should sit brooding in his study whilst his guests were enjoying themselves so heartily in the beautiful black oak hall.

No one thought of going to bed till long past midnight, and Barbara’s spirits rose higher every hour. She was conscious of having made a personal success. She had not arrayed herself in her bridal satin in vain. She read this flattering assurance in the eyes of her fellow-guests, and when she went to bed it was with a delightful sense of good things to come next morning.

She lived keenly during the next few days—more keenly than she had done for years. Her life seemed suddenly to have expanded; yet deep within her heart lay the knowledge that this bright existence could not last—that all this gaiety was merely transitory. Soon—only too soon—she must say good-bye to this gay circle of friends and to the delights of a well-ordered establishment—to brilliant entertainment, and creep back like Cinderella to a poverty-stricken house, and it was because Barbara knew that this must happen that she was so eager to enjoy herself at Rathnay, snatching eagerly at every proffered pleasure.

There was so much to amuse her—the pleasant, informal breakfasts—lazy hours spent in the garden—her two young cavaliers in constant attendance—the nice soldier boys—motor excursions to various points of interest in the neighbourhood—picnic lunches and picnic teas—people to dinner every evening, and dancing varied by bridge—an endless round of excitement and frivolity.

Lord Revelstone took no active part in the entertainment of his visitors, leaving it all to Lady Bridget, who made a most energetic hostess. He only appeared at meals and went out shooting with the male members of the party; at other times he kept to his own study, brooding there alone—a silent, melancholy man.

Barbara wore her pretty trousseau dresses with a pardonable egotism. These exciting days had filled her with an exhilarating sense of confidence in herself and her own powers of attraction, but it was melancholy work when the last morning came round and the dainty gowns had to be put back in her big trunk, and she looked a little pale when she wandered down to breakfast.

“I do wish we were not saying good-bye to each other,” Mrs Sinclair remarked, pressing Barbara’s hand. “I always think the breaking up of a pleasant party is horrid. Now, do promise to come over and stay with me during the winter; the country is horrid then, but we Londoners amuse ourselves pretty well. There are always theatres and concerts to go to, and the winter season is often more amusing than the summer—at least I think so.”

She smiled up into Barbara’s face. She was an exceedingly pretty fair-haired little woman—frightfully smart, and Barbara thought how nice it would have been to have accepted Mrs Sinclair’s invitation and kept in touch with her new friend, but she realized she must give up the idea of paying this visit—funds would not allow of it.

“If it can be managed we should love to come.” She pressed Mrs Sinclair’s fingers, but even as she spoke Barbara knew that the visit could not be managed. She had married a poor man, so she must accept the disadvantages and disabilities of poverty, and it was no earthly use kicking against the pricks.

She felt very depressed when she got home, however. Castle Glenns looked so bare and poverty-stricken, and she missed all the comforts and luxuries to which she had grown accustomed during the last ten days. Patrick and Ethnee came running in from the garden, but they were both shockingly untidy, so it seemed as if all their stepmother’s teaching had been thrown away upon them, and, feeling utterly dispirited and hopelessly in the blues, Barbara sought refuge in her own bedroom.

“I wish we had never gone to stay at Rathnay.” She threw herself down upon her bed. “Everything feels so horribly flat now I have got home again. This is such a cold, dreary house, and I seem cut off from the world. How shall I ever be able to drag out my life here?”

Her eyes smarted with tears. Her whole soul was up in arms against the existence that was stretching out before her—the deadly monotony of long, dreary years. She panted to be leading the life Lady Bridget and Mrs Sinclair led, and the other women to whom she had so recently said good-bye. She wanted to wear pretty clothes and be admired—to feel herself a person of some importance, and though there was nothing of the coquette about Barbara, it pleased her to feel assured of masculine approbation. Young, healthy and strong, she was filled with a passionate desire to enjoy life. She thirsted to go on dancing and amusing herself—to have a good time.

Pierce came and knocked at her bedroom door and asked if she would not come down to tea, but Barbara called out snappily that she had got a bad headache and wanted to be left alone. She really felt quite unequal to going down to the drawing-room and partaking of the messy tea that she felt quite certain old Blake would bring in—a tea which would be such a sloppy contrast to the tea served at Rathnay.

Pierce took his hasty departure. Perhaps he recognized the note of irritability in Barbara’s voice and suspected what was the matter with her—that she was regretting the comfortable house she had just left. But her husband’s immediate departure was another source of grievance to Barbara.

“Pierce might have asked me if I’d like some eau-de-cologne for my head, or phenacetin or something. He would have done so a month or so ago. If he’s going to get cold and indifferent that will be the last straw. I should go straight back home and stay with Aunt Ann, for I hate this horrid house. I—I simply hate it, and I loathe, above all things, being poor.”

She dragged at the sheets with feverish fingers, burying her face against the pillow, a great wave of discontent spreading itself over her soul, and Barbara asked herself with fretful impatience what on earth she was going to do with her life, cooped up in Castle Glenns—caged like a bird—crippled by poverty.

And then, as she lay on her bed she suddenly turned sick and faint, and when the faintness had passed away she broke into a damp perspiration; and with this sudden faintness came a new knowledge, and Barbara recognized that in all probability she was to be the guardian of a tiny life.

She remembered signs and symptoms which she had dismissed lightly from her mind and paid little attention to during the last few weeks, and she felt that she had no reason to doubt that her suspicions as to her condition were correct, and with this new knowledge came a strange and most poignant sense of joy. Her discontent vanished suddenly—her yearning to amuse herself and to be amused, and a calm that might almost be called a holy calm descended upon her.

She folded her hands together, even as a certain Jewish maiden had folded them centuries ago, overwhelmed with a sense of mystery and awe the like of which she had never felt before. But the fluttering of her heart whispered of the fluttering of another life, and Barbara knew that the woman’s vigil had commenced for her—the sacred and solemn vigil that all young mothers have to undergo before they can cry out in sharp triumph and rejoice over their first-born child.

“And I wanted to go on dancing and amusing myself—to live in a whirl of gaiety!”

She smiled faintly, conscious that she was no longer a girl bent on pleasure, but a woman who was slowly and gradually to be brought face to face with life’s greatest responsibility—that of the care and nurture of her own child—a woman whose playtime was over.

She heard the rooks cawing as they flew in and out of the branches of some big elm trees situated a little distance from the house, and the faint peaceful sound of the waves lapping the shore, and after a while Barbara closed her eyes and fell asleep.

She was still asleep when Pierce stole gently into the room to see how she was getting on—if her headache was better, and she was smiling in her sleep—a smile that was at once mysterious and solemn and beyond the comprehension of a man.

He tip-toed to the window and drew down the blinds, but he could not shut out the sound of the waves lashing the shore, for Nature is never silent, day or night—Nature is never still.

“Well, the change here is grand—shure the old place doesn’t know itself, I’m thinking! Are ye not a proud woman, Mrs Maloney, an’ pleased with the work of your hands?”

Father Matthews leaned forward in his chair as he spoke and gazed at Barbara with very kindly eyes, and she smiled back at him gratefully.

It was an afternoon in early March and Barbara’s hour was at hand, but the old priest had dropped in to have a cup of tea with the expectant mother; and Barbara knew quite well—though no words had passed between them on the subject—that she would have the benefit of Father Matthews’ prayers when her ordeal commenced and she had to make her groping way into the dread Valley of the Shadows before she could strain her new-born babe to her breast; for she knew, as all women know, that she must risk her life to become the mother of life.

“Do you really think you see much of a change here? I’ve tried to get things more ship-shape.” She folded her hands in her lap. She felt tired, but it was a happy, peaceful tiredness.

“Do I see a change?” Father Matthews threw his head back and laughed. “Why, the whole house sings your praise! Look at old Blake, ’tis the fine smart decent servant ye’ve made of the boy, an’ ’tis the same with Biddy. The carpet is new on the stairs, an’ what a splendid chintz we’ve got here in the drawing-room; an’ as for the garden—’tis the flowers will be thanking ye presently. The pigs have been given excellent quarters they tell me. There’s been clean paint inside an’ outside the castle—such a sweeping away of rubbish as never was—an’ all to your credit—more power to yer elbow, ma’am.”

The old priest blew his nose, he was obviously affected by what he had just said, for tears glittered in his eyes, and Barbara flushed with pleasure at his praise, even though she laughingly disdained it.

“You mustn’t flatter me so much, Father Matthews. You forget that we couldn’t have given Castle Glenns such a turn-out and refurnishing if Pierce hadn’t come into a thousand pounds unexpectedly owing to the death of a godfather whom he hardly ever saw.”

“Tush!” The old man snapped his fingers. “I’m not taking a word back of what I’ve said—not a word. Who’s seen to it that Pierce hasn’t gambled and frittered away his legacy? ’Twas yourself, wasn’t it, persuaded Pierce to invest five hundred pounds in a sound mortgage an’ lay out the remainder of the money on necessary improvements on the old castle, an’ what’s left of the estate, an’ didn’t I hear of a pearl necklace being refused?”

“Oh, what a tell-tale Pierce is.” Barbara half smiled—half frowned. “Of course I did not want him to waste over seventy pounds on buying me a necklace; it was sweet of him to want to, though, wasn’t it?”

“He’d make a coronet for ye out of the stars of heaven if he could, an’ no wonder—no wonder at all! Why, think what ye’ve been to the boy an’ to his children. The change in Patrick an’ Ethnee since you married their father has been amazing—little savages they were an’ you’ve tamed them. The sisters at the convent are fair amazed; the Reverend Mother has nothing but praise for the way ye manage the girl.”

“Oh, stop, Father Matthews—stop.” Barbara sat up in her chair. “You’ll turn my head if you say any more—you really will. I am thankful that the children have got fond of me, though, it has made things so much easier in every way. I hope they will care for—” She blushed—a warm, lovely blush, and did not finish the sentence, but the old priest smiled indulgently.

“I know—I know—” he whispered, “but be sure they will— You’ve got your aunt coming over to stay with you next month, have ye not?—the aunt who’s coming all the long way from England to pay ye her first visit.”

“Yes, Aunt Ann has promised to pay me a visit later on.” Barbara paused a second and a wistful look came over her face. “Suppose there is no next month for me—it may be so?”

Father Matthews got up slowly from his chair.

“That’s a foolish way to be talking,” he said gravely. “Please God you’ve got a long life in front of you—there’s no reason to be thinking anything else.”

He stood up, a shabby old village priest dressed in a rusty gown stained with snuff, but his brave smile and his brave face appealed strangely to Barbara, and with a sudden movement she held out both her hands.

“Father Matthews, I do believe—though I wouldn’t have Pierce know for worlds—that I’m just a little afraid.”

“Why shouldn’t ye be—a great thing’s about to happen. ’Tis a grand solemn marvel, the birth of a child—’tis the fresh miracle that God works each second an’ you take your share in it. You are called on to join in the work of creation—a thought big enough to take the breath away. Ye’ve become a link in a living chain. ’Tis the race you’re helping to carry on—the human race.”

“It—it seems so wonderful.” Barbara’s face looked peaked and pale, but a steady light shone out of her eyes.

“ ’Tis wonderful—an’ I’d have women feel the wonder of it more an’ prepare for it. I’d have them make their hearts as clean an’ fresh before a child is born as they make their room, an’ I’d like them to read fine good books an’ study the lives of those men an’ women who have been a credit to their generation. For think of receiving a little child straight from the shaping hand of God an’ having no thought yourself but for the pomps an’ vanities. ’Tis the mothers ought to train themselves early. But shure, I’m tiring ye with my talk.” He paused abruptly. “I’ll be praying for ye as one of my own flock an’ ’tis the proud woman ye’ll be presently—ah, an’ Pierce the proud father. They tell me over at the convent that the nursing sister ye’re having is a grand nurse—none better in Ireland.” He trotted to the window and looked out. “The spring’s here at last. ’Tis fine to see the little lambs sporting with their mothers an’ to remember the Lamb of God, an’ isn’t the stir of the spring wonderful an’ the green freshness? I do believe that God cleanses this dusty world each time the spring comes round.” He turned from the window and walked back to Barbara’s chair. “ ’Tis good-bye for the present—now, mind ye’ll be sending for me one of the first later.”

Barbara stretched out her left hand and rested it lightly on Father Matthews’ arm.

“You’ve been awfully good and kind to me ever since I came to Castle Glenns,” she said slowly, “let me just say ‘thank you’ now.”

The old man laughed, but his eyes shone dim and misty.

“You can go on saying ‘thank you’ during the years that lie ahead,” he answered. “I’m never tired of anyone’s blarney but my own. Father Matthews has a sweet tooth for sweet speeches—an’ don’t be forgetting that.”

He smiled and left the room smiling, but as he closed the drawing-room door behind him Barbara knew that for a time at least the doors of her world had closed upon her—the ordinary everyday, commonplace world. She was in a chamber apart; she sat facing woman’s greatest trial and greatest triumph—and she faced her hour as all women have to—alone!

“Yes, you may carry baby downstairs and take him for a wee turn in the garden, Ethnee, before the dog-cart comes round. You will be very careful of the small man, though, won’t you?”

Barbara—the proud mother of a three-months’ old son, smiled at her little stepdaughter as she addressed her and Ethnee smiled back, for now a perfect understanding prevailed between the two, and indeed the change that had come over Ethnee during the last few months was marvellous.

She was no longer a rough-haired, untidy slip of a girl—a colleen who had been allowed to run wild; she dressed neatly, brushed her hair and teeth, and took some trouble to keep her hands nice, and had begun to work really creditably under Barbara’s tuition and to read a few books instead of climbing trees and tramping about the country.

Ethnee adored her baby brother. She had taken the keenest interest in little Denis, for that was the name that had been bestowed upon the small person at his christening—from the first hour of his birth, and Patrick had also condescended to express his approval of the latest recruit to the Maloney family. It was amusing, and somewhat touching at the same time, to watch the two children when they were allowed to mount guard over the baby. Their pride in Denis was so unfeigned—they were so honestly delighted if they thought he took any notice of them.

“Shure, I’ll be careful of the darling. Come to his Ethnee, then.” Ethnee stretched out a pair of eager arms and lifted Baby Denis from his mother’s knee, and the baby crowed and smiled up in his half-sister’s face. “Did he smile—the precious angel?” Ethnee crooned, then she bent towards Barbara. “There’s Pat waiting outside—just to have a sight of this young rascal, and Pat pretending that he takes no interest in babies!”

She laughed and nodded wisely and confidentially to her stepmother, who laughed and nodded in her turn, settling back comfortably in her armchair as Ethnee left the room; for Barbara knew from long experience of Pierce and his ways that as he had said the dog-cart would be round in five minutes there was no earthly reason to expect the carriage to be at the door for the next half hour.

She was looking forward to her drive. Pierce had just bought a new dog-cart and a smart mare and he was going to drive his wife into the nearest town, for Baby Denis required a new cap and a cool pelisse for summer wear, so Barbara had determined to go shopping with her son and had commandeered Pierce and the new turn-out.

The young mother was feeling very happy, and quite reconciled to life at Castle Glenns now that her baby had appeared on the scene. For how could a woman feel dull or bored when she had a baby to look after, so Barbara reflected—a dear, warm, cuddlesome baby, for maternity meant something more to Barbara Maloney than a mere passing experience; she recognized a mother’s immense responsibilities—she did not play at being a mother—she was one!

She had by no means had an easy time at her baby’s birth, but she had been very brave and very patient, and Barbara still remembered with a throb of the heart the exquisite beauty of the moment when her first-born had been placed in her weak, trembling arms, and she had forgotten all the anguish of the last few hours for joy that a man had been born into the world—her man-child.

The days that had followed on Denis’s birth—the days of convalescence—had been very tender days, very sweet. Everyone had been so kind to Barbara, and as for Pierce, he had been devotion itself.

And now another stroke of luck had befallen the good-natured, shiftless Irishman, for in addition to the legacy he had received from his godfather an old cousin had died leaving him a snug little sum in Consols. This meant an addition of at least a hundred a year to Pierce’s small income, and he felt as if he had come into a fortune, and Barbara for her part was equally delighted and full of plans as to how far they could make the money go.

She had also received a letter from Mrs Burton which had pleased her very much, for the widow had written a most grateful letter to Barbara conveying the good news that Cecily Burton was returning home from Davos practically cured, “and under God’s providence we owe her restoration to health and strength entirely to you,” so Mrs Burton had written; and Barbara, after perusing the lengthy epistle, had felt that the Romney portrait had not been sold in vain if Cecily’s life had been saved in consequence. A letter had also reached her from Howard Burton—but a very different sort of letter to the one he had written before; just a brief note of congratulation on her marriage and with no reference to the fact that he had once hoped to be her husband himself.

Miss Ann had paid her visit to Castle Glenns and the visit had gone off better than Barbara had fancied it would, for the gentle old lady had written such a severe letter on hearing that Pierce was not only a widower but the father of two children, that Barbara had been rather nervous as to how her husband and aunt would meet; but fortunately Miss Ann had been too excited at seeing her niece again and being introduced to Barbara’s baby to take much notice of Pierce, who soon managed to instal himself into the old lady’s good graces.

Miss Ann had professed to be quite pleased with Barbara’s home, and she certainly saw Castle Glenns under the most favourable conditions, for fresh chintzes, carpets and hangings and a certain amount of papering, painting and decorating had worked wonders indoors, and the garden had already begun to repay Barbara for the labour which she had caused to be bestowed upon it; also early May is a lovely month all the world over, a month when it is difficult not to rejoice in the sunshine and take a pleasure in the green freshness of the fertile earth.

And now Miss Ann had gone home again, happily convinced that her niece had not done so badly for herself after all, a belief that Barbara had tried hard to foster, and the husband and wife had been left to settle down to the quiet enjoyment of an absolutely peaceful and placid existence and to find their happiness in the innocent delights of a country life.

Barbara felt a little doubtful in her own mind with regard to the future. She wondered if Pierce would always be content to stay soberly at home and be false to the wild blood in his veins. Father Matthews had warned her that he might break out again later on, and the mere fact of his having come into money might be an incentive to spending money—a case of light come light go. Still, she hoped—she prayed—this would not happen. As for her own life—it centred round her child; yet she knew that a wider sphere of action would have appealed to her and that she could have been an equally devoted mother had it been possible for more society to come her way and larger interests.

Still she was happy. The castle in Spain, after shrinking to a dusty, crumbling, God-forsaken old house, had reared itself up and become a very real home, and though Pierce had failed her in a great many ways she loved her husband with a very true and steady affection. Besides, Barbara no longer expected to live in fairyland, she had learnt better; she had lost the superb egotism and optimism of youth, and she was aware that people have to give and take in this world—married folk especially, and that contentment is a herb worth cultivating.

The door of her bedroom opened and Pierce came in; he looked quite pleased with himself.

“Got your hat on—that’s right. Ye’re looking lovely to-day, Barbara, lovely.” He paused in front of his wife. “I’ll be taking ye to Dublin for the Horse Show—that I will; we’ll have a gay time in Dublin for a few days. When there’s money in the purse, spend it.”

He laughed cheerfully, a laugh Barbara did not echo, but she judged it wisest not to throw cold water on the suggestion at once. She was learning the best way to manage her handsome spendthrift husband—the only way!

“The mare’s as fresh as a daisy. She’s the best bit of horse-flesh we’ve had in the stables for many a long day; the wonder is I bought the lady so cheap.” He helped Barbara on with her loose dust cloak as he spoke, then suddenly bent his head and kissed her. “The sweet wife ye are, Barbara, the splendid woman; ’twas a good day for me and mine when I brought ye home to Castle Glenns, but I sometimes wonder if I behaved quite fairly by ye? ’Tis a lonely life ye lead here an’ ye might have done so much better—married a rich Englishman. Still, I’ve made ye happy—ye don’t regret your choice?”

He put the question with a curious, and for him, unnatural timidity, peering anxiously into his wife’s face, and to the end of her days Barbara was thankful that she was able to gaze frankly into Pierce’s eyes and admit that there could be no question of her happiness.

They kissed again—then drew apart laughing at each other.

“Well, an’ why shouldn’t we be lovers to the end of the chapter?” Pierce demanded fondly as he opened the door for Barbara to pass out of the room, and he had no idea—not the vaguest premonition—how soon his life’s testament was to close—how near he was to the end of his day.

He laughed and even sang as he followed Barbara down the dark oak stairs and through the big hall to the open front door, and his eyes gleamed when he caught sight of the smart dog-cart and the thoroughbred little chestnut mare standing outside, the mare pawing the gravel with a dainty hoof—her sharp ears pricked, her restless eyes alert.

“The saints save us—I feel fey,” he whispered into Barbara’s ear, “more in love with life than I have ever been—drunk with good fortune. Into the cart with ye an’ hold the child tight—for the mare will be jumpy an’ restless till I’ve got her well in hand. Isn’t she a beauty though, Barbara—a dainty girl?”

He gazed at the animal admiringly whilst Barbara, helped by old Mike, clambered up into the dog-cart, and then Ethnee had to be called and summoned in haste from the garden and Baby Denis was handed over to his proud mother. It was all very pretty and charming—quite a domestic picture—no hint of tragedy in the air—no sound of distant thunder.

“Out of the way, Mike—good-bye, Ethnee—I’ll be bringing ye something from the town, an’ I won’t be forgetting Patrick either.”

Pierce gave the little mare her head as he called out to his daughter, and the spirited creature flew like an arrow down the drive.

Old Mike chuckled and rubbed his bony hands together.

“Glory be to God—the maister’s driving the best little mare in auld Ireland. ’Tis the luck has come back to Castle Glenns at last.”

Ethnee, shading her eyes with her hands, gazed somewhat anxiously after the dog-cart.

“Is the mare trying to bolt?” she asked at last in a vague, frightened whisper. “She’s too fresh, Mike. See how the dog-cart’s rocking from side to side—’tis a mad pace she’s making.”

“Ye’re right, Miss Ethnee,” the old servant answered. His face became very drawn and pale and he drew a deep breath. “The jade’s bolting right enough—the tricky jade; but be aisy now, Miss Ethnee, my darlint, there’s no cause to be afraid. The maister will be pulling the cratur up presently; there’s no horse alive ever got the better of him yet, there’s no horse ever will.”

Mike’s fond foolish boast was to be sharply refuted, for as Ethnee and the old man followed the thundering course of mare and dog-cart down the drive they witnessed a sickening tragedy. The wild crashing of the runaway into a small belt of trees—for the mare had suddenly taken it into her wicked head to plunge from the road—the dog-cart capsized and Pierce and his wife and child were thrown violently out.

The mare came down too, and she lay on the grass squealing, plunging, kicking, no longer a saucy wanton bent on mischief, but a half-maddened creature—sweating with terror and shivering—the smell of death in her nostrils—the fear of death in her heart; for the mare knew that she had killed the man who had patted her on her glossy flanks only a few short minutes ago—her new master, and she had killed her master’s little son as well.

A dead man—a dead child—and a pale woman who called piteously on God and moaned for her dead to awake; the chestnut mare might well sweat and foam—conscious of the evil she had wrought—the evil that was beyond repairing.

Two black crows swooped quite close to where Pierce was lying and cawed hideously, but Barbara shrieked out in her anguish and the birds fluttered black wings and flew away. She staggered to her feet alive—unhurt—then snatched up the dead child and stood up livid and tearless, dimly aware that Pierce lay stiff at her feet—that all was wrong with her world!

The mare continued to squeal and plunge and lash out with her hoofs—kicking the smashed and capsized cart to bits—rolling helplessly on her back, but Barbara did not even turn her head; she was putting the little cap straight that her baby boy was wearing—the child whose neck had been broken.

“Wake up, Denis,” she whispered, her voice hoarse with terror, but she knew that her child would never wake in this world; he lay heavy in her arms—he who had once lain so light against her heart—that which was flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone, was dead.

“Pierce, Denis is dead. Are you dead too?—Pierce—Pierce.”

She began to shriek; but Pierce was deaf to all sounds by now, and only the crows answered Barbara—the cawing crows and rooks—black birds of evil omen who peered down at her from the branches of the elm trees and cawed and flapped their wings.

She ceased to scream—the roof of her mouth got dry. She strained the dead child to her and stared down on the dead man.

“ ’Tis the Lord gave an’ the Lord has taken away. But, mark ye, I’m not expecting ye to do aught but bow before this blinding, devastating storm as yet; still, try to recognize—an’ as quickly as ever ye can, my daughter—that ’tis no use hardening the heart in the day of trouble—in the black hour of visitation.”

Father Matthews’ voice trembled as he addressed Barbara. She was sitting in the darkened drawing-room, and Ethnee and Patrick were huddled up close to her skirts—two tear-drenched, sniffing children with red, unhappy eyes; but Barbara was not crying. She looked very pale, but no tear stains disfigured her face—hers was that cruel, silent grief that preys upon the soul.

She turned and gazed steadily at Father Matthews, and she noticed how he had stained the front of his cassock with snuff, and that his gown had a little rent at the elbow. She saw everything with a terrible distinctness. That was because life had become so grim since yesterday—such a merciless series of pictures—pictures that had cut themselves indelibly upon her brain.

Wherever she looked Barbara could see her dead husband and her dead child—Pierce lying in a huddled heap as he had lain on the grass, his face turned up to the heavens, and the poor little crumpled-up poppet whose cap had slipped awry as he died—her first-born son; and now, even as she stared at the old priest, Barbara saw the other picture as well—the man and the child lying dead.

“How can I harden my heart, Father Matthews, when my heart is broken within me? God has made my house desolate. He has trodden me under foot.”

She spoke in low, hoarse tones, and Ethnee, raising her heavy head from Barbara’s knee, burst into pitiful broken sobbing.

“Shure, ’tis all our hearts are broken,” she whimpered. “ ’Tis Pat an’ myself have lost our father, an’ baby was such a darling, too. Oh, the pretty ways he had—the pretty ways.”

The poor child’s body heaved with the violence of her sobs, and Barbara put a cold hand on her stepdaughter’s shoulder.

“Don’t, Ethnee,” she said. “You will only break a blood-vessel. All the tears in the world cannot bring us back our dead.”

“That’s just why I’m crying,” the girl sobbed, “because nothing can be done—because it’s all over.”

Patrick gave a hoarse groan.

“There’s a bullet can be put in the mare’s forehead,” he exclaimed. “The brute ought to be shot. Give the word now an’ I’ll see it done.”

He peered up into Barbara’s face, but she merely shook her head. If possible, she had grown paler.

“Let the mare be, Patrick,” Father Matthews whispered. “Your father always loved the dumb beasts. Besides, ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.’ Lad, lad, take this blow gently—don’t kick against the pricks. Your father’s hour had come—’twas the appointed season.”

Barbara’s lips moved.

“The child—my child was very young,” she whispered. “He bloomed with the spring, father, but he has fallen like untimely fruit. He hasn’t even seen the summer out.”

She stretched out her arms, a great wave of feeling passing over her face.

“No man knows how a mother feels when—when her child is dead—the little light out—mother’s wee small candle—the candle that lit up her world—that brightened home.”

She paused. Her lips were twitching, and the old priest and the two children gazed at her fearfully—this stricken Rachel.

“He was so little—so light—till he lay dead in my arms; then he grew heavy—oh, heavy as lead; so warm, till the darling limbs froze. Death might have spared such a wee child. Why, Denis had only just learnt to smile; think of that, Father Matthews—he had only just learnt to smile!”

“ ’Deed, an’ that’s the truth,” Ethnee wailed, abandoning herself to a fresh and still more unrestrained outburst of grief. “ ’Twas only this last week the darlint started his pretty smile.”

“An’ now he’ll go on smiling through Eternity,” Father Matthews said reverently. “There will be no shedding of tears for him—’tis Mary’s little lamb he’ll be in Blessed Mary’s garden. He’ll smile, will Denis, amongst the roses and lilies of Paradise—there’s no harm will come near him.”

“I want him back.” Barbara spoke with a slow and steady directness. “God has been very hard upon me. Why should I be called upon to lose both my husband and child? It—it is too hard; my cup’s too full.”

She rose from her chair and began to walk up and down the room, her lips pressed tightly together, her brows meeting in a rebellious frown.

Father Matthews gazed at her pitifully. She was beyond the reach of human comfort for a while—he knew that well, but not beyond the reach of prayer. He would go home, he told himself, and offer up a petition for this poor stricken girl and for Pierce Maloney’s fatherless children; masses were already being said for Pierce—that had been seen to at once.

“ ’Tis the funeral will be the day after to-morrow. Ye’ll be the brave woman?”

The old priest wrung Barbara by the hand, but she barely answered him. She felt that she wanted to have nothing to do with Father Matthews—he would only talk piously and bid her pray to God. But what had she to pray for now? She was absolutely indifferent as to what happened to her—she had lost all that made life worth the living.

“I’ll be coming round again this evening. Shure, the whole countryside is mourning with ye.”

Father Matthews stopped to pat Ethnee on the head and to smile encouragingly at Patrick, then he shuffled out of the darkened drawing-room—the room of drawn blinds, and Barbara drew an easier breath as the door closed behind him.

“I won’t be preached at,” she muttered fiercely, “or told to kiss the rod. Father Matthews is a priest—he doesn’t know all that human ties mean. How can he—how should he?”

She turned to Pierce’s orphaned children and eyed them wistfully. Ethnee was wiping her nose and Patrick had huddled himself down on the sofa; they both looked utterly woebegone. All at once a shrill cry rang through the hushed house—the cry of wailing women sobbing in unison.

“What’s that?” Barbara started, and her eyes dilated.

“ ’Tis the women have come round—the weepers,” Patrick answered. “Those whose business ’tis to wail at the wake.”

Barbara shivered. What a country she had come to! She could not even mourn her dead in peace, it appeared. Oh, the castle in Spain had crumbled into ruins at last; the palace that she had dreamed would be so fine a dwelling-place had narrowed and sunk into a grave.

She put her hands up to her ears, then started and let them fall to her sides as the drawing-room door opened hastily and Lord Revelstone hurried into the room.

“Oh, Mrs Maloney!” he exclaimed. “The terrible news only reached me this morning, and I have motored over to Castle Glenns at once. I don’t know what to say, I—I feel so grieved for you and for these poor children, and so grieved for myself. Pierce was my best friend, remember—the only man I have ever really opened my heart to. But I oughtn’t to be thinking of myself at this moment when I am face to face with Pierce’s widow.”

He took Barbara’s cold hands in his and pressed them, but her fingers were lifeless and utterly irresponsive, and as Lord Revelstone looked into Barbara’s stricken face he was conscious of the amazing change that had come over Mrs Maloney since the last time he had seen her, just a few weeks before the birth of her child.

She had appeared so happy on that occasion. Her eyes had been full of a fine expectancy. It was obvious that she was looking forward with delight to the time when her days would be accomplished and she would be the mother of a child, and he remembered that she had told him how absolutely content she was with life at Castle Glenns, and he had congratulated her on being one of the few people who could honestly say that they were happy. And now she looked at him with wild eyes, and there was no more soft colour in her cheeks nor in her lips; she was the picture of haggard, white-faced misery.

“You were quite right.” She smiled at him strangely. “You told me a long time ago that all was vanity in this life—that nothing lasts—that there is no good thing under the sun. I didn’t believe you at the time—I didn’t think you were speaking the truth—but you were.”

She paused abruptly, then bit sharply at her lips, and Revelstone cursed himself for the words he had said in the past. What right had he had to pour such a pessimistic creed into a young wife’s ears? Why couldn’t he have allowed the girl to be happy and to believe in happiness? Why, because he was so utterly sad and disillusioned, had he tried to disillusion Barbara?

“Forget what I said,” he muttered huskily.

“Why should I?”—she smiled, still the same strange smile—“just when your words fulfil themselves and I have discovered that everything crumbles to dust.” She clasped her hands tightly together. “Oh, and I was making so sure of happiness,” she murmured. “I thought I was living in a world of reality—not in a world of shadows—of passing shadows. I imagined—wasn’t it foolish of me—that I should have Pierce with me for years—that we should grow old together; and I began to dream such happy dreams about my little son—of all he was to be to me and to his father—how his little bright face would cheer me all the days of my life. But Pierce is dead and the child is dead. We are born to die and to suffer, it appears, and it is a pity to love anything too much or to set one’s affections upon those things that change.”

She began to walk up and down the room, her head flung back a little—her eyes very wide open, and Ethnee slipped up to Lord Revelstone and clutched him by the hand; the child was obviously scared, but Patrick watched his stepmother silently.

“I made this room so pretty.” Barbara’s voice sounded very clear—very cold. “I got fresh chintz for it—a new carpet, and I was proud of the work of my hands, and now—now—I can’t see any colour in the chintz or any pattern in the carpet, and I never shall again. ‘Vanity—vanity—all is vanity.’ Oh, Lord Revelstone, how the words that you once quoted come back to me—the words of the Preacher.”

“Run away, children.” Lord Revelstone turned to Ethnee and Patrick. “Just leave me alone with your stepmother for a few minutes. I want to talk to her. Now be a good boy and a good girl and go out quietly. There’s the car standing outside the hall door, and you can tell the chauffeur to take you for a spin up and down the drive, if you like.”

“That will be fine,” Patrick muttered. He had forgotten his dead father for the moment, but Ethnee looked at him reproachfully and shook her head, and then, hand-in-hand, the children walked out of the drawing-room—two pathetic little figures, and it brought the tears into Richard Revelstone’s eyes to look at them. But Barbara’s face had grown quite impassive again—just like the face of a dead woman.

“Mrs Maloney.” He walked up to Barbara. “I’m not going to preach to you, or even to ask you to try and resign yourself to the great sorrow that has come upon you; but won’t you try to be a brave woman—won’t you try to do your duty?”

“My duty?” She looked at him blankly. “Whom do I owe a duty to now? I have lost my husband—I have lost my child. God has suddenly taken away all the work I thought He had given me to do—the work of training a child and of making a man happy. Perhaps I was doing it badly.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, Mrs Maloney. You know just as well as I know that you made Pierce a splendid wife, and that you would have made an equally splendid mother. But don’t you realize that Pierce’s children have a claim upon you—a most solemn and sacred claim—that poor boy and girl who are doubly orphaned? Are you going to desert the children of the man you loved and leave your husband’s house to go to rack and ruin? Are you going to fail Pierce at the very hour of his burial? Don’t you think his tenants will be wanting someone to look after them? You’d never put everything into the hands of an agent. Whatever can be said of Pierce, he wasn’t an absentee landlord, remember. He lived amongst his own people. And now is Castle Glenns to be left to the tenancy of the rat and the flitter-mouse?”

Barbara sat down. She let her hands drop listlessly into her lap.

“I am only the children’s stepmother,” she muttered. “They will get on well enough without me; why shouldn’t they? And I want to leave Ireland—I want to return to England. Besides, how could I stay here in this lonely God-forsaken place without Pierce? Why, I should go mad—do you hear me?—mad.”

She shrilled the last word out, her eyes blazing, her whole body shaking with convulsive sobs.

“I want to forget,” she cried, “but here—here—I should always remember. Oh! it’s all very well to prate of duty—the duty I owe Ethnee and Patrick, but I’m tired of doing my duty—I—I really am. I have tried my hardest to do the best for everyone ever since Pierce first brought me to Castle Glenns, and what reward have I got? They will be carrying two coffins out of this house in a few days—a large coffin and a small coffin; that’s all the payment that God has made me.”

She clenched her hands together. Her body was shaking with sobs—she was quivering from head to foot. Her icy composure had broken down at last.

“Hush,” Lord Revelstone cried. He put a strong hand upon Barbara’s heaving shoulder. “You’re made of fine stuff, Mrs Maloney, and you’re going to see this sorrow through. You’ll be walking up the hillside presently with Ethnee and Patrick holding on to your hands. You’ll be taking grand care of Pierce’s children, leading them past morass and fen—bog and pit.”

“Leading them—where?” asked Barbara. She spoke with a touch of defiance. “I thought you didn’t believe in anything, Lord Revelstone, neither in heaven nor in hell.”

“I was wrong,” he answered simply. The stern, embittered man bowed his head solemnly as he made his recantation, a strange humility coming over him—a new-born faith. “There must be the shining hills of heaven somewhere, even if we cannot see them for the mist. Oh, believe me, Mrs Maloney, there must be a Beyond.”

Barbara made no answer for a second, only shook her head, then she said, in low, passionate tones:

“What I want is rest—forgetfulness. Why should I have to go on toiling—climbing? Everything ripens towards the grave. Even if one reaches the top of the hill Death stands there—Death over-riding the world—Death that spares no one, neither slave nor king—not even a child at the breast—a little unweaned child.”

“Oh, it’s sweet to have you back again, Barbara—it’s sweet. It makes me feel as if the old days had returned, and so, in a way, they have.”

Miss Ann bent tenderly over her niece as she addressed her—the widowed niece who had come back to stay with Miss Carvel at Sandstone to pay a long, long visit, for Barbara had shaken the dust of Castle Glenns off her feet after her husband’s and her child’s funeral. She had fled to England as one pursued by the furies, absolutely convinced in her own mind that if she stayed on at Castle Glenns she would go mad; for she hated the castle now—she simply hated it. It was the grave of her dreams—of her blighted hopes—the rotting, mouldering grave.

Patrick had been put under Father Matthews’ care for a month or two—he was to go to Beaumont College later on, and the sisters at the convent were taking charge of Ethnee. Barbara had certainly felt very conscience-stricken as she said good-bye to her step-children, for they had clung to her affectionately, and she could see that they were deeply moved by the parting.

“Ye’ll be coming back soon to Castle Glenns?” Patrick had demanded. “Ye’ll be making a home for us there against the holidays later on?”

“We’ll see,” Barbara had answered, but she knew in her heart of hearts that she had no intention of returning to the castle, only it would have been cruel to have told the boy so at that moment—very cruel.

“You don’t know what a joy it is to wake up in my own room, Aunt Ann,” Barbara murmured. “I can see my little book-shelf with all my favourite books in it as I lie in bed, and I can hear the roses tip-tapping against the window-pane. And how sweet the mignonette smells in the garden! How restful it all is—how peaceful!”

She heaved a deep sigh. She was lying in bed, for all that it was close on eleven o’clock, for Miss Ann had insisted that her niece should not get up too early in the mornings, but should take her ease; for the old lady realized that Barbara had narrowly escaped a nervous breakdown.

“It’s a lovely day. We must get you into the garden presently, Barbara,” Miss Ann observed. “I’ve had the hammock chair put out for you, and you must lie in the sun. It’s real August weather, darling, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I suppose so.” Barbara half closed her eyes. “How long have I been back in England staying with you, Aunt Ann?” she demanded. “Is it a week, a fortnight, or a month? I seem to have slept half my time away—just dozed and dozed and dozed.”

“And the very best thing you could do,” Miss Ann exclaimed heartily. “I never saw anyone look so ill as you did when I brought you back, Barbara, after the funeral. You’ve been here six weeks exactly—just six weeks to-day.”

Barbara nodded her head.

“Six weeks,” she murmured, “six weeks.”

A long pause fell. A bee could be heard buzzing outside, and the air was full of the warm scent of summer, and it seemed to Barbara, as she lay in her bed, that she had been eating of the lotus fruit—the fruit that sends men and women into a half dream, so that they sink under the spell of tender melancholy, and muse and brood and brood and muse and let the working hours slip by—the hours of life.

Was she sorry, though? Was it not better to drowse as she had been drowsing through these last six weeks, taking only the faintest, mildest interest in all that was going on around her, than to have suffered as she had suffered during those terrible days that had preceded the funeral of her husband and her child—days when she had hardly been able to bear herself—when she had longed to tear at her mother’s breasts and scratch her heart out—the heart that kept on aching and throbbing for all that she had fancied that it was broken—days when she had rebelled hotly, fiercely, against the judgment of God and had been utterly consumed with sharp distress, and her tears had been tears of blood—her soul had been a soul on the rack. Oh, it was better, after all those hours of burning agony—of fevered strife—to realize that, as nothing can be expected to last and all things are slowly taken from humanity—swallowed up in the past, it is wiser to yield gently to Fate and steep oneself in forgetfulness—to expect nothing of life. For what was the use of sowing seed, so Barbara had argued bitterly, for a harvest one might never reap? Better to lie quiet and to do nothing.

So she had told herself, and now six weeks had slipped away and she was still lying quiet, her hands idly locked together—drowsing—dreaming.

“The vicar wants to know if you would like to go out for a drive in his pony-chaise, Barbara dear, to-morrow—just a slow drive up and down the lanes. The hedges are looking so beautiful just now, bursting with yellow snapdragon and trails of honeysuckle. Don’t you think a little drive would do you good?”

Barbara shook her head.

“No,” she answered languidly, “I don’t want to go outside the garden, Aunt Ann. I’m just too tired—I haven’t got any energy left.”

A knock came at the door and Miss Ann’s old housemaid made her appearance, carrying a small silver salver on which a letter rested addressed to Barbara, and bearing the Irish postmark.

“Here’s a letter just come for Miss Barbara,” Lizzie observed, for Miss Ann’s two maids never remembered to give Barbara her proper title; she was always “Miss Barbara” to them.

“A letter for me?” Barbara stretched out her hand and took the envelope, but she frowned a little as she recognized the handwriting. “It’s from Father Matthews,” she murmured. “Oh, dear, I hope nothing’s wrong with Patrick, for I don’t feel as if I could stand any worry just now, Aunt Ann, indeed I don’t. I feel so broken—so shattered.”

“Let me open the letter, dear,” Miss Ann answered. She put a tender arm round Barbara’s shoulders. “You are not to worry about anything—I won’t have you worrying,” she continued somewhat fiercely. “What are Patrick and Ethnee to you really? They have no claim upon you—no real claim.”

Barbara played languidly with the envelope, then she suddenly sat up in bed.

“I must read what Father Matthews has written; but I expect it is merely to tell me what Patrick is doing in the way of lessons, and such like. It is only because I have got into a nervous state that I am always anticipating fresh trouble. Just leave me to read my letter, Aunt Ann—I’d rather read it alone, I think—and then I will get up and dress and join you in the garden presently. Oh, dear me, what a nervy person I am getting,” she continued with a faint smile, “not to be able to open a letter even if I feel that I am being watched!”

“I think it is wonderful that your nerves are as strong as they are,” Miss Ann retorted, “after all you have gone through.”

The old lady walked out of the room as she spoke, and as soon as the door had closed behind her aunt Barbara opened Father Matthews’ letter, and her brows met together in a frown, for she did not want to be disturbed in any way—to be given cause to think about anything or anybody; she wanted to forget—she had no wish to remember.

Barbara read no more. The letter fell from her nervous hands and she drew a deep gasping breath.

“Patrick ill!” she muttered hoarsely. “Patrick, that dear, handsome boy, stricken down with typhoid and asking for me. Oh, my God! why did I ever leave Ireland and those two dear children? Why was I so absorbed in myself and my own sorrows? What have I done—what have I left undone?”

She sprang out of bed. An hour ago she would have got up languidly—dreamily, and would have dressed herself slowly, like a woman in a dream, but now she could hardly huddle on her clothes quickly enough.

“So Patrick has caught typhoid, Father Matthews thinks, hanging about the cabins drinking bad water, very likely, and this wouldn’t have happened if I had stayed at Castle Glenns. I should have looked after Patrick—I shouldn’t have allowed him to run wild in the village. But, of course, I can’t blame Father Matthews; he would have his hours to keep—his poor to visit—his masses to say. It’s myself I blame—myself.”

She began to do her hair—the warm wine-red hair that was so thick and abundant, and her fingers trembled as she thrust in hairpins—she had not dressed her hair so quickly for weeks.

Her hasty toilet completed, Barbara rang her bell—rang it jerkily.

“Fetch me a Bradshaw, please,” she exclaimed when Lizzie made her appearance. “And ask Miss Ann to have a fly ordered to take me to the station. Master Maloney is ill, and I must go to him—I must go at once.”

“But you’re not fit to travel, Miss Barbara,” Lizzie exclaimed. “You’re ill yourself—you look like a ghost. Oh, Miss Ann would never hear of your going.”

“Don’t be a fool, Lizzie.” Barbara spoke curtly—almost roughly to the old servant. “Don’t you understand what I say? My husband’s son is ill; he has got typhoid, and he wants me.”

She put on a small black travelling hat and pinned a thick veil round it.

“I’m not ill really. I’m strong—far stronger than I look. I’ve just been giving way to grief—allowing grief to conquer me, but that’s all over now; I’ve got work to do.”

She spoke half to herself and half to Lizzie, then she suddenly turned on the old servant.

“A Bradshaw,” she cried, “and quick—quick. I haven’t got a moment to lose. Don’t you understand me? You’ve got to hurry, Lizzie; there’s no time for delay.”

Lizzie ran out of the room, and a minute or two later Miss Ann came rushing in, a pale, distracted-looking Miss Ann.

“My darling, what’s this I hear?” the old lady cried, running up to Barbara. “The poor boy’s ill, isn’t he? But he’ll be well taken care of, Barbara, you may be sure of that, and you mustn’t think of going back to Ireland. It would be madness for you to undertake the journey in your present state of health—you would only kill yourself.”

“Don’t worry, Aunt Ann,” Barbara interrupted. “I shall be all right—I know I shall. I must go; don’t you understand—hasn’t Lizzie told you? Patrick is down with typhoid fever, and he wants me. Why, I should be a brute if I stayed away.”

“But you’re not fit to travel, my love.”

Miss Ann laid a tender, trembling hand upon Barbara’s arm, but Pierce Maloney’s widow laughed—a strange, sad little laugh.

“I am quite able to travel—I am as strong as a horse. I’ve had my rest, and now I’m going back to work again. Your care has done wonders for me, Aunt Ann, but I mustn’t stay with you any longer; I—I dare not stay. Pierce would curse me from his grave if he knew that his little son was calling for me and that I was deaf to Patrick’s cry. Oh, why did I ever leave those children? Why was I faithless to the charge laid upon me? Why did I desert my husband’s home and my husband’s flesh and blood?”

She caught up her travelling bag, into which she had crammed a few garments and a hairbrush and comb. Her cheeks were flushed with colour—her eyes were awake and shining. Something had roused her—stirred her—the cry of a child.

Miss Ann wrung her hands despairingly together. Understand Barbara in this new mood she could not. Besides, it was terrible to the old lady to think that she was about to lose her niece—that Barbara was leaving her sheltered home.

“If you go back to Ireland, Barbara,” she cried, “they’ll be keeping you there—I know they will. You’ll never be able to make your escape from Castle Glenns a second time.”

Barbara made no answer. All her thoughts were with the sick boy. She would have flown to Ireland if she could; it was to Ireland that her soul turned, and she wondered now how she had ever had the heart to leave Pierce’s orphaned children. Why, God, even in the hour of her crushing bereavement, had given her a chance of binding her life round two young lives. He had not left her house utterly desolate. But in the madness of her grief she had railed against Eternity and had turned her back on Pierce’s home and on Pierce’s children. But perhaps it was not too late to make amends; anyway she could return to Ireland.

“Give me my chance, God!” She wailed the words out. “For Christ’s sake give me my chance!”

Miss Ann shrank back in the doorway. This was a Barbara she hardly knew; this was a woman who had been both wife and mother—a woman who must be allowed to “gang her ain gait”—to fulfil her own destiny.

“Now, what’s the good of crying, Mrs Maloney, eroo? Shure, ’tis smiling ye should be an’ thankin’ God on your knees, for haven’t we just learnt from the doctor that Patrick’s turned the corner, an’ hasn’t your good nursing had something to do with it? Why, that’s better now—that’s better; I like to see a smile lighting up your face—such a thin face to what it was when ye first came, a young bride, to Castle Glenns.”

Father Matthews addressed Barbara very gently. They were standing together in the old priest’s little garden. It was a misty day of early autumn, but there were signs that the sun would presently break through the grey clouds—the warm September sun.

There were not many flowers in the little garden, for Father Matthews had little time to devote to gardening, nor had he the means to spend much money upon his flower-beds; but some bushes of pink phlox made a brave show of colour, and from where Barbara stood she could smell the faint delicate odour of lavender, and a great bush of sunflowers stood up tall and ragged, whilst roses were beginning to have their second crop. A big tortoise-shell butterfly flew by on painted wing, and she could hear the busy buzzing of a bee hovering over a bed of brown gillyflowers.

Oh, it was good—good—to be out in the open air again after she had been for so many weeks in close attendance in the sick-room. The sea was crooning in the distance—crooning its own low lullaby, and Barbara could hear the little waves lapping upon the shore, and it seemed to her as if the world had suddenly grown full of sound—the world that had been such a silent place during the last six weeks, for hardly a sound had been heard in the room where Patrick lay upon his bed fighting hard with death. Just the chink of a spoon against a medicine bottle every now and then, or the rustle of cool linen as sheets and pillow-cases were changed, the nursing sister whispering her instructions to Barbara; these were the only sounds that she had heard, except a mouse that had kept on nibbling at the wainscot one night—the night when Patrick was at his very worst—that terrible, never-to-be-forgotten night when the doctor had given the little patient up, and had told Barbara, when she implored him to change the milk diet for something stronger, that she could give Patrick meat juice and brandy on her own responsibility if she liked, for it really seemed as if nothing could matter now.

Barbara took immediate advantage of the doctor’s permission, and from the hour when Patrick received his first sip of meat juice the little lad appeared to rally.

“Shure, ’tis a miracle ye’ve wrought!” So Dr O’Cleary had whispered to Barbara across the sick-bed. “Or else ’tis the saints have been listening to our prayers.”

Barbara said nothing. She was watching Patrick’s little thin peaked face—the face that had shrunk so woefully during the last few weeks, vaguely aware that there seemed to be more light in the eyes; but it was not till a great many hours later that Patrick was pronounced out of danger, and then the weary days of convalescence set in, with always the fear of a relapse.

But now, on this misty September morning, Dr O’Cleary had pronounced authoritatively that all danger of a relapse was over and that Patrick was mending fast, and Barbara, a little overcome by the news, faint in the moment of victory, had made her slow way down the stairs and into the garden, thankful to be out of doors again and to drink in the air—thankful above all things that Patrick’s life had been spared—just able to realize that it was mainly thanks to her nursing that the miracle had been accomplished; for the doctor had told her so, and so had Sister Bridget—it was the free use of the meat juice and brandy that Barbara had recommended that had practically saved Patrick’s life.

Father Matthews had been busily engaged in writing his weekly sermon in his study, but when he caught a glimpse through the open window of Barbara walking in the garden he put down his pen—the pen of a distinctly slow and unready writer, and hurried out to join her, and now, as he stood looking at the girl, his heart swelled within him, for he saw that the hard expression had vanished from Barbara’s face. This was no longer a froward and rebellious child of God—this was a brave soul who had accepted chastisement at the hands of her Maker; and as for the tears glittering on Barbara’s eyelashes—they were as the soft rain that watereth the hard soil after a long drought. But Father Matthews wanted the sun to shine out again—he wanted Barbara to smile; she had wept enough, he told himself—more than enough.

“Am I crying, Father Matthews? It’s only because I feel so thankful.” The smile came that the old priest had been hoping to see—the lovely bright smile that turned Barbara into a young woman again and gave her back her youth. “I don’t know what I should have done,” she added, “if Patrick had died. I should always have felt that it was my fault—I should have had his death upon my conscience.”

She turned to a bush of lavender and picked a sprig and began to pull at the bloom with nervous, restless fingers.

“I failed in my duty, you see, Father, when I left Castle Glenns and ran away to hide myself in England. I behaved like a coward and it’s no good saying that I didn’t. I was afraid of any more responsibilities; I just shirked my duty—shirked it shamefully.”

She spoke in quick broken sentences, her brows meeting together in a little frown, but the old man shook his head gently and laid quiet, restraining fingers upon Barbara’s shoulder.

“Shure, ye only did what was very natural under the circumstances,” he murmured, “an’ ’tisn’t myself would blame ye, or anyone else. Ye just went home with your aunt—to the cosy nest that had sheltered your childhood; ye fluttered back like a wounded bird.”

“But I oughtn’t to have done it,” Barbara interrupted. “I should have remembered that my duty lay at Castle Glenns.”

Father Matthews smiled.

“Aisy now—aisy now, Mrs Maloney. If every man an’ woman amongst us remembered their duty an’ did it, shure, the world wouldn’t be the dusty old place it is—’twould be heaven itself; and remember ye came back. Directly ye thought there was any real need for ye, back ye came, an’ ’tis the little lad upstairs who’ll be thanking ye for having saved his life presently—thanking ye grandly. An’ as for Ethnee over at the convent—shure, the child will love ye to the day of her death for what ye’ve done for her brother.”

“She shall love me for what I’m going to do for her,” Barbara exclaimed, then she bent towards the old man. “I’m not going back to England, you know, Father Matthews—I have made up my mind about that. I shall make my home at Castle Glenns.”

“ ’Tis the fine news that—’tis the grand news.” Father Matthews dapped his old worn hands softly together. “Why, ’tis a home ye’ll be making, not only for yourself, but for Pierce’s children,” he continued. “But tell me—ye won’t be finding the life too lonely here? For ’tis but a young woman ye are when all’s said an’ done, an’ a bonny creature.”

“I don’t feel young.” Barbara clasped her hands lightly together, and a strange far-away look came into her eyes. “I feel as if I’d lived for thousands and thousands of years. I feel as old as the hills, and as for amusement, and all that sort of thing, I don’t want it any longer—I have done with gaiety. The only thing I want to do now is to look after Patrick and Ethnee—to do my duty. I don’t expect happiness, Father Matthews; I don’t suppose I shall ever be happy again—I don’t see how I can be.”

The old man eyed her steadily. He saw that Barbara was entering upon a new phase. He had known her first of all as a young woman greedy for joy and for the frank, innocent pleasures that youth has a right to demand, and he had admired and reverenced the mood in which, a few months later, she had approached maternity. He had seen her in the ripest hour of a woman’s life—the hour when she presses her new-born babe to her heart, and he had watched Barbara’s face that terrible morning when she had stood by an open grave—the grave into which the coffins of her husband and her child were being lowered—that day when Barbara had lost all faith in God’s mercy, and her eyes had been as hard as two pieces of stone. He had been aware of her collapse after the funeral—how she had suddenly abandoned herself to the enervation of intense grief and had finally made her way back to England—weak and nerveless physically and mentally. And then the cry of a child—a child in sore distress—had aroused Barbara from the dreary lassitude which had come over her, and she had responded magnificently to the cry. She had rushed back to Ireland—she had fought a great battle with disease—a battle from which she had emerged the conqueror, and now she was prepared to immolate herself upon the altar of duty.

She did not want to be happy—that was her new attitude. She had no wish for happiness—she almost disdained it. Duty would become a fetish to her. She would take an intense and unnatural pleasure in making needless sacrifices—she would delight in carrying unnecessary burdens. In all probability she would want to make her life harder than God had intended it should be. But this was a phase which Father Matthews had often come across before. He had met it in nuns—the nuns who inflicted cruel penances upon themselves, often against the express wish of their superior. It was but another example of the hair shirt worn next to the skin and the iron girdle studded with nails.

“My daughter, don’t be thinkin’ an’ tellin’ yourself that God doesn’t mean ye to be happy ever again. Shure, the Almighty wouldn’t be so cruel to any of His creatures. There may be good days comin’ to ye for all that ye can tell—grand days.”

“I don’t want to be happy.” Barbara spoke with decision. “I wouldn’t take happiness as a gift if it came to me. I was frightfully happy a few months ago, as you know, before—before my world crumbled into ruins; but now I know that it was God’s will that I should be punished—that I should lose all that I most cared for, and I am quite content—oh, indeed, Father Matthews, I am absolutely content. I see what I have got to do now—I see my life distinctly. It has just got to be spent in the service of others; it’s all beautifully simple, Father Matthews, and, believe me, I don’t grumble, it’s all as it should be.”

Her lips took on the firm smile of the martyr who is taking a pleasure in his martyrdom, and Father Matthews, realizing that he could do nothing with Barbara at the present moment, merely shook his head; then he suddenly pointed to the flowers.

“Don’t the flowers even please ye?” he demanded. “Shure, ye’re still fond of flowers—God’s flowers?”

Barbara hesitated.

“I used to be fond of flowers,” she answered, “passionately—but really I don’t think they mean very much to me now; they’re just a blur of bright colour—little more.”

She crushed the spikes of lavender blossom in her hands—crushed them lightly.

“Don’t try to make me tell you that I like things when I don’t, Father Matthews. Just leave me to go my own way. The salt has lost its savour; I have lost the taste for happiness and it will never return; but I shall make all the better stepmother to Patrick and to Ethnee because of that. It will be their happiness I shall always be thinking of now—what they want, not what I want. Oh, after all the life of service is the best life—I am really beginning to believe that. It saves one worrying about things and building up castles in Spain; the colder and barer you can make your own life the less you want for yourself—the less worry you have; besides, you are not afraid of losing things—you see you have nothing to lose.”

Barbara walked to the little gate and stood there for a minute or two, leaning her arms upon it and gazing down the long road.

“I must never care for anything too much again,” she decided, “love too deeply; it’s a great mistake. One suffers too terribly if one loves so much.”

A slow—a very slow—smile crept over Father Matthews’ face, but he said nothing. This was not the moment to remind Barbara how devotedly she loved the little lad upstairs. Let her think herself a cold and passionless woman—a woman with a dead heart but with a keen sense of duty. She would discover that her heart wasn’t dead as she fancied it was later on, but for the present it was better to leave her alone—wiser.

“I intend to save for those children, Father Matthews—to put by every penny I can. I used to be fond of pretty clothes, but now an old frock will serve me—an old hat. What do my looks matter now? Who is there to care about me?”

Father Matthews made no answer, but merely nodded his wise old head. Let Barbara dress in sackcloth, if it pleased her, for a season; sooner or later her womanhood would revive. Presently the clouds would break and she would see the sun again.

“And so Patrick is enjoying himself finely at Beaumont College? Well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it? And Ethnee remains quietly at home with you—a capital arrangement all round—a better arrangement couldn’t be. But tell me, Mrs Maloney, don’t you feel a little tired of old Ireland by this time—wouldn’t a change now and then do you good? You’ve been staying at Castle Glenns for over a year, remember, and taking no sort of a holiday.”

Lord Revelstone glanced at Barbara very intently as he spoke. He had just ridden over to Castle Glenns and Barbara had received him in the big dining-room. The warm red glow of a peat fire lay over the room, for it was a cold damp October morning, and a heavy mist had risen up from the sea.

“I don’t want to take a holiday, Lord Revelstone.” Barbara spoke in quiet, precise tones. “I am quite content to remain at Castle Glenns. Certainly the days are very uneventful, but what does that matter? I have plenty to do in a small way—plenty to see to.” She paused, and looked thoughtfully at her guest. “It’s nice to have you back in Ireland again. We have all missed you so much since you’ve been away.”

“Well, I’m back again now for quite a long time,” Lord Revelstone answered. “Let me see, it must be quite six months since I last saw you. How are the new cabins getting on, and are not your tenants very proud of their fine quarters? But, of course, they must be.”

“Yes, I think the tenants are quite pleased.” Barbara paused a second, then she added in lower tones: “I never half thanked you for all the advice and help you gave me with regard to the building of the new cabins. I don’t know what I should have done if you hadn’t taken the matter in hand.”

“That’s all nonsense,” Lord Revelstone interrupted hastily, flushing a deep red, for above all things on earth he disliked to be praised or thanked. “Heaven knows I was only too glad to give my opinion about the building estimates you showed me; and as to having motored over once or twice to see how the work was being done—well, building is rather a hobby of mine, so I got a good deal of pleasure out of the job.”

He rose somewhat impatiently to his feet and crossed over to the big fireplace and stood there for a second or two gazing down at the glowing peat.

“How’s Ethnee?” he asked. “Fit and strong, I hope.”

“Yes, Ethnee’s very well. She is out riding this morning, damp and misty though it is. It was so good of you to give her that pony just before you left Ireland, Lord Revelstone. You cannot imagine the pleasure her rides have given her.”

“That’s all right—that’s all right. And is she doing well with her books and her sewing?”

“Yes, very well indeed. Ethnee’s a dear child, and I think she is going to do us a great deal of credit in the future. She works hard at her lessons, and she is growing up such a pretty girl.”

“Good!” Lord Revelstone still continued to gaze into the fire, then he suddenly turned his head. “I want you and Ethnee to come and pay a long visit to Castle Rathnay. Bridget has promised to stay with me till Christmas, and we shall be having some friends over for the hunting. Do you remember that Mrs Sinclair whom you met two years ago at Castle Rathnay when you and Pierce were staying with me? Well, she is coming, and I know she’d like to meet you again. I was dining with her in London only a week ago, and we were talking about you.”

“How very kind of Mrs Sinclair to have remembered me.”

Barbara spoke in low, rather meditative tones, and as she stood up, one hand resting lightly on the back of a heavily-carved chair, Lord Revelstone thought how girlish she looked—how young, for all that she was both wife and widow; but there was something in her face that puzzled and baffled him—an unnatural and almost stony calmness, and her dress was painfully austere. And why had she taken to brushing her hair back so harshly from her forehead, he wondered—the pretty hair that had waved in such soft loose tendrils about her brow when he had first met her, nearly two years ago, in England.

“I don’t see that it was particularly kind of Helen Sinclair to have remembered you. Don’t undervalue yourself, Mrs Maloney. You’re not the sort of woman whom anyone would find it easy to forget.” Lord Revelstone spoke with some heat. “Why, there’s nothing in Mrs Sinclair,” he continued. “She is just a charming Society woman, but you—”

He paused, and did not finish the sentence. It was the first time he had allowed the admiration which he felt for Barbara to betray itself in so many words.

Barbara shook her head, and a faint—a very faint—smile played about her lips.

“You mustn’t praise me—flatter me. I’m a very ordinary sort of person. It’s only your kind heart which prompts you to say what you have just said.” She hesitated in her turn. “Don’t ask me to stay at Castle Rathnay, for indeed I would rather not. It would bring the past back so vividly—too vividly.”

Revelstone frowned.

“But it would be good for you to get away from Castle Glenns for a little while. You’re living too much in a groove here, Mrs Maloney—believe me, you are. You want a change of some sort. I can quite understand what you feel about coming to stay with me, but after the first day it would be all right, and you’ve got to come sooner or later, you know. It isn’t likely that I shan’t want to see plenty of Patrick and Ethnee in the future, and of their stepmother. Why, who knows that I may not be giving a ball for Ethnee when she comes out. A fine talk there would be in the county when that happens, wouldn’t there? Richard Revelstone giving a dance!”

He laughed, but he studied Barbara attentively as he spoke, his eyes never moving from her pale, grave face.

“I would rather not pay any visits.” She repeated the words slowly. “But it would be a great kindness if you would ask Ethnee over for a few days. She is quite old enough to appreciate the honour, and I don’t think Lady Bridget would find her much trouble. She’s a good little girl.”

“Now, let’s make a bargain.” Lord Revelstone moved to where Barbara was standing. “If I ask Ethnee to come and stay with me for a month—and I know Bridget would be delighted to have the child—will you shut up Castle Glenns for that month and pay a visit to England—go and stay with your aunt, or just anywhere you like as long as you take some sort of a holiday. You’re getting moped here, and that’s the truth; you’re losing all your vitality; you want stirring—rousing.”

Barbara shook her head again.

“I would rather not leave here,” she answered quietly. “I have no wish to.” She hesitated for a second. “Oh, don’t you understand?” she exclaimed. “This place has a charm for me now. I—I should be miserable if I left my home. I don’t feel dull—I have plenty to do really. Besides, the life here suits me; it is so quiet—so absolutely peaceful, and I feel that I am doing my duty by Pierce and by his children. I am saving money, for one thing—putting money by—and improving the property gradually. I spend next to nothing on my clothes, as you can see, and of course I don’t entertain. You cannot imagine the pleasure it gives me to make little improvements about the house—to refurnish rooms and repaper them. And then the building of the cabins; why, that was a great thing, wasn’t it? Shall I tell you something else that I’m doing? I am making an entire set of bed hangings for the state bedroom—working very diligently—stitching away as the women of a past generation used to stitch, and it is pleasant to think that Pierce’s children will have something to remember me by in the future, when these poor fingers of mine have shrivelled into dust.”

She tried to laugh, but it was a sad little laugh, and Richard Revelstone felt something tighten in his throat as he looked at Barbara.

“It’s all wrong,” he muttered. “God never meant you to lead the life of a cloistered nun, and that’s what you seem bent on doing at the present moment. You’re shutting yourself up too much, Mrs Maloney. You’re drying up your youth. It’s all very well to take an interest in a house and to save money for those that come after, but you are carrying things too far. You might be an old, old woman from the way you are talking. Take my advice, now—take a true friend’s advice. Have your holiday and come back to Ireland all the fresher and the brighter for it. No one can get on without a change of some sort. You are stagnating here, and that’s the truth.”

Barbara flushed.

“I don’t think you have any right to talk to me like that. What do you expect me to do—what do you want me to do? Have you forgotten that Pierce has barely been in his grave a year? Why, you are as bad as Father Matthews, for he is always urging me to amuse myself a little more than I do. But in what do you expect me to find my amusements, may I ask? Society—what can Society offer me? Do you think I take any interest in clothes, or that it matters much how I look? All that I want out of life is just to live here at Castle Glenns and look after a dead man’s children and to do my duty to the tenants on the estate. Don’t you understand me? I don’t want anything else—I don’t want it.”

She beat the ground impatiently with her foot, and her voice suddenly took on a sharper note.

“Are you any happier for mixing with the world, Lord Revelstone? Do theatres amuse you, and parties? Do you find any solace for a secret grief in visiting foreign countries and mixing with all sorts and conditions of men? You told me, when I first met you, that you took no interest in anything. You warned me that life was a big tragedy and that men and women all got disillusioned sooner or later. You croaked out that happiness never lasts. So why, I ask you, why should you expect me to get more enjoyment out of life than you have done? You mix with the world and take all that the world has to offer you, but you cannot look me in the face and say that you are anything but an unhappy and most bitterly disillusioned man. But I—I hide from the world, and I am fairly content with life.”

Lord Revelstone drew a deep breath.

“You’ve got a long memory,” he muttered. “But listen to me, Mrs Maloney. You are making a great mistake when you compare my case with your own case. I have every reason to be cynical and bitter—but love never failed you, remember, as love has failed me. If my wife had died, the wife who betrayed me, I should have stood up against the blow—I should have looked forward to meeting her again—but there, some things don’t bear speaking about. My soul has been poisoned within me, and the poison has dispelled itself throughout my blood. But you—your heart’s merely been broken, and a broken heart can be mended, or so they tell me—but what’s the cure for a poisoned soul?”

Barbara glanced at Lord Revelstone with sudden pity. For the first time she saw him in his true colours—this good friend who had been so wonderfully kind to her and her step-children ever since Pierce’s death, and she realized that it was quite true what he had just said. His moods of cynical bitterness, his freakish fits of pagan philosophy, were all the result of the poison in his system—of the bitter cup that a woman had given him to drink years ago—a poisoned chalice.

“Oh, I am sorry for you—I am so sorry for you.”

Barbara held out her hand frankly—impulsively, recognizing for the first time since her double bereavement that there might be greater sorrows in the world than her own sorrow—heavier burdens to be borne than her own burden—deeper tragedies than the tragedy which had shadowed her life.

They shook hands silently. This was the beginning of a deep and subtle understanding between Richard Revelstone and Barbara Maloney—the man who had been robbed of his faith in man, and the woman who viewed everything through a mist of tears—the tears that mourners shed.

“You will take a little holiday—to please me? You will spend a few weeks in England staying with that nice old aunt of yours? Now, just to please me.”

An eager note came into Richard Revelstone’s voice, and Barbara, somewhat to her own surprise, suddenly nodded her head.

“Very well,” she answered. “I will write to Aunt Ann and I will go and stay with her for a fortnight. But won’t you”—she paused a second and her cheeks flushed—“oh, won’t you, for your part, try and get rid of this poison in your system? All women are not false even if one woman was. Try to believe in people again—try to be happy too.”

“Shall we both try to be happy?”

He eyed her strangely, seeing more beauty in her pale face than Pierce had ever seen, reverencing Barbara in his soul; for this was the woman who was slowly but surely leading Richard Revelstone back to the land of lost delusions—of dreamy romance, but he hardly realized this as yet; all he felt was a strange and burning desire to see Barbara smile again—he wanted her to forget her dead and to be happy. He felt he knew that Pierce Maloney—careless, good-natured, volatile Pierce—spendthrift and prodigal—did not deserve that a woman should mourn him for a lifetime. He was not worthy of all the tears that Barbara had shed on his account. Surely somewhere in the wide world Barbara would find her true mate waiting for her—a man who would be really worthy of her love and of herself. She was so young—she had nearly all her life before her—a fact which she failed to realize, but which, nevertheless, was the truth.

The doorbell rang at that moment—rang loudly, and Barbara started.

“Who can be calling?” she murmured. “Only a visitor would ring that bell.”

They waited for the bell to be answered, Barbara’s eyes fixed on the dining-room door, and Richard Revelstone’s eyes fixed on Barbara, but it was quite three minutes before old Blake threw open the door and announced in his quavering old voice: “Mr Howard Burton.”

Barbara started, and Lord Revelstone, watching her closely, noticed that she flushed and that her eyes dilated, and he felt a sudden tightening of his own heart as a young man walked quietly into the big dining-room—a tall, fair-haired young Englishman—and he told himself that he need have no anxiety with regard to Barbara’s future, for, unless he was greatly mistaken, this was an old love who had come to seek her out; and as for Barbara—why, she was blushing like a rose—the reddest rose in June.

“You did not expect to see me, did you, Mrs Maloney?” Howard Burton shook hands with Barbara, gazing steadily into her flushed, stirred face, and he did not address her by her Christian name as in the old days. “I have just come home for a few months,” he continued, “and some business brought me over to Dublin last week, so—”

“So you thought—being within measurable distance of Castle Glenns—that you would pay me a surprise visit,” Barbara interrupted, smiling. “Oh, how nice of you—how very nice.”

She made no attempt to conceal her frank pleasure at Howard’s advent, her eyes danced with excitement, her colour kindled.

“Where are you putting up—at Mike Cregan’s little inn, I suppose. Mrs Cregan will make you quite comfortable there.”

She paused, suddenly remembering Lord Revelstone’s presence—a little embarrassed, for who would he think Howard was?

“Let me introduce you to Lord Revelstone. Mr Howard Burton—an old friend of mine—Lord Revelstone.”

She made the introduction rather primly and nervously, but the two men shook hands at once, taking silent stock of each other, and Revelstone told himself what a fine strong-looking fellow the Englishman was. But Burton was not so favourably impressed by Richard Revelstone; he thought Revelstone looked sour and sarcastic.

“You’ve guessed right. I am spending the night at a queer little pot-house owned by a red-haired individual who gave me to understand that his name was Cregan.”

“You will dine here—it would be nice if Lord Revelstone could stay on and keep you company?”

Barbara glanced at Richard Revelstone, but he smiled and shook his head.

“I wish I could accept your kind invitation, but I am afraid I must get home in time for dinner; one or two men are dropping in to dinner—besides, you’re having me to lunch as it is.” He turned to Burton. “Have you ever been in this part of Ireland before? I could be wishing you finer weather. You should have come over during the hot summer days and not waited till the fall of the leaf. ’Tis the most melancholy time of the whole year—the autumn!”

“Beggars cannot be choosers,” Burton retorted. “I had to come when I could; but you are right—the autumn is a melancholy season and this grey mist is depressing—very depressing.”

He gazed about the big dining-room as he spoke, conscious that dead-and-gone Maloneys looked down on him from their canvases, and he felt that they viewed him with unfriendly and suspicious eyes, just as if they suspected the errand that had brought him over to Castle Glenns—on whose account he had come.

“You must not be judging all days by this day,” Barbara spoke up somewhat sharply. She was distinctly conscious that Burton was criticizing her Irish home, peering into the poverty of the land, and she wished he had seen Castle Glenns at its best instead of its worst. The rain, pouring and pelting down now, was making the whole place look desolate—washing all the colour from the flower-beds, turning the paths into a sea of damp mud.

Old Blake entered the dining-room at that moment, carrying a big tray. There was the inevitable boiled fowl for lunch and a great steaming ham, also a dish of cutlets, and Barbara felt glad that she had put out one of the fine damask tablecloths in honour of Lord Revelstone, for the table certainly looked nice. The silver shone beautifully and a big china bowl that stood in the centre had been filled with starry Michaelmas daisies; an excellent tart and custards would follow the fowl and cutlets, with a fine Stilton cheese to end the repast.

“Lunch—that’s good, for I am sure you must both be famished.” Barbara smiled at the two men, then she turned to old Blake. “Lay another place, please, Blake, and we will not wait for Miss Ethnee.”

Lunch commenced, but no one had much appetite. Barbara was feeling far too excited to eat. The calm tenor of her days had certainly been broken at last, the old Barbara was stirring in her—stirring strangely. She felt so much younger all at once; the blood in her veins seemed to have warmed. She knew that her cheeks were hot with colour—she touched one with her hand and it quite burnt, the cheeks that had been pale for so long.

The two men watched her, watched her intently, and Barbara was nervously conscious of this close scrutiny, but she did not resent it; she realized abruptly that she had made a great mistake in fancying that she was dead to all sensation and to the joy of life. Lord Revelstone had been right when he told her otherwise, and now she thrilled with a sense of tremulous new-born happiness. It was a moment towards which she had been unconsciously drifting ever since Richard Revelstone had spoken so plainly to her that morning. Without thinking she raised her hands to her head and began to pull softly at her tightly-strained hair—loosening it about her forehead, and Revelstone drew a deep breath as he saw this happen; it meant that Pierce Maloney’s widow was beginning to forget her dead.

The door opened abruptly and Ethnee dashed in. She was arrayed in a soaked riding-habit and her brown curls fell in wet strands about her face, but the blood that glowed in the warm olive skin, the spirit that danced and gleamed in the blue eyes, triumphed over Ethnee’s drenched appearance; she was a little kindling flame that no soaking rain could put out.

“Oh, do forgive me being so late, Barbara,” the girl cried cheerfully. She had fallen into the habit of addressing her stepmother by her Christian name. “I rode further than I meant to and have got wet through for my pains. How do you do, Lord Revelstone? Shure, your pony went like a bird to-day.”

The string of words was poured forth at a wild rate, but Ethnee suddenly paused when she caught sight of a stranger sitting at the lunch-table; she flushed vividly and her grasp of her riding-whip tightened; she grew abashed—confused—silent.

“This is Ethnee, Mr Burton,” Barbara observed gently, “my little stepdaughter. Ethnee, shake hands with Mr Burton, he is an old friend of mine; and then run and get out of your wet clothes or you will catch a shocking cold.”

“The rain never hurts me.” Ethnee laughed and shook her rebellious curls, then she proceeded to shake hands with Howard Burton, but she kissed Lord Revelstone. “Shure, did ye ever see such a drenched rat?” she called out as she made her gay exit, and Burton, who had been pitying Barbara ever since he had heard of Ethnee Maloney’s existence, suddenly realized that he had made a mistake. Barbara was to be congratulated on her stepdaughter—not pitied.

“What a charming little girl, and so pretty!” He turned to Barbara as the dining-room door closed behind Ethnee. “But you might be sisters, to see you both together—sisters.”

Barbara made no answer, merely crumbled some bread and glanced down at the white tablecloth. Yes, she did feel like Ethnee’s elder sister to-day; somehow—without in the least meaning to—she had slipped back again into girlhood.

“Are you annoyed with me for having sought you out like this? Ought I to have written and asked your permission to call, I wonder; but somehow the temptation was too great to be resisted—the longing to see you too strong.”

Burton leaned towards Barbara as he addressed her. Lunch had been over for some time. Lord Revelstone had taken his departure, and Ethnee had wandered away to her own little parlour to write a long letter to Patrick, so Barbara had shown her guest into the drawing-room and was sitting there with him—sitting in the room that she had made so fresh and charming with a good carpet and bright-hued chintz, but which she had so seldom used since her tragic widowhood.

“Why, I am delighted to see you; it is quite like old times. Your visit has cheered me up; it was charming of you to call.”

Barbara spoke in short, rather broken sentences. She was acutely conscious of the fact that Howard Burton had loved her in the past and had actually written to her and asked her to marry him, just as she remembered how frightfully disappointed she had been when he had gone abroad without proposing or even confessing to his love. Her pride had been cut to the quick, for she had felt that all her little world was pitying her, and how grateful she had been to Providence when Pierce appeared on the scene and proceeded to fall head over ears in love with her.

It was so strange to look back upon it all now—so strange and disconcerting; for had she really been in love with Howard Burton? Would she have married him had he only proposed to her before leaving England to push his fortunes in Rhodesia? Oh, of course she would have married Howard, and what was the good of pretending otherwise. Dearly, truly, loyally as she cared for Pierce and would always care, he was not her first love; her first love was sitting opposite to her now, gazing into her eyes as though he would probe her very soul, but what would he read in her soul—what could he read? Grief for the loss of her husband and child—a passionate requiem for departed joys—the dirge of an endless sorrow.

She straightened herself in her chair. Yes, let Howard gaze into her woman’s soul if he wanted to—for her soul had become a chapelle ardente; his glance could not pierce into her heart, the heart that was beginning to throb and stir.

“Barbara—may I call you Barbara?” Howard’s voice was very low and tender, but Pierce Maloney’s young widow tightened her sweet austere lips and shook her head.

He paused and looked at her strangely. The rain was swirling up against the windows and it seemed as if phantom faces were pressed to the pane and phantom fingers tapped against the glass, and the air was full of wailing for the dead, but glowing firelight played over Barbara’s slim figure and young pure face, the face that grief had strengthened and dignified.

“I shall call you ‘Barbara.’ It is no use your shaking your head like that, for do you know what has brought me over to Ireland—the real business?”

She shook her head faintly. Her heart was beating with horrible rapidity, but she would not have had Howard guess this for worlds.

“I came to see you, and I wanted to see you for two reasons.” He paused and drew a deep breath. “My mother has told me all about the money you gave her, the money that enabled her to send my sister to Davos and so in all probability saved Cecily’s life. I—I feel very grateful. I don’t think I can put my gratitude into words—no words would be strong enough.”

“Please, Howard, don’t thank me. Pierce gave me the money; it is the dead you must thank—not the living.”

This was the first reference Barbara had made to her husband—the husband who was not—and her voice shook a little as she mentioned the dead man’s name, but Howard looked at her very calmly.

“I am most grateful to Mr Maloney—most, but he gave the money to you and you gave it to Cecily.”

“He sold the portrait of one of his ancestresses to be able to give me the money—a beautiful Romney.”

Barbara’s lips tightened. She had not meant to tell Howard this, but a wild longing had come over her to present Pierce in the most heroic light. She told herself that nothing—nothing—should make her unfaithful to his memory.

“Barbara, I want to ask you a question—the most sacred and important question that a man can ask a woman.” Howard cleared his throat. He brushed all the gratitude that he and his owed Pierce aside. “Will you answer me truthfully, dear, for both our sakes?”

Barbara bit her lips. Howard was going to propose—no doubt about it; he had waited till her year of widowhood was well up and then he had made his way back to England, and he had evidently loved her all this time; but he was too late in the field, he ought to have spoken to Barbara before leaving for Rhodesia.

“Don’t ask me any questions. I—I would rather not answer them.”

“But I must ask you one question, Barbara, and I will.” Howard paused a moment. His face looked very set and determined. “Do you love me—did you ever love me?”

Barbara rose quietly from her chair.

“There is a time for everything under the sun,” she said slowly, “and the time has gone by for you to ask me such questions. I am a widow and I desire to remain a widow.”

Howard frowned impatiently.

“Nonsense, Barbara—you are so young. Why not let the dead bury the dead? You cannot intend to spend the rest of your life mourning Pierce Maloney—it wouldn’t be natural.”

“Natural to me.” She crossed her arms over her breast. She was not going to confess as much to Howard, but she was filled with a vague delight; his presence pleased her, his big masculine presence, and it was good to feel that he loved her. Feminine vanity stirred in her heart—the heart that she had thought a mere withered leaf; her youth cried out to her to have pity on it.

“Not natural to you or to anyone else. Look here, Barbara”—Howard moved up to where Barbara was standing and laid a hand upon her arm—“you loved me before Maloney appeared upon the scene. You would have married me had I asked you?”

“But you did not ask me!” She turned on him with a sudden fierceness. “You treated me shamefully, Howard, when you left England without admitting to your love. You made me look a perfect fool and I—I almost hated you, I think, when all our old friends commenced to pity me and to show their pity so plainly.”

“I explained my reasons for not proposing in my letter—the letter that reached you after you had married Maloney. Do believe that I acted for the best.”

He spoke with calm decision, and Barbara nodded her head.

“Yes, you acted according to your lights, I am quite certain of that, Howard, but you made a mistake. You ought to have spoken to me the day you called to say good-bye.”

“And so taken cruel advantage of an emotionable moment?”

“Well—why not? You just left me to be pitied—pitied.”

She tapped the floor with an impatient foot but Howard looked at her curiously.

“I never fancied you would bother your head about what other people thought. I felt certain that you knew I loved you, and that being so, I imagined that you would wait with quiet patience till I was in a position to ask you to marry me.”

“Oh, Howard—Howard,” she sighed and smiled, “how little men understand women.”

“And how puzzling women are,” he retorted. “But come, Barbara dear, it’s no use looking back. What we have got to do now is to look forward. We know—we are both well aware—that if we hadn’t made a muddle of things in the past—a stupid muddle—you would have been my wife by now, but there is nothing to prevent your marrying me say in a year’s time.”

“There is everything to prevent it,” she interrupted hastily, “my love for Pierce—my respect for his memory.”

“But you are not Maloney’s first wife,” Howard interrupted. “You know that, Barbara, so if he had no scruples against contracting a second marriage why should you have either?”

“Because I have,” she replied obstinately. “It doesn’t seem loyal to the dead somehow. Pierce was the father of my child, remember—my little child.” She appeared to shrink into herself; she summoned up memories of other days, days in which Howard Burton had neither part nor share; she tried to stifle her heart—to shroud it in her widow’s veil. But Howard, who had let her slip out of his life once, was not going to allow this to happen again.

“Don’t be a fool, Barbara. You know that you care for me and that you would be happy once we were married. You need a man to look after you, my darling. God never meant you to spend the best years of your life shut up in a lonely old house in a deserted part of the world—wasting your youth—your sweetness—your beauty.”

Howard was interrupted as he said the last words by the sudden opening of the drawing-room door.

“ ’Tis Father Matthews has come round to see ye,” old Blake announced, then he stood a little aside to allow a shabby old priest clad in a rusty snuff-stained gown to pass into the room.

Father Matthews halted on the threshold, his sharp but kind old eyes fixed on Howard Burton, his surprise at finding a stranger with Barbara very evident.

“Shure, you’ve got company with ye,” he remarked, hanging back a little. “I’ll be calling round to-morrow or the next day an’ taking myself off now.”

“You will be doing nothing of the sort.” Barbara frowned. “Come right in, Father Matthews, and let me introduce an old friend of mine—Mr Howard Burton.”

She dragged a heavy armchair forward. She was thankful to see Father Matthews—he had come just at the right moment. Howard had been pressing her too hard; she needed time to collect her thoughts, to pull herself together.

Howard was not so pleased, however, and he gazed at Father Matthews with a suppressed impatience, an angry dislike. Why had the old priest marched into the drawing-room to spoil things? he asked himself. What a shabby old fellow he looked, too—shabby and dirty.

Father Matthews was quite conscious that the young Englishman disliked him, but he was not the least annoyed. His old eyes saw further than most people’s, and he had a very shrewd idea as to what had been passing in the drawing-room.

He talked easily and pleasantly to Barbara, addressing a word now and then to Howard, but getting scant response. He had some village news to impart. Norah Sullivan had been brought to bed with twins, and it would be kind to send down a little Benger’s food to her presently, and the Widow Murphy was sick and sadly in need of some good nourishing soup.

“I’ll see to all this, Father. I’ll give the orders now if you don’t mind.”

Barbara rose swiftly from her chair and hurried to the door. She longed to be alone for a few minutes, out of the reach of Howard’s ardent eyes.

“There goes a sweet soul,” Father Matthews murmured gently as the door closed behind Barbara, and he turned in friendly fashion to Howard. “She never refuses to feed the hungry—her heart is always open to the cry of the poor; soft an’ pleasant be her bed in heaven one day. Ye knew Mrs Maloney before her marriage, did ye not? Is it changed ye find her?”

Howard nodded his head.

“She looks very thin and depressed. I shouldn’t think the life suits her—the lonely life. This is a big silent old house for a young woman to live in all by herself.”

“ ’Tis the truth ye’re speaking.” Father Matthews glanced shrewdly at Howard. “Mrs Maloney has been hugging sorrow too close to her heart—faith an’ she has, so ’tis time she began to take some pleasure in the days as they pass by; ’tis a mighty fine thing to do your duty—there’s no doubt about that—but this little woman has put a bigger burden on her back than the Lord ever meant her to carry.”

“Do you mean in taking charge of her step-children?”

“I do not mean that.” Father Matthews frowned heavily. “Shure ’twas the natural an’ right thing to do. But ’tis Barbara Maloney’s fault that up to now she’s been telling herself that happiness will never come her way again an’ that she’s not sorry; ’tis happiness she’s been pretending to despise—to renounce.”

“She will not do so any longer.” Howard rose from his chair and stood up tall and masterful—squaring his broad shoulders, his blue eyes very bright and clear. “I will take you into my confidence, Father Matthews. I love Mrs Maloney—I loved her before her marriage; I love her still, and it’s my intention to marry her.”

“An’ what’s the lady got to say to all this?” Father Matthews puckered up his shrewd old face. “ ’Tis great news to me—’tis indeed.”

“Barbara cared for me long before she met Mr Maloney—loved me dearly.”

“Then why didn’t she marry ye?”

“I never asked her.” The words fell bluntly—firmly—from Howard’s lips. “I was at the start of my career; it wouldn’t have been fair on a girl to bind her to me. Directly I found I was making money I wrote and proposed to Barbara—too late—she had just married Maloney.”

“Indeed now”—Father Matthews scratched his old chin—“an’ ye’re thinking that she still cares for ye?”

“I know she does.” Howard smiled triumphantly. “I know it. She will marry me before so very long and I shall take her out to Rhodesia. She will love the bustling, active life there; it will be a wonderful change after the stagnation of the last few months—the dreary monotony. Why, Barbara will feel like a bird let out of a cage.”

“An’ what’s to become of the cage left to take care of itself—an’ what’s to happen to Ethnee?”

Howard shrugged his shoulders.

“This old house can be shut up and Miss Ethnee packed off to some boarding-school or other. Barbara must not be sacrificed. I want her to be happy—she shall be happy.”

Father Matthews shook his head.

“ ’Tis not by deserting the old house—the house where she is so needed, or the little girl who turns to Barbara Maloney as to a mother—that Mrs Maloney will find her happiness I’m thinking; but we shall see—we shall learn in time.”

“Don’t you want Barbara to be happy?”

“Shure, an’ I do—I’ve been wanting it for a whole year; but happiness is a shy bird—ye can’t capture it.” He laughed—an odd, husky little laugh. “I wish I could see Mrs Maloney a happy wife again—that I do indeed—but she wouldn’t be the fine soul she is if she left this house any too readily! She bears up the pillars of it, mind ye—an’ the tenants look to her for everything. She’s a great way with her, has Barbara Maloney, with the tenants—she gets the rents in all right.” He chuckled softly. “ ’Tis a wonderful gift she has of managing everybody an’ reaping all that is to be reaped out of the land. She’s a born housewife. What Castle Glenns would be without her I cannot think—an’ mind ye, I don’t think ye’ll get her to turn her back on the castle yet awhile; later on maybe—years later.”

“Years later?” Howard frowned incredulously. “Oh, that’s absurd—I couldn’t wait years for my wife.”

“Think shame of yourself then.” The old priest shook a gentle finger at Howard. “Isn’t a fine, bonny lady like Mrs Maloney worth waiting for—a woman who is as good as she’s beautiful?” He drew a deep breath. “How many years was it now that Jacob waited for Rachel?—tell me that—an’ isn’t Barbara Maloney worth a dozen of that Jewish girl who thought it no shame to lie to her old father? Why, wouldn’t ye rather wait years for Mrs Maloney than have her come to ye leaving duties undone? Let her have the care of Ethnee a while longer an’ the building up of a fine old house before ye beckon her to ye across the seas. But let her feel that she’s got your home to go to later on—that a man who loves her well is waiting for her; that will put heart into the cratur an’ bring the roses back into Barbara’s cheeks an’ the sparkle into her eyes. You’ll help the time to pass—you’ll help finely; the years she’s bound to spend here won’t be such grey years as I’d feared they might be—they will just be years of probation. She’ll look into the future an’ you’ll be there—waiting for her. Glory be to God! I see the road straight in front of Barbara Maloney at last—I see where her journey ends.”

The old man’s whole face lit up as he said the last words, but Howard, who had been listening very impatiently to Father Matthews’ long and rambling speech, bent his brows.

“Barbara mustn’t expect me to wait years for her—I want to marry soon. I am in a position to keep a wife comfortably, for I have been extraordinarily lucky with my business affairs and I have no wish to continue to lead the life of a Benedict. I want to see my wife at the bottom of my table—to have sons and daughters—not to grow stout and middle-aged before Barbara comes to me—a faded Barbara.”

He rapped a small table somewhat impatiently with his fingers.

“Don’t think me a selfish brute—I am not unreasonable. I’ll give Barbara another year here if she likes, but I’m hanged if I’ll wait any longer, for the fires of youth don’t burn for ever and women droop as flowers droop—their beauty vanishes and there’s no scent left in their hair, no colour in their lips—they are their own grey shadows. Besides, I want my wife to bear me children—I believe in a full quiver.”

He stood up strong and confident, then he laughed.

“She’ll come to me. She loved me once and she loves me still, so her heart will urge her to join me in Rhodesia—her heart will be my advocate. Besides, she’s a woman—a young woman—she’s made of flesh and blood; and this old silent house—what has it got to offer her but ghostly memories? It’s a mere charnel house of dead hopes. She will find the air too heavy before long—the atmosphere too mouldy. She will pant for the fresh breeze and the sunshine; then she will dream one night that my arms are round her, my kisses on her lips, and what power will the ghosts have over her then? And as for the child Ethnee—she’ll think of holding her own child to her breast—our child.”

Howard pulled himself up sharply, annoyed to find how freely he was talking to the shabby old priest, but Father Matthews veiled his eyes with one of his rough red hands.

“ ’Tis possible that her heart may drive Barbara Maloney to ye—yet I doubt it; there’s the soul in her shining as bright as the lamp that lights up a room—an’ bad luck to ye, Mr Burton, if Barbara Maloney’s soul an’ heart ever have to come into conflict—if she’s tossed in mind between her love an’ her duty, for she’s had her fill of trouble.”

“But I would protect her from trouble—guard her and shield her—love her devotedly. Oh, she would be as happy as the day is long. I know I could make her happy.”

He smiled proudly, then turned to Father Matthews.

“She will come to me presently. I hold the keys of her heart, as the old ballad puts it. Yes, she is bound to come.”

The drawing-room door swung back and Barbara walked in. Her eyes were clearer—calmer; she was more mistress of herself and her emotions.

“There, I’ve given orders about the soup and everything; Biddy will be trotting round herself presently to deliver the food. She wants to see the twins—Norah’s twins.”

“An’ I must be trotting away too,” Father Matthews interrupted. “ ’Tis an old idler I am an’ no mistake.”

He smiled at Barbara, he smiled at Howard, but his face clouded over as he walked down the long drive a few minutes later, and he shook his head.

“Is that young man worth Barbara Maloney’s love—is he worthy of the grand woman she’s become? I doubt it—indeed, now, I doubt it! She has got beyond him, I’m thinking—far an’ away beyond. There are depths in her nature he would not understand; she’s suffered, she’s been brought very low, an’ she’s a better woman for all she’s gone through. Still, she needs a husband who will comprehend that the grass will never really grow on the grave of her little child—that she is not one who lightly forgets. Lead her back to happiness—could he now—could he?”

Father Matthews’ brow puckered up anxiously.

“Happiness—ye can spell it in so many different ways—ye can find it in such different places! But would Barbara Maloney be happy sitting at her ease in her old love’s house if she felt she’d turned her back on duties left undone? Yet if she keeps him waiting years for her—years—will this young man have much love left in his heart at the end? Will he value a woman who comes to him faded an’ with her youth left behind her?” The old priest shook his head slowly. “Och, the tangle it is—the tangle, an’ myself thinking that I saw the road plain before Barbara at last—happiness in her grasp.”

He sighed and peered through the mist, listening to the sad, interminable moan of the waves as they dashed restlessly against the shore—lapping over the wet sands.

“ ’Tis the Lord Almighty must give Barbara advice in this matter,” he muttered helplessly. “ ’Tis beyond the understanding of a poor old parish priest. I want her to be happy—she’s shed enough tears—but I wouldn’t have her false to her duty, false to herself.”

“You must leave me to think matters over. I will write to you in a few days’ time, Howard, and tell you how I feel about things.”

Barbara spoke very slowly, weighing her words thoughtfully, but Burton listened impatiently, rubbing his hands together restlessly.

It was getting on for ten o’clock at night, but though dinner had been over for a great many hours, Burton still sat on in the drawing-room of Castle Glenns—the room that had gained in charm since the candles had been lighted.

Barbara leant back in a big armchair, and the fire-glow played over her expressive face, her thin, sensitive hands. She wore a high black silk dress, but she did not give the impression of being in mourning—she looked more like some pale religieuse than a widow.

“Don’t keep me in suspense, Barbara—don’t be unfair and unkind to me. I love you so, my dear.” Howard spoke with real emotion. “I am not the sort of fellow to talk a lot of rot,” he continued huskily, “but I want you to understand that there has never been anyone but you in my life.”

“I know that,” Barbara interrupted gently, and she felt vaguely proud that she had been able to inspire such devotion. “You see how it is with me, don’t you?” she added. “You understand the position of affairs? I don’t deny that I loved you in the past, but you left England without giving me any reason to believe that you cared for me, so my love shrivelled up and—and Pierce came along and I got to care for him.”

She paused.

“I was so anxious to forget you, Howard, and to make people realize that I wasn’t fretting after someone who had gone abroad.”

“Yes, I know, Barbara—I understand,” Howard interrupted. “Don’t harp back to the past, dear. Let’s discuss the future.”

“But we must harp back to the past, as you call it,” she retorted, “otherwise I don’t see how you will understand my present mood.”

She paused to take breath, then she gazed into the fire.

“Pierce made me a good husband according to his lights. He loved me very dearly, and I was devoted to him and devoted to our child. Then came the terrible shock of Pierce’s death and—and little Denis’s death, and I was stunned for a time—absolutely stunned. I went back to England to stay with Aunt Ann, and I hardly allowed myself to think about things. I just lay drowsily in bed, and Aunt Ann wrapped me in cotton wool, and I don’t suppose I should ever have grown strong again—really strong, either physically or mentally—if it hadn’t been that poor little Patrick got typhoid fever badly and I had to hurry back to Ireland to nurse him. He hung between life and death for a long time, but at last we managed to pull him through, and by the time that Patrick was able to get out of his bed and take his walks abroad I had found the courage to go on living.”

She paused again and clasped her hands about her knees. Her eyes were still fixed upon the glowing peat.

“I did not want to be happy—I did not even ask to be happy. I felt that for some good purpose of His own God had decided that I was to be one of those women who are fated not to find their happiness in this life, or to take pleasure in the small everyday emotions. Then it was that I made up my mind to live entirely for others—to make ‘Duty’ my watchword. If I had been a Roman Catholic, and had had no home ties, I should have entered a convent and given myself absolutely to God, but being a Protestant, and having Pierce’s children to look after, I determined to devote my life to their welfare.”

Howard rose from his chair and strode up to where Barbara was sitting, and put a heavy hand upon her shoulder.

“That’s all very fine, but you know you care for me,” he whispered. “You were mine before you ever met Pierce Maloney, and you belong to me now that he is dead. Forget this tumble-down house and Pierce’s children—say good-bye to them. Come to a new world—a fine big bustling world—come back to love!”

He opened his arms. Barbara’s heart stirred within her, her cheeks flushed, her eyes dilated.

“Oh, Howard,” she cried, “oh, Howard!”

“You’ll love Rhodesia, Barbara—it’s a grand country. An old godfather of mine died shortly after I got out there, you know, and left me a small legacy, and I invested every penny in a mine that I felt would be a great thing one day; but I got a return for my money quicker than I thought I should—much quicker. I’ve made thirty thousand pounds, Barbara, and with thirty thousand pounds one can go far in Rhodesia—very far. I’ve bought a big farm, and in a very little while I shall be able to sell that farm for four or five times what I gave for it, for land is going up in value every day, and I shall be a very rich man eventually—I think I can safely say that. You shall have a fine home in England and all that money can buy in the future.”

“Don’t tempt me.” There was a strained note in Barbara’s voice. “It would be wrong of me—oh, it would be most awfully wrong—to desert little Ethnee till she is old enough to do without me. And where would Patrick spend his holidays if I went to Rhodesia? Besides, the tenants wouldn’t pay their rents if I shut up the castle and went away—I know they wouldn’t. They are quaint people and they’ve taken an odd liking to me, and they would hate a land-agent. Oh, I mustn’t leave Castle Glenns.”

She clasped and unclasped her hands. Her face was working painfully, but Howard shook his head.

“Don’t be silly, Barbara. You don’t owe so much to your step-children as all this. It’s ridiculous to suppose you do. Ethnee would be all right sent to a school; the two children could spend their holidays with relations.”

“No, they couldn’t,” Barbara interrupted. “The children have no near relations. Besides, they are quaint creatures—very whimsical—and it’s difficult to win their hearts. They were just like little savages when I first came here, but now they love me deeply, and I couldn’t desert them.”

She rose from her chair and began to walk up and down the room; her face was very tense and pale, she pressed her lips tightly together.

“I believe I do want to marry you, Howard,” she muttered at last. “I find I am not as constant as I thought I was—as constant to my dead, but I am not going to desert two fatherless children till they have grown old enough to do without me. I intend to prop up as well as I can the walls of a tottering old house.”

She paused and looked fixedly at Howard.

“It’s no use, I’m not going to be false to what I think right; wild horses won’t drag me from Castle Glenns—not all your love for me—not all my love for you. Here I stay till I can honestly feel that there’s no such great need for me—that the house and the children can get on without Barbara Maloney. But that won’t be for years, my friend—not for long, long years.”

She threw herself down into a chair. Her bosom was heaving under her black silk gown, her eyes were dark with pain, but there was indomitable resolution written all over her pale face.

“It’s very wrong of you, Barbara, it really is—and most awfully unfair to me. Besides, I think you are taking an exaggerated view of things. I expect a land-agent would be able to manage the tenants quite as well as you manage them, and what would it matter if he didn’t? I shall be in a position later on to give you plenty of money to spend over this wretched old home. You can rebuild it if you want to in the future—you can make a decent place of it.”

Barbara flushed.

“Rebuild Castle Glenns?” she asked. “What are you thinking about? Don’t you understand that this is an historical house—that it has a history? Why, every stone of it is precious in my eyes.”

“Bother Castle Glenns! Think what a miserable man I shall be going back all by myself to Rhodesia. Suppose we agree to wait to get married for a year? That will give you plenty of time to find people who will look after Patrick and Ethnee.”

“A year!” Barbara quivered. “Oh, no, I couldn’t come to you in a year’s time—ten years, perhaps.”

“Ten years! Good heavens, Barbara, we shall be middle-aged by then. Ten years!” Howard laughed hoarsely.

“I thought you would feel like that.” Barbara murmured the words faintly. “Oh, Howard, it’s impossible—you see that it is quite impossible? You don’t want to wait years for me, and it’s only natural that you shouldn’t; but I—I cannot come to you now.” She hesitated for a moment. “There’s nothing for it but to part,” she muttered hoarsely, “to say good-bye—to try to forget each other.”

“To forget? That would be impossible,” Howard answered slowly. “Haven’t I told you that you are the only woman in the world for me—that I want you and no one else for my wife? And a man needs a wife in Rhodesia—by Jove! he does. If he hasn’t got a home of his own he goes prowling round some other man’s house, or he drifts to the devil.”

“What am I to do?”

Barbara clenched her hands together. She knew that Howard loved her, and she felt that what he had just said was the truth. If he didn’t marry he might possibly go to the bad. There were a great many light women in Rhodesia, and Howard would be a rich man in the future, and have all a rich man’s temptations.

“What are you to do? How can you ask me such a question. You are to join me in Rhodesia later on.”

She hesitated.

“Couldn’t you come home instead, Howard? That would make things so much easier for me—so much more simple. Ethnee could live with us in England quite well, and I could run over to Ireland every now and then and see how things were getting on at Castle Glenns, and be here for Patrick’s holidays—for the boy is sure to want to spend his holidays in the old home—it’s only right that he should. I don’t want him to grow up into an absentee landlord.”

“It would be difficult for me to leave Rhodesia at once.” Howard bent his brows. “Still, I don’t know; perhaps that would be the best solution of the riddle. Here, Barbara, let us make a compact between us. If I find it absolutely impossible to come back to you, promise that you will come out to me ultimately.”

“I couldn’t promise that, Howard.” She shook her head resolutely. “But surely if you’ve made thirty thousand pounds there’s no reason for you to remain any longer in Rhodesia. You could take some nice little house in England and we could settle down and be happy there.”

“Not good enough.” He laughed. “Now that I’ve learnt how to make money I must go on making it. Besides, you don’t know what a spell Rhodesia casts over a man once he has been there; but I expect something can be arranged. I might pass my time between England and Rhodesia. Oh, yes, we will fix up something later on—something that will suit both of us.” He bent towards Barbara. “Now that we know we love each other—now that there’s no shadow between us—things are bound to come right. It will just be a question of waiting a little, that’s all—of waiting.”

“Yes,” she answered, worn out by the long argument—exhausted by emotion, but she quivered as Howard Burton’s kiss fell upon her lips, and then experienced a faint sense of recoil, for it did not seem right, somehow, that anyone should be kissing Pierce Maloney’s widow.

“My poor girl, how cold your lips are—how pale you look!” Howard pressed her to him passionately. “Never mind, a good time is coming for both of us—a grand time—the best time of our lives.”

He walked out of the room, vaguely aware that he had better not stay any longer, that Barbara’s nerves were all on edge and she needed to be left to herself, and even as the door closed behind him she sank in a heap to the ground.

“Oh, what have I said? What have I promised?” she asked herself. “I who never meant to marry again—I who thought my fate was sealed!”

She trembled as a nervous thoroughbred horse trembles just on the eve of starting to run a race, and then she suddenly sat up and looked straight ahead of her—straight into the home that Howard offered her, and she saw that it was no fairy palace of romance, no golden, gleaming fabric of dreams. Just a house where she would find quiet happiness, ordered ways and great comfort, but it seemed to Barbara that something was lacking—the secret flame.

She looked closer into Howard’s home. She saw that it would be expected of her to be always cheerful and happy. She would have to entertain and mix with society, and one thing she knew very well, she would have to forget the little dead child who slept in an Irish churchyard. Howard would insist on the door being shut on the past.

Barbara walked slowly across the room and crouched down by the dying peat fire—the fire that was slowly burning itself out into ash.

“Howard loves me, but shall I ever be able to make him happy?”

She gazed very fixedly into the mass of grey peat in the grate. There was hardly a spark alight now—the fire had burnt itself out.

“Dead ash!” she muttered, stretching her cold hands towards the embers. “What’s the use of dead ash?”

“Doesn’t my garden look pretty—so spring-like and gay? I always think that there are no flowers like the spring flowers; don’t you agree with me?”

Barbara smiled brightly as she addressed Lord Revelstone. They were making their way to the orchard to see the apple bloom, which was quite a picture—walking slowly down the garden.

“I think I have got into the habit of agreeing with you over everything, Mrs Maloney. We seem to hold the same views on all subjects. Yes, the spring flowers are beautiful—beautiful for one thing because they are so fresh.”

Barbara flushed.

“Ah, freshness means a lot, does it not? It’s about the best thing going.”

She paused abruptly and bit her lips. Nine years had slipped away since that memorable evening when Howard Burton had persuaded Pierce Maloney’s widow to promise to marry him—nine quiet, uneventful years, but Barbara recognized that the years had robbed her of her youth—that her freshness had become a thing of the past.

“What is the matter?”

Revelstone bent towards his companion. He knew Barbara so well now that he was alive to every varying expression on her face. He had spent the greater portion of the last nine years on his Irish property, and he had seen an immense deal of his old friend’s widow in consequence, motoring or riding over to Castle Glenns usually once or twice a week, taking a keen interest in all that went on there, and he was puzzled and perplexed by Barbara’s mood to-day—a day when all Nature was blooming and blossoming, and the air was full of the scented fragrance of spring. But perhaps she was feeling excited and overwrought, for Howard Burton was coming home to England at last—Barbara’s loyal lover—the man who had been so busy all these years amassing a great fortune in Rhodesia.

“I don’t know that anything particular is the matter.” Barbara gave a peevish shrug of her shoulders. “Only the spring days tire me a little. I am not so young as I was, you see. I feel—well—faded.”

She laughed, but her laughter was not very spontaneous, and Revelstone looked at her anxiously, for what had come over the woman whose bright, unflagging courage he had always admired so much—the cheerful, charming comrade who had gradually persuaded him to take a vivid interest in life again—who had helped him to get rid of the poison in his blood—his melancholy sickness of soul—Barbara, whose friendship had meant everything to him for years.

“Faded? What do you mean?”

“Oh, I mean a lot.” She smiled, but the smile was as forced as her laughter had been, and she bent hurriedly over a great bed of white and purple hyacinths—flowers whose sweetness made the air heavy. “You see, it’s like this,” she continued, studiously averting her face. “You know Mr Burton is coming home for good. I am expecting him to turn up any day now, and then we are to be married. Well, don’t you think he will be a little disappointed when we meet?” She sighed, her breast rising and falling. “It is the spring flowers that make me feel old—the spring flowers—and—and Ethnee.”

“Mrs Maloney, you amaze me.”

“There are moments when I amaze myself,” Barbara retorted quickly, “moments when I hate myself, for I ought not to have let my engagement go dragging on all these years. I ought to have set Howard free or married him—and yet whenever I tried to point out to him in a letter that it was better our engagement should end, he repudiated the idea. Besides, I would have married him five years ago—I was on the point of sailing to South Africa and taking Ethnee with me—deserting Castle Glenns for a time, then, only three days before we were due to sail, Ethnee got dangerously ill and had to be operated upon for appendicitis. Oh, how good you were to me! You hurried to Southampton, I remember, directly you got my letter saying how ill Ethnee was, and what a comfort it was to see you.”

Revelstone nodded his head.

“Yes, you were terribly nervous and upset. I remember the whole thing just as if it had happened yesterday. I sat with you whilst the surgeon operated.” He paused, then added in swifter, brisker tones: “Well, of course you could not leave Ethnee after her operation; her convalescence proved a very slow one—she was a long time recovering from the shock; to take her abroad was not to be thought about—the wedding had to be postponed: finally Mr Burton decided to come home himself.”

“Yes,” Barbara murmured, “and then the Glinton Bank failed and Howard lost so much of his capital. How plucky he was, though, setting his teeth together and just making up his mind to win back what he had lost. But it meant staying on in Rhodesia. I offered to go out and join him as soon as Ethnee had quite got her strength back, but he would not agree to this. He did not want me to marry him till he was a rich man once more—he was too proud to give me a poor house after all he had promised. Yes, Howard’s pride sundered us, and not for the first time.”

She sighed rather wistfully.

“Well, everything is well now,” Revelstone murmured encouragingly. “Mr Burton is coming back to England—the years of waiting are over.”

“And my youth is over too. Oh, I felt Howard was making a fatal mistake when he insisted on getting engaged to me nine years ago. I tried to make him see this—indeed, I tried.”

“I expect he felt that you were well worth waiting for.”

Revelstone spoke in low, very quiet tones, and the April sunlight must have got into his eyes, for he blinked a little.

Barbara shook her head.

“That’s the tragedy of it all—what I am dreading. He did think me worth waiting for—but won’t he change his mind when he sees me? He will feel like someone who has made an expensive purchase from a distance, and is most woefully disgusted when the purchase finally arrives, and thinks it isn’t worth the money.”

“Don’t get absurd ideas into your head. You may not be as young as you were nine years ago—of course you are not—but you are every bit as attractive; your face has gained in character.”

“Oh, Lord Revelstone, you are a dear kind friend, and you are trying your hardest to say nice things to me, but I have consulted my looking-glass.” Barbara hesitated for a second and brushed a loose wave of hair back from her forehead. “I am not a woman who spends much time staring into a mirror, but I’ve found grey hair and heaps of wrinkles lately.”

“Foolish—foolish.” Revelstone frowned severely. “I tell you—and it’s the truth—that you look charming. Besides, even if this were not the case, do you think you hold people only by your appearance? Doesn’t your delightful personality count for something?—the personality that has endeared you to a whole countryside of rough untutored peasants, and has made your stepson and stepdaughter absolutely worship you?”

“My personality?” She smiled vaguely. “I did not know I had any; but I was pretty once, and I am thirty-six now.”

“It doesn’t matter—you might be twenty-six or fifty-six—you would still be yourself.” Revelstone spoke with deep feeling. “I know you, Mrs Maloney, you see,” he continued. “I know the grand work you have done here, and that you are one of the women who will always be beautiful to those who love you. Pardon me for speaking so frankly, but we are old friends; besides, think of what you have done for me.”

“For you?”

“Yes; when I first met you I was a soured, cynical man, because one woman had failed me—one poor little weak human woman; I had a grudge against life—I made a mock of everything. But you taught me to believe in goodness—in love—in courage.”

He hesitated for a moment, then he took one of Barbara’s hands in his and raised it gently to his lips.

“You are a gardener, Mrs Maloney—a splendid gardener, and just as you have weeded the gardens at Castle Glenns, and planted flowers in them and sweet herbs, so you have weeded my soul.”

“And what flowers have I planted there?” she questioned gently, faintly amused by the quaint conceit.

“Rosemary—for remembrance,” he answered.

A long pause fell, then Barbara moved swiftly down the path. She suddenly felt a little ill at ease with her old friend—anxious to put an end to a conversation that had become much too personal.

She wondered why she had spoken so freely to Lord Revelstone and unveiled her heart, but they had become such intimate friends during the last nine years that it had seemed natural to tell him of the anxious doubts that beset her soul, for they had fallen into the habit of discussing everything together. But now Barbara vaguely realized that this intimacy must cease.

“I wonder if we shall find Ethnee in the orchard?”

She tried to speak in quiet, matter-of-fact tones, to bring the conversation back to the level of the commonplace, and Revelstone fell in with her mood.

“How lovely Ethnee is getting,” he remarked lightly, “more beautiful every day, I think. Does she like the idea of leaving Ireland and living in England?”

“Yes, I think she does. She is certainly looking forward to a season in town next year, and to a round of amusements. Besides, we are not really saying good-bye to Castle Glenns, any of us. Howard has promised me that we shall spend at least three months of every year here. Why, Patrick is at Sandhurst now—quite the man. Isn’t it wonderful to think that poor Pierce’s two children are really grown up—that their childhood has become a thing of the past.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Things are never at a standstill, are they? By Jove! here we are at the orchard. What a lot of bloom—and there’s Ethnee looking as radiant as the dawn.”

“Yes,” Barbara murmured, and as she and her companion paused on the outskirts of the orchard and looked at the girl who was standing under a gnarled old apple tree, it seemed to Barbara that she had never realized how lovely her stepdaughter was before.

Ethnee was dressed in a soft lilac cotton frock, her waist belted with black velvet, and she wore a knot of black velvet ribbon at her neck. Her simple little gown was made without a collar, and so the lovely soft girlish throat could be seen. Ethnee’s hair had got darker with advancing years and it rippled in rich masses about her brows, and she wore it knotted into a great coil at the back of her head. Her eyes were a deep blue fringed with long lashes. The glow of radiant health lit up the clear olive skin and transfused her cheeks with warm colour.

She was extraordinarily graceful, and as she stood up in her light gown, leaning against the trunk of the apple tree, there could be no question of her vivid beauty, or that her eyes were the eyes of innocence and her heart was the heart of spring. About her there hung the undying charm and spell of Ireland, but the smile on her lips was not a sorrowful smile—it was the smile of a young girl who believes with simple faith that Fate is going to be good and kind to her.

“I wish I could have your portrait painted, Ethnee, just as you are standing now,” Barbara called out in her clear, sweet voice. “Why are you waiting under the apple tree—so still—so motionless?” she continued. “What do you think you see or hear? Come and talk to Lord Revelstone.”

Ethnee smiled. She was absurdly devoted to Barbara—she had given her stepmother all her hot young heart.

“I wasn’t listening to anything,” she cried, “or—or waiting for anyone. It was just pleasant to stand in the sunshine.”

She laughed, and there was something bird-like about her laughter, then she suddenly ran up to Barbara and caught her by the arm.

“Gracious heavens!” she cried, “who’s that tall gentleman just come into the garden talking with old Blake? See, he’s crossing the croquet lawn—coming this way. ’Tis never Mr Burton coming to take us all by surprise? He should have written, now shouldn’t he, Lord Revelstone? ’Tis a shame to take Barbara unawares.”

Barbara turned very pale, then she glanced back over her shoulder and she caught sight of Howard in the distance walking swiftly up the long gravel path.

She took up her position behind a small apple tree. She was aware that she was not looking at her best. True to the habits of economy which she had been practising for so many years, she was wearing a grey serge skirt and a washed-out white silk blouse—both of which had seen better days, and Barbara knew what a contrast she must present to Ethnee in her fresh lilac cotton gown. Oh, it wasn’t fair of Howard—it really wasn’t fair—not to have wired to say he was coming.

She peeped cautiously from behind the shelter of the tree as Howard drew nearer, and she told herself that the last nine years had not wrought much change in him. He looked a little older, perhaps, but he was as handsome as ever—a big, tall man in the very prime of manhood.

“Oh, isn’t he fine-looking!” Ethnee whispered the words in low, somewhat awed tones, and her dark eyes dilated.

A bee buzzed by—a brown, velvet-coated bee, and silence fell—a silence only broken by the crisp sound of Howard’s footsteps as he gradually approached the orchard, a smile playing about his lips—a masterful smile—his head held more erect than ever, for he felt he had some reason to be proud of himself. He had accomplished the task which he had set himself to do, and now he had come home to claim his reward.

Barbara shrank back. She was afraid of Howard. He was so strong, so dominant, and she dreaded that he would be disappointed in her. He would see the grey hairs that Richard Revelstone had refused to see—the wrinkles in her forehead. He would be aware that she had faded—faded terribly, and yet he would feel that it was his duty to marry her.

“Run forward and meet Mr Burton, Ethnee. Speak to him, my dear—say something. I—I feel rather faint.”

Barbara murmured the words chokingly, and she raised a hand to her forehead as though to shade her face, and she was aware—vaguely aware—that Richard Revelstone had put his hand upon her arm and was pressing it encouragingly.

Ethnee’s smile deepened. She thought she knew what was the matter with her stepmother. Barbara was overcome with happy excitement, but would be herself again in a few minutes. She had been taken by surprise by the unexpected advent of the lover from across the seas. She would need a second or two to recover, and in the meantime Ethnee must be nice to Mr Burton and give him a hearty welcome to Castle Glenns.

She ran forward. One or two stray petals of pink and white bloom had drifted on her hair as she stood under the apple tree and there they lay like stars forming a very coronet of spring, and it seemed to Howard Burton that it was the Spring Maid herself who came gliding down the path to greet him, offering her two hands frankly.

“Welcome to Ireland,” Ethnee cried. “Welcome back again, Mr Burton. You’ve come in a good hour.”

He took her hands in his. He did not see the woman in the grey gown who stood peering at him behind the gnarled trunks of bent and twisted apple trees. He had only eyes for Ethnee.

“This is a good hour for me,” he answered, “the best hour in my life.”

He was thinking of Barbara Maloney and how soon he would be meeting her, but he could not take his eyes from Ethnee’s face; he was spellbound by her fresh young beauty—the wild beauty of Ireland, and his heart leapt out to meet the spring.

He heard the shrill, piercing cry of the cuckoo, he smelt the freshness of the earth, the marvellous green freshness, and his whole body thrilled in answer.

“I’ll take you to Barbara.” There was the least possible tremble in Ethnee’s voice. She felt stirred, vaguely agitated.

“Ah, yes, take me to her.”

Howard put up a hand to his eyes and shaded them. The sun was blazing down upon him and he felt dazed—a little bewildered, for Barbara had gone completely out of his head for a second; yet it was Barbara for whom he had waited nine years, it was Barbara whom he had come to Ireland to marry. Then, like a man in a dream, he turned and followed Ethnee Maloney.

Ethnee’s smile deepened. She was delighted with Howard. He was so very good-looking; his strong, clear-cut features appealed to her, so did his healthy skin tanned by sun and rain, and his eyes were full of quiet reliance. He had looked somewhat cold and self-contained as he came striding down the path, but he had spoken with warmth—with all a lover’s rapture—about this being the best day in his life, and Ethnee felt as excited as if Howard had been her own lover. She glowed, she blossomed; her hot Irish blood leaped suddenly in response to a new thrill—she felt that the air was full of romance.

“I am Ethnee,” she said softly. “Barbara is in the orchard. You have startled her appearing so suddenly. See, she is standing behind those apple trees with Lord Revelstone.”

Burton stared straight into the orchard, his breath coming hard and fast as he caught sight of a fluttering grey skirt and recognized Barbara’s slim figure; but why was she hiding from him so foolishly, and what did Revelstone mean by always hanging about? Why, he had been lunching with Barbara when Burton had first made his way to Castle Glenns, and Barbara’s letters were always full of him; this was a friendship that must gradually slacken.

“So you are Ethnee.” He addressed the young girl pleasantly. “Well, we are going to be good friends in the future, are we not? I am glad you have decided to make your home with us.”

He was still peering down the path, gazing at the woman who was standing behind the apple trees—Barbara, whose face he could not see.

“It is very good of you to offer me a home,” Ethnee murmured. “I should simply hate to be parted from Barbara—I couldn’t stand it.”

Burton made no answer. He had started to walk on towards the orchard, and it was obvious that he was tremendously excited. His eyes shone with eagerness; this was a moment he had been anticipating for nine years.

“Don’t come any further, please,” he observed to Ethnee when he was close to the orchard, and he passed Lord Revelstone with a curt nod, making his way to the woman who still stood behind the big apple trees laden with pink and white blossom, looking as if she had been turned to stone; Barbara who was so tragically aware that her youth had left her and that she might only be a disappointment in consequence to the man who had come to claim her for his wife, conscious of the grey threads in her hair, her chastened view of things, her lack of girlish freshness, hoping against hope that the lover of her youth would not have expected time to stand still with her.

Burton walked straight up to Barbara and held out his hands. He was aware that Ethnee and Lord Revelstone had both turned away and were walking slowly back in the direction of the house leaving him to enjoy Mrs Maloney’s company undisturbed, and he knew that he had come to one of the biggest moments in his life, for he was meeting the woman he loved after an absence of nine years—but she was shrinking from him nervously.

“Oh, my darling!” he exclaimed, and he seized her cold fingers. “Let me look at you, Barbara. My God! how I have thirsted for this hour.”

His voice was full of strong, virile passion. He was deeply in love, but was it with a dream woman of his own creation or with his sweetheart of other days?—that was the question Barbara asked herself slowly; then she turned her head. Burton looked at her and there was silence.

The moist scent of violets rose up from the grass in waves of strong sweetness; from afar in the dark melancholy woods could be heard the clear cold call of the cuckoo; the young lambs were bleating after their mothers in the meadows. The spirit of the spring was everywhere except in Barbara’s troubled heart.

“Barbara!” Howard pronounced her name very quietly and gravely, but she missed love’s golden ring in his tones and she knew that what she had feared had come to pass. Howard Burton had not found the woman he had expected to find—the woman he had been working and waiting for, and he was stupidly disappointed and surprised; he had hoped to embrace youth under the apple trees, but he had run up against middle age.

She felt so sorry for him, more sorry—far more sorry—than she felt for herself. She realized that Howard had suddenly lost a most beautiful day-dream, that his castle in Spain had crashed down to the ground even as her castle had done years ago, and she wanted to tell him that she understood everything and felt so grieved on his account. She longed to comfort this big strong powerful man for the fall of his shattered palace just as she would have tried to comfort a child for a broken toy, only she hardly knew what to say; and whilst she was hesitating and deliberating Burton suddenly settled matters in his own way by putting an arm round Barbara’s waist and kissing her.

She quivered with a sense of shame—of hot, almost intolerable shame, for she felt—she knew—that Howard only kissed her out of a sense of chivalry, and because he felt it his duty to do so because she was the ghost of his old romance.

“Don’t you find me very changed, Howard?”

She spoke in hoarse tones, determined to bring things to a climax at once and let him see that she understood the position of affairs, but Burton would not let himself be drawn so easily. He was a strictly honourable man according to his lights, and though he had certainly been taken aback when Barbara turned and faced him he had recovered himself by now. Of course Barbara was no longer young, but he was not a boy either, and if he had foolishly got it into his head lately that he would find a girlish and blooming bride-elect waiting for him, that was his own silly mistake and Barbara was not to blame; besides, she was still a pretty woman.

“Changed—not a bit.” He tried to speak with assurance. “I think you are looking wonderfully well.”

She shrank back as if he had struck her, for Barbara knew that nine years ago Howard would have addressed her very differently; the accents of worship had departed from his voice, he was trying to be kind, to say pleasant things, and she quivered indignantly, for she had known what it meant to be loved; and Howard was not giving her love—merely alms.

“Shall we go indoors? You must be feeling tired after your long journey.” She tried to play the quiet, thoughtful part of the hostess, but Howard shook his head.

“It’s nice here in the orchard. Besides, I like being alone with you, Barbara. I suppose Revelstone will take himself off soon; he seems to be always hanging about your skirts.”

She flushed, the deep red flush of wounded pride.

“Lord Revelstone is a very old and valued friend of mine, Howard. He has been kindness itself to me ever since Pierce died; he has helped me in no end of ways.”

“Well, I am going to look after you now, poor little woman; you have had a poor time of it all these years, boxed up in this dreary hole.”

“You have had a hard time too?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” He laughed easily. “I have enjoyed the fight and the long struggle. I’ve been working, you see, not sitting still with my hands folded in my lap.”

Barbara’s flush deepened. She had been working too, though she had no intention of bringing this fact forward; but Castle Glenns would not be in its present excellent state of repair if it had not been for her economies during the past nine years, her prudent and capable expenditure of income. She also disliked the disparaging way in which Howard referred to her Irish home; his tone—his whole manner grated.

“We can afford a nice roomy flat in town as well as the comfortable little place I think of buying in the country, and we will have a fine slap-dash motor—do things in style, for if Rhodesia has done nothing else for me it has filled my pockets.”

“I don’t think I should care very much about a flat in London; and yet I don’t know.” Barbara looked at her big lover very earnestly. “I have grown very simple in my tastes. The pomps and vanities of this world have rather lost their charm.”

“That’s only because you want rousing, taking out of your rut. A flat in town will brisk you up; you will enjoy buying the furniture—women love spending money. We’ll entertain a lot and go about. What do you say to lunch at Prince’s nearly every day, and dinner at the Carlton—a round of theatres and suppers at the Savoy?”

His eyes glistened. He was as excited as a young soldier boy home on leave, as keen in his zest for enjoyment; but Barbara shook her head.

“I should hate racketing about as much as all that,” She spoke with unwonted decision. “I’m not a girl, remember—I haven’t enough energy.”

Burton looked rather blank. It was evident that he had been looking forward to a gay time in town now that he had left the wilderness behind him. He had not lost his instinct for amusement, he was still gloriously young at heart, and Barbara felt more poignantly than ever how fearfully she would fail him once they were married. What he wanted was a young wife.

“You mustn’t think you are on the shelf.” Burton laughed. “Why, women of forty—even women of fifty—are as lively nowadays as girls of eighteen, and you’re not much over thirty. I’d been so looking forward to taking you about and giving you a good time.”

Barbara’s lips quivered.

“Ah, Howard, if we could only put the clock back for twelve years. I could have enjoyed myself so much twelve years ago, but now I’ve become a mere sit-by-the-fire sort of person. I’ve changed tremendously.”

“I suppose you have,” he admitted, “but that would be because you have had such a lot of sorrow and worry.”

She nodded her head.

“Yes, I’ve lost my high spirits; I have still got the capacity for happiness but I cannot be lively—all that’s gone.”

She played nervously with a long gold watch-chain she was wearing. She longed to point out all her deficiencies to Howard, to warn him what a dull companion she would prove—not at all a smart go-ahead wife, but it was so difficult to put this into words.

“Howard”—she rested a light hand on his arm—“don’t you think we had better consider ourselves mere friends for a time—very old friends, and not take up the position of an engaged couple till we have got more in touch with each other again? Nine years has left its mark upon me in more ways than one.”

He shook his head obstinately.

“For nine years I have regarded you as my affianced wife—worked and waited for you. Good Lord! what do you mean, Barbara—do you want to chuck me?”

“Is it likely?” she smiled rather bitterly. “What I said I said for your sake, realizing how much I have aged spiritually as well as physically. I wanted to deal fairly by you, not to keep you to your bargain unless you felt convinced in your own mind that I could make you happy—”

“My dearest Barbara, of course you will make me happy. Why, you mustn’t be silly.”

He stuttered and hesitated, badly at a loss for words, and then to Barbara’s great relief she suddenly caught sight of Ethnee hurrying towards the orchard, bounding lightly down the path, and she noticed her stepdaughter’s graceful elasticity of movement, her youthful spring.

“Here comes Ethnee,” she smiled faintly. “She has developed into a lovely girl, has she not?”

“Yes, she looks a perfect beauty.”

Burton spoke with immense appreciation, his eyes fixed on the young Irish girl.

“Lord Revelstone is just going,” Ethnee called out in her clear, high voice. “He has altered his mind about stopping to lunch and has decided to drive home. It’s in the way he thinks he is.”

She dimpled and smiled archly, but Barbara frowned.

“Nonsense, Lord Revelstone must stop to lunch. I never heard anything so absurd as his departing like this.”

“He won’t stay; the motor’s round at the door now—he’s on the very point of starting.”

“I’ll get him to stop.” Barbara flushed a little and turned to Howard. “Ethnee will entertain you whilst I run back to the house; I cannot have a guest leaving me like this—feeling he isn’t wanted.”

She did not wait for a reply but walked quickly away, leaving Ethnee and Howard Burton standing together in the orchard, but before Barbara could reach the house the hoot of a motor told her that Lord Revelstone had left Castle Glenns without saying good-bye to her.

Tears sprang into her eyes. So her old friend fancied that he was in the way now that Mr Burton had arrived, and had taken his departure in consequence. He imagined that he had left an ardent pair of lovers in the orchard—not a disillusioned man and a woman shrinkingly conscious that her day was over.

Barbara’s lips tightened, a big lump in her throat threatened to choke her, and she ran wildly upstairs to her bedroom; then she locked her door—locked and bolted it.

“I must be alone,” she panted, “I want to hide myself—to hide.”

She sank down on her bed and buried her face against the cool linen of the pillows; her heart was aching painfully—she felt as if all was wrong with her world.

She knew now—she was painfully conscious—that she had been really looking forward during the last nine years to the hour when Howard Burton would return to her. She had trusted in his deep affection; she was aware that there are at least few men who can be faithful to the end, and she had grown to think that Howard belonged to the charmed circle. His letters had breathed such deep devotion, he had been so constant, but now she realized that he had only been constant to the dream image, not to the living woman.

She shivered, for all the warmth of the spring morning, and looked with frightened eyes into the years that stretched out ahead. She saw herself living the fashionable London life and taking no pleasure in it, always trying to be bright and cheerful and failing miserably, and conscious—horribly conscious—that she was a thorn in her husband’s side, the wife he had married out of a sense of honour—the wife who did him no credit.

Tears rained down her cheeks. She felt she had been cruelly dealt with. All through her life things had gone wrong—for she had never been really happy—and now—now she had been humiliated in her own eyes. She had suffered the keenest sting that can befall a woman’s pride, for it was pain and grief to know that she had ceased to find favour in the eyes of the man who had been such a passionate lover from a distance. The mere thought was ageing—blighting.

She rose from the bed at last, aware that she must wash her tear-stained face and brush her tumbled hair before rejoining Howard; but as Barbara dragged herself wearily towards the dressing-table she suddenly caught sight of Ethnee and Howard strolling back across the lawn.

The brilliant spring sunshine was pouring down on the couple, on the lovely young girl as radiant as the dawn itself and on the tall, broad-shouldered, masterful man who had such a keen zest for pleasure after his years of toil—Howard, who was in the very prime of life—a fine, strong, healthy animal.

They were laughing as they crossed the lawn. Howard had evidently been telling Ethnee some story, for she was glancing up into his face, her eyes bright with appreciation, and Howard beamed on his pretty companion, pleased with himself and with Ethnee—very, very pleased.

Barbara started, then she gave an odd jerky little laugh.

“That’s how the wind blows,” she muttered. “Is Ethnee going to win what I have lost—catch a heart on the rebound?”

She turned paler than ever, then raised her hand and pulled down her bedroom blind. She had a strange fancy that there was something dead in the room—that for good and for all she had coffined love.

“Why, Father Matthews, you ought not to have troubled to walk up to Castle Glenns on such a hot afternoon; you look quite tired. I would have sent the car down for you if I’d known you thought of coming up to-day, for Mr Burton has purchased a lovely motor and we are exercising it for him.”

Barbara laughed, but her laughter did not ring quite true, and she spoke in short broken or rather hurried sentences. She was kneeling in the very centre of a new herbaceous border in which she took great interest, trying to find a certain destructive snail, and the old priest had come into the garden in search of her; but he panted a little as the result of an uphill walk, for Father Matthews was beginning to find his years weighing somewhat heavily upon him. Besides, it was a hot, baking August afternoon, one of those heavy, sultry days when haze hangs over everything and the air throbs with heat.

“Shure, I wanted to come down an’ see ye to-day.” Father Matthews paused and leaned somewhat heavily upon his stick; his cassock was as worn and shabby as ever, as besprinkled with snuff, but it hung more loosely over his shrunken form, his spare bowed shoulders.

“Yes?” Barbara looked up from her flower border. The air was full of the warm spicy odour of pinks and clove carnations, and she was kneeling by a big lavender bush, and the delicate spikes of the lavender stood out with fine distinctness.

“Be lavin’ the flowers to take care of themselves,” Father Matthews went on. “We’ll be sitting in the arbour together an’ having a fine talk; ’tis a talk I came round for.”

Barbara collected her gardening tools together and left the big border. Her eyes looked a little troubled, and there was the least trace of nervousness in her manner, but she walked cheerfully enough down the long gravel path, pointing out some fine hollyhocks to the old priest; but for once in his life Father Matthews could see no beauty even in flowers, for his old heart was hot within him, he fairly boiled with indignation.

“What’s this they’re telling me?” he demanded, turning almost fiercely on Barbara as they settled themselves in the arbour.

“I don’t know what they are telling you, so how can I say.”

“ ’Tis no use trying to laugh the matter off.” Father Matthews shook his old head. “Ye know as well as anything to what I’m referring. What have ye been about to let that little Ethnee steal your lover from ye? ’Tis an almighty shame.”

“Why is it a shame?” Barbara’s voice rose very clear and cool. “I soon made the discovery, and so did Howard, that we were no longer in great sympathy with each other; our views are different on so many subjects. Besides, I’ve grown too old for Howard; women age so much sooner than men.”

“ ’Tis a cruel piece of work all the same,” the old priest muttered, “an’ I’m blaming Ethnee, I tell ye. An’ as to Mr Burton”—he clenched his hands—“ ’tis badly the fellow has treated ye.”

“You mustn’t blame Howard or Ethnee.” Barbara spoke in sharp, decided tones. “I was responsible for the breaking off of the engagement. I told Howard I couldn’t marry him in May—nearly three months ago.”

“An’ would ye have done so if Mr Burton had been the fond lover ye’d thought to find him? ’Twas your pride made ye give him up. Shure, ’twas your pride.”

“Not altogether. I recognized we should not be happy; I felt he needed a younger, brighter wife. Oh, it wasn’t at all hard to break with Howard—quite simple in point of fact, and I promised him we would always be good friends. I persuaded him to prolong his visit to Castle Glenns.” She smiled a firm smile.

“Guessing what would happen?”

“Absolutely certain what would happen, and subsequent events proved that I was quite right. But mark you, Father, neither Ethnee nor Howard had the least idea at the time where they were drifting; but I knew that if they were constantly thrown together they would end by falling in love with each other.”

“An’ye didn’t mind?”

“What right had I to mind? My part in Howard’s life was over, and I wanted to compensate him if I could for the lonely years he had spent in Rhodesia; besides, Ethnee liked him from the first—I was quick to see that.”

“An’ so the child robbed the woman who had been more than a mother to her! I’ll be telling Ethnee a few home truths when I see her—that I will now.”

“You will do nothing of the sort, Father Matthews.” A note of command made itself heard in Barbara’s voice. “Ethnee absolutely refused to have anything to do with Howard at first; it was only when she realized how much I desired the marriage that she yielded to the promptings of her own heart; she was loyalty itself to me.” Barbara paused for a second. “I am much happier as things are—I am indeed. The more I see of Howard the more I realize what a failure our marriage would have been; only a girl out of the schoolroom could equal him in his joie de vivre, for he is like a big schoolboy himself. Why, he and Ethnee talk all day long of the good time they are going to have. And why shouldn’t they be happy and high-spirited? They have every reason to think this world a pleasant place.”

“An’ what are ye making of this world—will ye tell me that now?”

Barbara’s lips quivered.

“It’s a grey world, Father Matthews, for the weary at heart—a lonely world. I wish Aunt Ann wasn’t dead.” She played with a sprig of lavender that she had plucked from the big lavender bush. “I shall get along all right, though, you need not worry about me. Pat will come back to Castle Glenns every now and then and spend his leave here, and I shall take a great pleasure in looking after things for him. But of course when he gets him a wife in the future, oh! then my day here will be over altogether.” She shaded her eyes with the sprig of lavender. “I almost wish I had the courage to become a nun. Should I ever have a vocation, do you think? There’s peace in a convent.”

The old man laughed—soft, pitiful laughter.

“There’s peace to be found everywhere, my daughter. Shure, the convent isn’t for you—a poor nun ye’d be making.”

“I think I should make a very good nun. I have crucified most of my earthly affections anyway.” Barbara crushed the spike of lavender between her fingers, then turned to the priest, half smiling, half sighing. “I’m tired, Father Matthews—tired of the world—and the world has got tired of me. I want to hide away somewhere later on—when Pat doesn’t need me here; I really am tired.”

“Shure, don’t I know it?” The old man’s voice was full of the most tender compassion, then he looked hard into Barbara’s face.

“When’s Lord Revelstone coming home? Is he still wandering in foreign parts?”

“I suppose so. He wrote to me from the Balkans two months ago—I haven’t heard from him since.”

“Does he know that it’s all off between yourself and Mr Burton?”

Barbara’s face quivered.

“No—not unless someone else has conveyed the news to him—I haven’t.”

“Shure, he’d be interested to hear that Ethnee is to be married to Mr Burton. I’d be writing an’ telling him—indeed I would.”

“I doubt if a letter would find him. He said when he last wrote that he should be making his way further afield presently and not returning to Ireland for ages. His bankers might know where he is; I could send an invitation to the wedding to the bankers and ask them to forward on the letter—it might reach him ultimately.”

She leaned forward. “Listen, I hear voices—Ethnee’s voice and Howard’s; they are coming this way. Now mind you are nice to little Ethnee.”

She leaned forward smiling as Burton and Ethnee made their appearance, coming slowly round the bend of the path, but Father Matthews frowned, beating an impatient tattoo upon his old knees.

“The impudent pair of them,” he muttered. He could see that Burton was looking particularly pleased with himself; he had the gay air of a man with whom all things are going well. He was smiling all over his brown face as he listened to what Ethnee was saying, and the girl for her part was gazing up at her lover as if he were the only person in the world.

“Don’t they look happy?” Barbara spoke very gently—almost in a whisper. “It is pretty to watch Ethnee as she gets more and more in love, and as for Howard—”

“An’ don’t the two of them ever think who’s had to pay for their happiness?” Father Matthews grunted the words out.

“I hope not,” Barbara answered, rising from her seat. “Now, come and congratulate Ethnee and wish her joy.”

The old man’s face hardened and he shook his head.

“I’ll be doing nothing of the sort—’tis disappointed I am in Ethnee.”

Barbara said no more, but walked slowly down the path to meet the engaged couple, and Father Matthews, watching from the arbour, noted how gaily she smiled and rallied them, and at last she took Ethnee by the hand and led the girl up to the arbour.

“Here’s Ethnee come to be congratulated,” she said lightly, then turned away to rejoin Burton.

Ethnee glanced rather timidly at the old priest. She was aware that he was angry with her—very angry.

“So ye’ve stolen Barbara’s sweetheart?” Father Matthews did not mince words, but spoke his mind out boldly. “ ’Tis your stepmother’s heart ye’ve done your best to break.”

Ethnee flushed a deep crimson, then shook her head.

“You are wrong, Father,” she said simply. “You are quite wrong. Barbara does not love Howard. She would never have given him up if she had loved him. She just couldn’t have!”

“So that’s what ye think!” Father Matthews gave a disdainful sniff. “That’s all ye know of the woman who’s been more than a mother to ye. Ye would make her out as selfish as yourself, eh—a woman fit to be a saint!”

A faint smile curved Ethnee’s lips, a wise smile.

“Don’t be angry,” she murmured, “because I am telling you the truth. If Barbara had loved Howard—really loved him—she would have tried to keep his love—she would have behaved quite differently. I am a woman, so I know.”

“A woman, indeed—a mere slip of a girl!”

“A woman,” Ethnee repeated gravely. “Oh, Father, don’t think so badly of me. I wouldn’t have taken Howard from Barbara if she had cared deeply for him—I would have died first; but he doesn’t really count in her life.”

“An’ what about the nine years she waited for him?”

“Those nine years? I don’t fancy they belonged to Howard—I think not.” Ethnee paused abruptly. “Perhaps one day we shall find out to whom those years belonged, for I am getting clever, Father, at guessing riddles. I’m no longer a little girl, you see.”

“Clever in your own conceit.” He snapped the words out, but Ethnee refused to be angry.

“Clever in understanding Barbara. She has always been a beautiful mystery to me, but I think I’ve seen deep down into her heart lately—an’ it’s by no means a dead heart.”

“Child—what’s in your mind? Now, Ethnee, I’ll be having the truth out of ye.”

Ethnee hesitated for a second, then she leaned towards the old priest and whispered in his ear—it was quite a long whisper.

“Glory be to God!” Father Matthews’ face lit up, his eyes twinkled. “An’ she never guesses herself, ye think?—nor he either? But who’ll be bringing the precious pair together?”

“Fate,” Ethnee answered softly, her eyes wandering to her big, burly lover. “There’s no gainsaying fate. What is to be will be.”

She said the words with a touch of true Irish fatalism, then she bent towards Father Matthews, her lips quivering a little.

“Shall I tell you a secret? When women love men they are not afraid of them. Now Barbara was afraid of Howard—afraid he’d think she had aged since they last said good-bye.”

“An’ wouldn’t ye have thought the same an’ been afraid too—given a grey thread in your hair an’ less colour in your cheeks?”

Ethnee laughed scornfully.

“Afraid of Howard! Love is blind—love sees no more than he should see.”

She spoke with bright and cheerful confidence—the confidence of extreme youth, but Father Matthews did not wish her a more bitter knowledge of the hearts and ways of men. Let Ethnee be content to understand her own sex. She would always be young and beautiful in Howard Burton’s eyes—the disparity in their ages would ensure this—a disparity on the right side—so why shake her faith in love? She was facing a happy future. Let her keep all her illusions and carry them with her into her wedded life—all her pretty dreams and girlish fancies; for Howard could be trusted not to fail Ethnee as he had failed Barbara—or was it Barbara who had failed Howard Burton?

Father Matthews took a pinch of snuff, then bent towards the young girl.

“Ethnee, a word in your ear. I’d not be leaving things too much to fate, as ye call it. I’d be writing a letter to Lord Revelstone—that I would—an’ asking him to come home for your wedding. I’d be giving him a hint how the land lies.”

“Would you now, Father?” Ethnee smiled whimsically. “And what if I told you that such a letter had been written and posted?”

“I’d be calling ye a wise child,” he answered delightedly, “an’ myself a foolish, blundering old man.”

“Only four days to your wedding, Ethnee—just four days!”

Barbara smiled fondly at her stepdaughter. She was sitting in the drawing-room at Castle Glenns with Ethnee, enjoying one of those idle moments that come at the close of a busy day.

“Yes, and I do feel so happy,” Ethnee murmured. Then she glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “Lord Revelstone will be coming round presently. It’s good of him having arranged to take up his quarters at the little inn in the village, isn’t it, so as to be on the spot for the wedding, and he’s undertaking the duties of a trustee, and all that.”

“He is the soul of kindness,” Barbara answered; “he always has been. Why, think how good it was of him making up his mind to come back to England just to see you married, child. But you were a bold little person to write and ask him to return, all the same, and how the letter reached him is a wonder considering that he was wandering in the Caucasus.”

“Oh, my letter was bound to reach him.” Ethnee spoke with quiet confidence. “But do you think he’s coming back only on my account—taking all that long journey just to see little Ethnee Maloney married?”

“Why, what else could bring him back?”

Barbara rose from her chair as she spoke and walked to the window. It was a grey September afternoon and there was a hint of storm in the air. The wind was beginning to rise and to agitate the sea, but somehow she did not feel at all depressed by the windy, stormy weather. She was happier than she had been for a long time. It was so good to know that she would shortly see her old friend again. She had missed Richard Revelstone very much during the months he had spent abroad—more than she had thought she would have missed anyone.

“I’m thinking that might be his ring at the doorbell now.” Ethnee sprang up from her seat; her eyes beamed with mischief. “I’ll be running down to meet him in the hall,” she continued. “He deserves a kiss for that fine necklace he sent me, and he’ll get it too!”

She danced out of the room and Barbara moved from the window back to her chair, then crossed her hands gently in her lap, a vague, dreamy smile playing about her lips.

“Friendship,” she murmured. “How much better friendship is than anything else—the calm, quiet friendship between a man and a woman.”

She raised a hand to her hair and gave it a soft pat. She was conscious that it was waving charmingly above her brows, and she had forgotten that there were any grey threads in it, and she knew that she was wearing a pretty and becoming dress. A sense of her own grace had returned to Barbara. Having once accepted the fact that youth had passed her by, she was beginning to realize that a woman can be beautiful at all ages, and she knew she was looking her best to-day.

The door opened—opened abruptly, and Revelstone walked in, and it seemed to Barbara as if she had never been so glad to see anyone in all her life, for how kind his eyes were, and how true! He knew all about the hidden tragedy of life, as she did; they had both drunk deep of a bitter cup, so there was a subtle comradeship between them in consequence—a strange sympathy.

“Oh, it’s so nice to see you again.”

She swept forward to meet him. Her eyes were shining, her cheeks were flushed with colour—there was no lack of bloom in them now, and the soft creamy gown she was wearing fell in long graceful lines about her figure. She had even pinned a rose amongst some laces at her breast—a deep red rose.

“And isn’t it good to see you, Barbara—isn’t it good!” Revelstone took her by the two hands and gazed steadily into her face. “I’ve been thinking of you so,” he continued. There was a husky note in his voice. “I’ve been longing to know how things were with you—what was happening here, and when the news came that you had broken with Howard Burton and that he was to marry Ethnee—”

“Don’t let us talk of that,” Barbara interrupted. “I don’t want to enter into long explanations to-day. But I should like you to understand that things have turned out just as I hoped they would, and that this marriage simply delights me.”

There was no mistaking the fact that she spoke with conviction, and Lord Revelstone recognized this and a heavy load was lifted from his heart; he smiled at Barbara in his turn.

“That’s all right then; so Ethnee wrote the truth to me after all—dear little Ethnee. To the end of my days I shall be grateful to her—amazingly grateful.”

“And why should you be so grateful to Ethnee?” Barbara looked at him inquiringly.

“She’s cleared my way for me, for one thing,” he answered, “and she had the courage to write plainly to me—very plainly. Barbara dear—don’t you know what’s brought me back to Ireland?”

He was addressing her by her Christian name boldly, and there was a note in his voice which she had never heard before—a note that alternately delighted and dismayed her, and it seemed to Barbara Maloney as if the world was beginning to spin round again—her quiet, subdued world.

“You’ve come back for the wedding—for Ethnee’s wedding.”

She tried to speak calmly, quietly, but her heart was beating very rapidly.

“No, I have come for some other reason—for a dearer, a more personal reason.” He looked hard into Barbara’s eyes. “Oh, my fair, what have we been about all this time not to realize—not to understand—what’s been happening to us? I love you, Barbara—I, who thought it wasn’t in me to love again—I love you as I have never loved a woman before; and you—oh, don’t tell me that you do not care for me! Give our friendship its true name, my dear—call it love!”

She shrank back, a startled look coming over her face, her pretty colour dying away.

“Oh, no—no!” she cried. “Don’t talk to me like this. I entreat you, Lord Revelstone—I—I implore you. I want you to be my friend, and nothing else. I am afraid of love—most horribly afraid. Love has failed me so often—failed me so cruelly.”

She trembled from head to foot. A wild look had come into her eyes; her peaceful, confident manner had deserted her. She looked startled, hopelessly dismayed.

“I never want to love anyone again,” she murmured. “I shouldn’t dare; I’m resigned to being lonely. Oh, spare me, Lord Revelstone—spare me any more pain.”

She sat down on the sofa and began to bite at a gold chain she was wearing. There was a tormented, harassed look about her—a hunted look.

“Oh, my dear—my dear.” Revelstone opened his arms yearningly. “Don’t be afraid of me or of my love. Don’t think I’d ever fail you. I’m a different sort of man to Pierce or to Howard Burton. I’ve gone through a lot, just as you have, and I understand what it means to have a sick soul. We have both had our disappointments and our tragedies—our castles in Spain that came to nothing; Fate has made shipwreck of our lives and spring is over for us, and we know it. But there’s such a thing as an Indian summer, dear—a warm, glorious Indian summer, and you are a young woman yet if you’d only believe it, Barbara; oh, my dear—” He paused, words failing him.

Barbara shook her head.

“But I’ve never thought of you except as a friend,” she faltered. “It’s so difficult to realize that you love me. When did you make the discovery, and how?”

He flushed awkwardly.

“ ’Twas when Ethnee wrote to me,” he answered. “She didn’t put much in her letter, but somehow I gathered from it that you would be glad to see me again, and the child gave me to understand how she guessed that I cared for you, and as I read her letter—that quiet, demure little letter—why, it came upon me like a great blinding flash that Ethnee was right, and I knew I loved you—that I’d loved you for the last nine or ten years.”

“So Ethnee has done this, has she?” Barbara sprang up from the sofa. Her face had turned absolutely bloodless, and her eyes were glowering in her head. “To set her own conscience clear—to make her feel that she hadn’t done me any real harm by robbing me of Howard’s love—she tried to arrange a marriage for me, behaving just like one of those dreadful old Irishwomen—those marriage brokers—the old women who arrange marriages between the peasants. But I think I might have been spared this humiliation—I—I really do. I must apologize to you, Lord Revelstone. My stepdaughter had no right to make such an appeal to your quixotic chivalry.”

“Don’t be so foolish, Barbara—so proud and so headstrong. I’ve told you that I love you, and I’m not in the habit of telling lies. Ethnee did quite right; she saw how the wind lay.”

“Ethnee behaved shamefully.”

Barbara suddenly began to cry. She sobbed noiselessly for a few minutes, but the soft flow of tears relieved her. Still, she was in a very overwrought state, and Revelstone recognized this and decided that he must give her some little time to recover from the shock of his sudden proposal.

He had spoken too abruptly. He ought to have waited a little. He had not made sufficient allowance for Barbara’s extreme sensitiveness. Man-like, he had rushed a delicate situation; a woman would have displayed more finesse—more tact; but still, Barbara understood what was in his mind now, and that was the great thing—he had unbared his heart.

“Dear, I am going to leave you to yourself to think all this over. I will come round to Castle Glenns to-morrow morning, and by that time I trust you will have decided to be kind to me. Why, do you know, Barbara, I feel that we may have such splendid years in front of us for all we can tell—such grand years. We are so exactly suited to each other, you and I, and that’s the great thing in marriage, isn’t it? Besides, it was you, and only you, my dear, who made me realize that the end of all things is not vanity—that the salvation of all things is Love.”

“But I thought you were my friend—just my friend.”

Her eyes rebuked him, her voice reproached him, but he laughed triumphantly—laughed because she was afraid, this dear, sweet, foolish Barbara, of falling under Love’s strong spell. She had made two unsuccessful voyages with Love—or more possibly Love’s counterfeit—steering at the prow, and each voyage had ended in shipwreck, and now she was afraid—horribly afraid—to set sail again for the Fortunate Isles—for the land of the Heart’s Desire.

“Yes, I am your friend—always and eternally your friend,” he answered, “but I am the man who loves you too, and who has made up his mind to marry you. Don’t forget that, Barbara.”

She made no answer; she let him walk slowly out of the room, she let him descend the stairs, but when the great hall door of Castle Glenns slammed behind Revelstone Barbara started violently and pressed her hands to her forehead.

“Oh, does he mean it?” she muttered. “Can it be true? Am I to find Love after all these years and to walk hand-in-hand with Love to the end?” She drew a deep, gasping breath. “Have I cared for Richard Revelstone all the time?” she asked herself. “Have I felt more than friendship for him? And was that why I shrank from Howard when he came home—why I told myself that I was too old for Howard—not a suitable wife for him at all? For somehow I don’t feel middle-aged now; I—I feel—I feel—”

The door opened before she could finish the sentence, and Ethnee dashed in, her face quivering with excitement.

“Oh, Barbara,” she exclaimed, “an’ what did he say to you now? An’ isn’t it grand to have your old friend back again? Shure, it’s queer to feel that Howard and Lord Revelstone are staying at the same inn together; can’t you feel the finger of Fate moving us all where we should go—marshalling us into line? An’ oh, isn’t it lovely to know that Pat’s coming back to-morrow too for the wedding—coming on leave from Sandhurst? Shure, ’tis all grand—grand!”

Ethnee spoke in short broken sentences, hardly aware what she was saying in her reckless excitement, but Barbara shook her head.

“Don’t talk to me, Ethnee—don’t ask me any questions. I am awfully tired, and I’m going straight to my room. I want to lie down and rest—and don’t disturb me to-night, dear. I’ll just have a cup of soup for my dinner—that’s all.”

Barbara moved slowly towards the door and Ethnee made no attempt to detain her. Perhaps she realized that having put a match to a slumbering fire it was just as well to leave the fire to burn up by itself; for the look in Barbara’s eyes told her that Revelstone had declared his love that afternoon. She realized that the proposal had taken place, so Barbara had better be left in peace to think things over. Yes, it would be best for her to go to her room and lie down on her bed—to fall asleep presently and dream—dream all her headaches away—all her heartaches, and wake up refreshed at sundawn.

So Ethnee told herself, and she drew a deep breath of relief as the door closed behind her stepmother, then all at once the low roar of distant thunder made the girl start and drew her to the window. The sky looked very dark and stormy, and rain had begun to pelt down.

“There’s a storm coming up,” she murmured with a quick shiver. “What a pity, just when Barbara needs a good night’s rest to restore her to herself. Oh, how angry the sea looks—and how black the sky has got! There will be anxious hearts amongst the fisher folk to-night.”

She leaned out of the window and noticed how the wind was lashing the waves. Yes, the sea was certainly preparing to wage war against the land.

“It’s going to be a wild night.”

Ethnee shook her head, then she pulled the curtains across the window to hide out the angry sea from view, the frowning skies, but the wind went on shrieking about Castle Glenns like a banshee—moaning like a lost soul.

Ethnee crossed herself nervously. She had a weird feeling that the spirits of the dead were abroad to-night—that there was disaster in the air.

Barbara slept peacefully through the wild storm that raged round Castle Glenns that night. She failed to hear the wind “keening” like a banshee at every window—its rise and swell did not awake her. She was unaware that a wild south-west storm was strewing the Atlantic with wrecks; she did not recognize that the Angel of Tempest was abroad.

She had sobbed herself to sleep, and yet her tears had been happy tears. Her tired heart, sceptical of love, had at last been won back to a belief in love; her yearning for the love that was of the soul as well as of the flesh was to be satisfied at last. A lonely human being who had known distress and disillusion had come to Barbara for solace and affection, and this knowledge—the precious knowledge that someone really wanted her—had mounted to her brain and thrilled every nerve in her body; her heart went out to meet another heart, and so, in the twilight of waning day, love had been born.

She slept dreamlessly, but just as the dawn was breaking—a pale angry dawn—eager hands—cold, trembling little hands—knocked wildly at Barbara’s door, and Ethnee’s voice could be heard loudly, pitifully, demanding admission.

Barbara sprang out of bed, huddled on a loose white wrapper and rushed to unlock her door. She could hear the storm raging and beating round the house; she felt that she had slept too long.

“Ethnee, what is it?”

She opened the door to find Ethnee crouching outside, and the young girl was as white as her nightdress; her hair fell in tumbled masses over her shoulders, her eyes were dark with fear.

“There’s such a storm raging, Barbara, and a fisher boat is in distress, so they are going to put the lifeboat out to sea. Blake has just been down to the shore to see what is happening.”

Ethnee’s teeth chattered in her head. She had slipped a long blue serge coat on over her nightgown and thrust her little bare feet into red leather slippers, but Barbara in her loose white wrapper did not look much older than her stepdaughter. Her long sleep had done wonders for her, and her hair fell so softly about her face—the few grey threads were hardly noticeable.

“Dear, I’ve been asleep, I have slept through the storm.”

Barbara pressed her hands to her forehead; she was still half asleep, dazed, confused. She could hear the wind roaring outside and the sullen pelting of the rain, and she was conscious at the same time of a strange tumult in her soul. The curtains were rustling in her bedroom, quivering as the wind blew them out, and the candles were guttering in their sockets; she had forgotten to extinguish them before she fell asleep.

“You must wake up now; every soul is awake in the house. Barbara, we must go down to the beach.”

“To the beach?” Barbara’s voice was half drowned in the wild roar of the gale. “What good can we do?”

“Don’t you understand? The lifeboat is going out, an’ Howard’s volunteered to take an oar—so has Lord Revelstone. Nearly all the boys are with the fishing fleet, there are only a few old fellows to man the boat—so, Barbara, they are going—our men!”

Ethnee’s voice rose to a wail as she said the last words, and she clutched with trembling, tenacious fingers at her long blue coat, trying to fasten the buttons.

“Is this true?” Barbara reeled back and her eyes dilated. “Ethnee—speak!”

“Blake has just come in with the news. Put your feet into boots and let us hurry down to the shore. We must be there whatever happens.”

Ethnee spoke in strained, broken sentences. The wind was roaring up from the sea, and when the two women ran down the stairs a few seconds later and Blake threw open the hall door for them to pass out, the violence of the gale nearly took away Barbara’s breath, the wind rushed in so fiercely, filling the dark hall—swirling hither and thither in the grey light like an unquiet spirit.

Some of the servants of the household followed their mistress—female shapes fantastically attired in old cloaks and petticoats hastily put on, and Blake—faithful old Blake—offered Barbara his arm.

She was glad to take it; her blood seemed to have turned to water; her courage had never failed her before, but it was failing her now.

The little procession hurried down the avenue. All along the drive lay twigs and broken branches, blown leaves kept rasping and scurrying by; the sky was grey and sullen, pierced here and there with shafts of yellow light—an angry belt of heavy hurricane clouds hung over the sea.

Rain lashed against Barbara’s face—cold, wet, driving rain, and it was all Blake could do to support her against the wild gusts of wind, but at last the shore was reached.

A pitiful group of women and children had clustered together and were watching a fishing boat fighting a desperate battle with the gigantic waves that rose up like mountains and were white with angry foam. It looked as if the boat must go to pieces every moment, and so the anxious crowd on the shore feared, to judge from the shrill ejaculations that broke from the little group—the wailing sobs, the loud, despairing cries.

The lifeboat was just putting out, and the men were all busy assisting at the launching of the big unwieldy boat—straining to drag her over the rough shingle and not be swept away themselves by the wash of the waves; but the women and the children dared not approach so close to the water-line, so stood forlornly by themselves. Most of them had husbands, fathers and brothers in the fishing boat, and these women prayed softly and told their beads; it was the women who had every reason to believe that their husbands’ boats were safe in harbour who shrieked and wailed aloud, beating their breasts in the wild, unrestrained Irish fashion, agitated to the point of hysteria.

Barbara released her hold of old Blake’s arm. She had caught sight of Lord Revelstone jumping into the lifeboat, and she had something to tell him before he went out to risk his life on the angry waters. Let him hear the truth from her lips in case he never came back—let him know that she loved him. Ah, dear God—let him know it!

She ran wildly—blindly—across the wet shingle, and the wind blew her hair about her face and buffeted her cruelly, but sudden strength had come to Barbara—a strength that kept her up.

“Richard—Richard!”

She called on him by name, but how could she even hope to make her voice heard above the tumult caused by the wind and the sea? Why, the wind was blowing great trees down—tearing them bodily out of the earth—playing havoc with roofs and ricks, and the tremendous sea threatened to run in and overflow the land.

An old fisherman—too crippled and ancient to be of any use even in the launching of the lifeboat—caught hold of Barbara by her cloak and pulled her back with his two hands.

“Shure, ye mustn’t go a step nearer to the water,” he cried hoarsely. “An’ who’s to hear ye speak in such a gale? Oh, asthore—Mrs Maloney—see how it is now with the sea. Oh, vo—vo—’twill be a wondher if the lifeboat ever comes back.”

Barbara tried to tear herself from the old man’s grasp, but Ethnee suddenly put her strong young arms about her and held her fast, dragging her back from danger.

“Don’t struggle, Barbara. We must just stay where we are—we shall only hinder the lifeboat from starting if we try and summon Howard or Lord Revelstone; besides, they wouldn’t come to us.”

Ethnee strained Barbara to her with all her strength.

“ ’Twas Fate brought those two men to Glenns—sent them to lodge at the same inn—roused them at the same hour—your man and my man, Barbara. We’re all in the hands of God this day—things will fall out as He wills.”

The young girl tried to be calm and stoical, but her mental agony was very great as she watched the lifeboat hurl itself into the seething sea. A mountainous wave descended, but the lifeboat rose on the crest of the wave, then seemed to quiver and shake and pant, as it were, for breath.

“Oh, my God, bring Howard safe to shore! We are to be married in three days. Blessed Mary, save Howard!”

Ethnee relaxed her grasp of Barbara’s arm. She could see neither lifeboat nor fishing vessel—only a long line of high watery walls. The wind was blowing up clouds of hard gritty sand; the few old fishermen left upon the beach began to shake their heads ominously; women could be heard wailing, the children cried out in terror.

Barbara crouched on her knees by Ethnee’s side.

“Richard,” she moaned, “my Richard! I only ask his life of you, dear God—just his life. Let him come back to me—don’t let the waters swallow him up. We—we want to be happy; we have waited so long for our happiness—so very long.”

She prayed aloud, careless who heard her—aware that Ethnee was praying aloud too. Why, every woman on the beach was praying now, and each one for a different life; and they were sublimely selfish—these wild-eyed women—as they made their fierce fight with God. They only thought of the one who was most dear to them; they were ready to let all the other men perish so that their own man might be saved.

Barbara felt strangely primitive and passionate. Years of self-discipline and restraint had done little to abolish the original Eve in her nature, and she found this out now. She was indifferent to the sorrow on all sides of her; her own dread absorbed her utterly—passionately—burningly. She called on God to save Richard Revelstone—she named no other name; the world had suddenly resolved itself into the likeness of one man.

She understood now, late—tragically late, perhaps—that of the three men who had loved her it was Revelstone whose nature corresponded to her own—yes, in Richard Revelstone she had found her twin soul, and that what she had mistaken for friendship all these years had really been love—that quiet, deep and most exquisite kinship of spirit that should mean so much more to a man and a woman than mere gusts of passion or the salad love of youth.

Yes, they had been getting closer and closer to each other for nine years, unconsciously drawing together; and now, when they both realized what had happened—just as love had smote with all his might upon the harp of life and had aroused strange music in two burning souls—just as the attar of Barbara’s heart was throwing out sweet perfume and the man whose blood had been poisoned in the past had been made clean and whole again—cured of his poison of soul—was God’s hurricane to make Time’s work vain and profitless—to slay the love which had risen up with phoenix wings from the dead ashes of the past? Was Barbara to be robbed by the sea—robbed of that which she had just realized was her own—her very own?

“Oh, God—spare him! Oh, Christ, have mercy upon him! Oh, Christ—help me!”

She clutched at her breast; she wanted to get at her heart somehow—to force her heart not to beat so loudly or to flutter so wildly. She wanted to hush the whole world to silence for a moment—the wind and the rain and the leaping waves! She wanted God to say: “Peace, be still!” But God said nothing.

“Blessed Mary—plead for us!”

Ethnee’s low voice made itself heard. She was praying audibly. There was no one on the shore who was not praying—no one. The roar of the waters grew louder, deafening all other sound—the frightful lashing of the waves—the surging of the surf.

Barbara crouched lower and lower on her knees. She had never prayed in all her life as she was praying now. She had forgotten Ethnee—she had forgotten Howard—she had forgotten every mother’s son in the world; it was for her own man she was praying—her own man. All at once she heard a woman shriek.

“Shure, there’s one washed out of the lifeboat—there’s one drowned in the sea!”

The wail was caught up by other wailing lips, and not a woman but her heart tightened and her lips turned white. Which was the man whom the sea had taken for her victim? Was it Mike Cregan, or Tim O’Hagan? Was it Shane O’Donogan, or one of the gentry—the tall Englishman who was to wed pretty Miss Ethnee in three days’ time, or Lord Revelstone? Maybe it was that old man, Michael O’Cleary, or one of his straight, strong sons—or the young lad, David Murphy, his widowed mother’s sole support? Oh, who could say—who could tell till the lifeboat came home—if it ever did come home?

“Oh, God—my God—don’t break me to pieces—don’t shatter me to bits!” Barbara moaned aloud in her despair. “Remember your handmaid in this awful hour—have compassion. Oh, God, show me compassion! Spare me his life, God—just his life—just one life—just Richard’s life!”

Ethnee twitched fiercely at her stepmother’s sleeve.

“What about Howard?” she cried. “Is he to drown—is he to perish?”

Barbara turned a haggard face upon the young girl—a face grown grey with fear.

“Oh, Ethnee,” she cried, “Ethnee! I can think of no one but myself now—I can think of no one but Richard. I have worked hard for others all these years—I have—I have indeed, and I thought I should always be a lonely woman treading a lonely furrow; I didn’t understand that anyone cared for me as he cares.”

She struggled to her feet and stood up tall and slender, her arms stretched out, her hair waving like a wild pennon in the breeze, and she was just a woman—a primitive woman—a woman crying out to her mate.

“Oh, Richard—Richard!” All that Barbara had ever learnt out of life found expression in her wild cry—all that sorrow had taught her—all her yearning to be happy. “Oh, come back to me, my love—come back.”

Other men might drown—other women’s hearts might break, but Barbara forgot for a moment that other folk existed; she might have been the first woman calling to the first man.

She fixed her eyes on the lifeboat, then shrieked aloud, and her cry was taken up by the wailing women, for another wave seemed to be about to break over the devoted boat—a wave that was as a hillside.

“Don’t look, Barbara—don’t look.”

Ethnee caught Barbara in her arms and pressed her stepmother’s face to her breast, and as the two clung together a dreadful piercing cry went up from the beach—a cry shrill as the cry that breaks from the lips of the watchers of the dead.

Peace after storm—peace. But when the hush came there were some who lay on the wet shingle—cold bodies flung there by cold waves, men who had learnt that there is a deeper peace than this world can give—a grander silence. Yes, corpses on the shore—bruised corpses; women weeping in their cabins—weeping for those who would never come home again—wailing as only primitive folk can wail—simple folk.

The lifeboat had fought its way back to the shore. Some of the fishermen had been saved from the fishing smack, but there was a heavy toll of dead—the sea had indeed taken its tribute of lives; and though the sun shone in the heavens and the black storm had rolled away, there were many to whom the sunshine brought no light; there were women for whom the sky would never shine blue and clear again—women to whom the world had suddenly become a grave-yard.

That old man, Father Matthews, moved quietly amongst his people. He prayed over the dead, and he prayed over the living, holding up the emblem of salvation so that all might see it.

But when he came to that spot on the beach where Ethnee and Barbara stood a faint smile lit up his sad face, for here he need not pause to say words of consolation or of pity.

Ethnee—little Ethnee—was clinging to her big Englishman, and it was well with the child—it was well; but it was Barbara’s face that arrested Father Matthews’ attention for the moment. She was standing hand-in-hand with Richard Revelstone, and the wonderful rapture of reprieve from most cruel dread illuminated her whole countenance. She looked like a woman who had received a baptism of fire, and who had come unscathed through the ordeal; and as for Revelstone, he was gazing into Barbara’s eyes—he was gazing into Barbara’s heart.

THE END

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.

[The end of Barbara, by Claude & Alice Askew]