XXI
Mrs. Barton rarely took anyone into her confidence, and her plan for the capture of the Marquis was locked within her breast. Not to her husband, nor yet to Milord, did she think of going for advice. Her special experience of life had taught her to trust none, to be self-reliant, and never to give up hope. For as she often said, it is the last effort that wins the battle. Mrs. Barton’s knowledge of the world, when it came to be analyzed, was only that of the courtesan — skin deep.
 Two days after she received a note from the Marquis, saying he would be glad to spend a week with them at Brookfield. She read it quietly, slipped it into the pocket of the black silk that covered the unseen feet, and glided out of the room. Every detail was clear to her. They must leave Dublin to-morrow morning; they need not trouble about calling on a pack of women, but they would have all their men friends to dinner.
 Mr. Barton, when he was informed of these sudden determinations, was in the act of rehearsing a song he was to sing the following day at a concert.
 ‘But, my dear,’ he said, tightening one of the strings; ‘the public will be awfully disappointed.’
 ‘Yes, my dear, yes; I am very sorry, but I have my reasons — serious reasons; and in this world we must only do what’s right.’
 ‘Then in the next world we shall be able to do everything that’s wrong,’ said Mr. Barton; and he threw back his blond locks with troubadour-like waves of his lymphatic hand. ‘I shall like the next world better than this,’ he added, and his wife and daughter laughed; for papa was supposed to be very naughty.
 ‘Olive, dear — ’
 ‘Oh, mamma, I wish you wouldn’t call me Olive. I shall change my name. Captain Talbot was chaffing me about it yesterday. Everybody chaffs me about it.’
 ‘Never mind, my dear; it makes a subject of conversation. But I was going to tell you that we shall have to start for Brookfield to-morrow.’
 ‘Go to Brookfield! I couldn’t possibly leave Dublin yet a while; what would all my young men do — they’d die of broken hearts!’
 ‘It won’t matter much if they do; there aren’t a dozen worth two thousand a year each.’
 ‘No? You are joking, mamma. And the Marquis?’
 ‘That’s a secret, dear.’
 ‘Then you don’t think he’ll propose to me after all; and I gave up Edward — Captain Hibbert.’
 ‘I thought you had forgotten that horrid man’s name. I didn’t say, dear, that the Marquis wouldn’t propose to you — of course he will. But we must leave Dublin to-morrow — I have serious reasons.’
 ‘Oh, mamma, I didn’t think you were so cruel, to go back to that hateful place, where everybody talks of rents, and that odious Land League.’
 ‘Now, I will not allow my darling to cry like that,’ exclaimed Mrs. Barton, and she threw her arms round the girl’s shoulders. ‘I didn’t say that there wouldn’t be a man within seven miles. On the contrary, there will be one very charming man indeed.’
 ‘What do you mean, mamma?’
 ‘That’s a secret — that’s a secret.’
 Alice was told that she had better come home early that afternoon, so that she might have plenty of time to pack her own things and help her sister with hers; and it seemed to her unbelievable that she was at last leaving that hateful little varnished floor, complimenting old beaux and young A.D.C.’s.
 But if to nobody else, she must say good-bye to May. She had hardly seen her since the night of the State ball — the night she had given Fred Scully permission to see her in her room. She found her in the ladies’ drawing-room.
 ‘How do you do, May?’
 ‘Oh, how do you do, Alice? I am so glad to see you. What a dreadful day!’
 ‘Yes, isn’t it? Don’t you find it very depressing?’
 ‘I should think I did. I’m feeling rather out of sorts. Do you ever feel out of sorts? you know, when everything seems as if it were reflected in a darkened glass? There are times when we girls are nervous and weak, and ready to quarrel with anyone. I don’t know what I wish for now; I think I should like to go back to the country.’
 ‘We are going back to-morrow morning.’
 ‘You don’t say so; and how’s that? There are plenty of balls and afternoon dances. What does Olive say to going home?’
 ‘She doesn’t mind. You know mamma always said she would return immediately after the Castle balls.’
 ‘And now that it is all over, tell me what you think of the Castle. Did it come up to your expectations?’
 ‘I don’t know that I think much about the matter. I am not so fond of dancing as you are.’
 ‘Oh, goodness me, goodness me, how ill I do feel,’ said May, as she started and yawned in a way that betokened the nervous lassitude she was suffering from.
 ‘Perhaps you had better see the doctor,’ said Alice significantly.
 ‘I’m worried. Fred hasn’t been as nice lately as he used to be.’
 ‘What has he done?’
 ‘Last night he promised to meet me in the Square, and he wrote to say he couldn’t come, that he was forced to go and see an important customer about some horses.’
 ‘Perhaps he had.’
 ‘I dare say he had, but what of that? It does not make it any less disagreeable for me to be disappointed.’
 ‘How cross you are, May! I came out on purpose to talk to you on this very subject. I hope you won’t be angry, but I think it is my duty to tell you that people are beginning to talk about you.’
 ‘And what do they say?’
 ‘Well, they say many unpleasant things; you know how ill-natured people are.’
 ‘Yes, but what do they say?’
 ‘They say you are desperately in love with Fred Scully.’
 ‘Supposing I were; is there any very great harm in that?’
 ‘I only want to put you on your guard, May dear; and since I have come here for the purpose of speaking out, I had better do so, however unpleasant it may be; and I must say that you often forget yourself when he is in the room, and by your whole manner betray your feelings. You look at him — ’
 ‘You needn’t talk. Now that Harding has left town, these moral reflections come very easy to you!’
 Alice blushed a little; she trembled, and pursuing her advantage, May said:
 ‘Oh, yes; I have watched you in the Castle sitting out dances; and when girls like you butter! ‘Pon my word, it was painful to look at you.’
 ‘Mr. Harding and I talked merely of books and pictures.’
 ‘If you come here to insinuate that Fred and I are in the habit of indulging in improper conversation... . I didn’t expect this from you. I shan’t stop another moment. I shan’t speak to you again.’
 Picking up her novel, and deaf to all explanations, May walked haughtily out of the room. Alice would have given much to help; and, her heart filled with gentle disappointment, she returned home. The evening was spent in packing; and next morning at dawn, looking tired, their eyes still heavy with sleep, the Bartons breakfasted for the last time in Mount Street.
 At the Broadstone they met Lord Dungory. Then, their feet and knees cosily wrapped up in furs, with copies of the Freeman’s Journal lying on the top, they deplored the ineffectiveness of Mr. Forster’s Coercion Act. Eight hundred people were in prison, and still the red shadow of murder pointed across the land. Milord read from the newspaper:
 ‘A dastardly outrage was committed last night in the neighbourhood of Mullingar. A woman named Mary — — had some differences with her sister Bridget — — . One day, after some angry words, it appears that she left the house, and seeing a man working in a potato-field, she asked him if he could do anything to help her. He scratched his head, and, after a moment’s reflection, he said he was going to meet a "party," and he would see what could be done. On the following day he suggested that Bridget might be removed for the sum of one pound. Mary — — could not, however, procure more than fifteen shillings, and a bargain was struck. On the night arranged for the assassination Mary wished to leave the house, not caring to see her sister shot in her presence, but Pat declared that her absence would excite suspicion. In the words of one of the murderers, the deed was accomplished "nately and without unnecessary fuss."’
 ‘I wonder,’ said Mrs. Barton, ‘what those wretches will have to do before the Government will consent to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, and place the country in the hands of the military. Do they never think of how wickedly they are behaving, and of how God will punish them when they die? Do they never think of their immortal souls?’
 ‘L’âme du paysan se vautre dans la boue comme la mienne se plaît dans la soie.’
 ‘Dans la soie! dans la soie! oh, ce Milord, ce Milord!’
 ‘Oui, madame,’ he added, lowering his voice, ‘dans le blanc paradis de votre corsage.’
 Three days after life at Brookfield had resumed its ordinary course. Once breakfast was over, Arthur retired to the consideration of the pectoral muscles of the ancient Briton, Milord drank his glass of sherry at half-past one, and Mrs. Barton devoted herself to the double task of amusing him and encouraging Olive with visions of future fame. Alice was therefore left definitely to herself, and without hindrance or comment was allowed to set up her writing-table, and spend as much time as she pleased in her bedroom.
 Several sheets of foolscap paper covered with large open handwriting lay upon the table. Upon the first page, with a line ruled beneath it, stood the title: ‘The Diary of a Plain Girl — Notes and Sensations.’ She had just laid aside her pen and was waiting for Cecilia.
 ‘Oh, Alice darling, how are you? I am delighted — I am so delighted to see you. Let me kiss you, let me see you; I have been longing for you for weeks — for months.’
 Alice bent her face down, and then, holding each other’s hands, the girls stood looking through a deep and expressive silence into each other’s eyes.
 ‘I wish, Alice, I could tell you how glad I am to have you back: it seems like heaven to see you again. You look so nice, so true, so sweet, so perfect. There never was anyone so perfect as you, Alice.’
 ‘Cecilia dear, you shouldn’t talk to me like that; it is absurd. Indeed, I don’t think it is quite right.’
 ‘Not quite right,’ replied the cripple sadly; ‘what do you mean? Why is it wrong — why should it be wrong for me to love you?’
 ‘I don’t mean to say that it is wrong; you misunderstand me; but — but — well, I don’t know how to explain myself, but — ’
 ‘I know, I know, I know,’ said Cecilia, and her nervous sensitivity revealed thoughts in Alice’s mind — thoughts of which Alice herself was not distinctly conscious, just as a photograph exposes irregularities in the texture of a leaf that the naked eye would not perceive.
 ‘If Harding were to speak to you so, you wouldn’t think it wrong.’
 Alice’s face flushed a little, and she said, with a certain resoluteness in her voice, ‘Cecilia, I wish you wouldn’t talk to me in this way. You give me great pain.’
 ‘I am sorry if I do, but I can’t help it. I am jealous of the words that are spoken to you, of the air you breathe, of the ground you walk upon. How, then, can I help hating that man?’
 ‘I do not wish to argue this point with you, Cecilia, nor am I sure that I understand it. There is no one I like better than you, dear, but that we should be jealous of each other is absurd.’
 ‘For you perhaps, but not for me.’ Cecilia looked at Alice reproachfully, and at the end of a long and morose silence she said:
 ‘You received the long letter I wrote to you about him?’
 ‘Yes, Cecilia, and I answered it. It seems to me very foolish to pronounce condemnatory opinion on the whole world; and particularly for you who have seen so little of it.’
 ‘That doesn’t matter. People are blinded by their passions; but when these have worn themselves out, they see the truth in all its horrible nakedness. One of these days you’ll tell me that I am right. You have been a good deal in the world lately; tell me if you have found it beautiful. You didn’t believe me when I told you that men were vile and abominable; you said there were good men in the world, that you were sure of it. Have you found them? Was Mr. Harding so very perfect?’
 Alice coloured again; she hesitated, and in the silence Cecilia again divined her friend’s thoughts.
 ‘A very poor ideal indeed, it seems to me that you set yourself — to make the best of this wretched world.’
 ‘I cannot understand what good can come of craving after the unattainable,’ said Alice, looking earnestly out of her grey sharp eyes.
 ‘True beauty lies only in the unattainable,’ said Cecilia, lifting her eyes with that curious movement of the eyeball by which painters represent faith and mysticism.
 At the end of a long silence, Alice said:
 ‘But you’ll have some tea, will you not, Cecilia?’
 ‘Yes; but don’t let us go downstairs.’
 ‘We’ll have it up here; Barnes will bring it up.’
 ‘Oh, that will be so nice.’
 The girls drew closer to the fire, and in its uniting warmth they looked into the ardent face of their friendship, talking, at first, conscious of the appropriateness of their conversation; but soon forgetful of the more serious themes they had been discussing, questions were asked and answered, and comments passed, upon the presentations, the dresses, the crowds, upon all their acquaintances.
 ‘It is given out, Alice dear, that Lord Kilcarney is coming down to stay at Brookfield. Is it true?’
 ‘I have heard nothing of it. Whom did you hear it from?’
 ‘Well, the Duffys wrote it to my sisters. The Duffys, you know, have all the Dublin news.’
 ‘What dreadful gossips they are! And the wonderful part of it is that they often tell you that things have happened long before they do happen.’
 ‘Yes; I have noticed that. They anticipate the news.’
 The girls laughed lightly, and Cecilia continued:
 ‘But tell me, which do you think he admires most, Olive or Violet? The rumour goes that he pays Violet great attentions. The family is, of course, wild about it. She hasn’t a penny piece, and Olive, they say, has a good deal of money.’
 ‘I don’t know.’
 ‘You must show me the dress you wore. You described it beautifully in your letter. You must have looked very sweet. Did everybody say so?’
 ‘I am not sure that they did. Men, you know, do not always admire what women do.’
 ‘I should think not. Men only admire beastliness.’
 ‘Cecilia dear, you shouldn’t talk like that; it isn’t nice.’
 Cecilia looked at Alice wistfully, and she said:
 ‘But tell me about the presentations. I suppose there were an immense number of people present?’
 ‘Yes, and particularly débutantes; there were a great number presented this year. It was considered a large Drawing-Room.’
 ‘And how are you presented? I’ve heard my sister speak about it, but I never quite understood.’
 At that moment Barnes brought in the tea. She set it on a little table used for the purpose.
 ‘There is a letter for you, miss, on the tray,’ she said as she left the room; ‘it came by the afternoon post.’
 Without answering, Alice continued to pour out the tea, but when she handed Cecilia her cup, she said, surprised at the dull, sullen stare fixed upon her:
 ‘What is the matter? Why do you look at me like that?’
 ‘That letter, I am sure, is from Harding; it is a man’s handwriting.’
 She had been expecting that letter for days.
 ‘Oh! give it me,’ she said impulsively.
 ‘There it is; I wouldn’t touch it. I knew you liked that man; but I didn’t expect to find you corresponding with him. It is shameful; it isn’t worthy of you. You might have left such things to May Gould.’
 ‘Cecilia, you have no right to speak to me in that way; you are presuming too much on our friendship.’
 ‘Oh, yes, yes; but before you met him I could not presume too much upon our friendship.’
 ‘If you want to know why I wrote to Mr. Harding, I’ll tell you.’
 ‘It was you who wrote to him, then?’
 ‘Yes, I wrote to him.’
 ‘Oh, yes, yes, yes; I see it all now,’ cried Cecilia, and she walked wildly to and fro, her eye tinged with a strange glare. ‘Yes, I see it all. This room, that was once a girl’s room, is now Harding’s room. He is the atmosphere of the place. I was conscious of it when I entered, but now it is visible to me — that manuscript, that writing-table, that letter. Oh yes, it is Harding, all is Harding!’
 ‘Cecilia, Cecilia, think, I beg of you, of what you are saying.’
 But when Alice approached and strove to raise her from the pillow upon which she had thrown herself, she started up and savagely confronted her.
 ‘Don’t touch me, don’t touch me!’ she cried. ‘I cannot bear it. What are you to me, what am I to you? It is not with me you would care to be, but with him. It is not my kiss of friendship that would console you, but his kiss of passion that would charm you... . Go to him, and leave me to die.’
 ‘Was this insanity?’ And then, forgetful of the abuse that was being showered upon her, Alice said:
 ‘Cecilia dear, listen; I’ll forgive the language you have used toward me, for I know you do not know what you are saying. You must be ill ... you cannot be in your right senses to-day, or you would not speak like that.’
 ‘You would soothe me, but you little dream of the poison you are dropping on my wounds. You never understood, you are too far removed from me in thought and feeling ever to understand — no, your spirituality is only a delusion; you are no better at heart than May Gould. It is the same thing: one seeks a husband, another gratifies herself with a lover. It is the same thing — where’s the difference? It is animal passion all the same. And that letter is full of it — it must be — I am sure it is.’
 ‘You are very insulting, Cecilia. Where have you thrown my letter?’
 The letter had fallen beneath the table. Alice made a movement towards it, but, overcome by mad rage, Cecilia caught it up and threw it into the fire. Alice rescued her letter, and then, her face full of stern indignation, she said:
 ‘I think, Cecilia, you had better leave my room, and before you come to see me again, I shall expect to receive a written apology for the outrageous way you have behaved.’
 In a few days came a humble and penitent letter; Cecilia returned, her eyes full of tears, and begged to be forgiven; the girls resumed their friendship, but both were conscious that it was neither so bright nor so communicative as in the olden days.

XXII
‘Something has happened to my learned daughter,’ said Mr. Barton, and he continued his thumb-nail sketch on the tablecloth. ‘What is it?’ he added indolently.
 Alice passed the cheque and the memorandum across the table. ‘Three pounds for three articles contributed to the — — during the month of April.’
 ‘You don’t mean to say, Alice, you got three pounds for your writing?’ said Mrs. Barton.
 ‘Yes, mother, I have, and I hope to make ten pounds next month. Mr. Harding says he can get me lots of work.’
 ‘So my lady then, with all her shy ways, knows how to make use of a man as well as any of us.’
 Mrs. Barton did not willingly wound. She saw life from the point of view of making use of men, that was all; and when Alice walked out of the room, Mrs. Barton felt sorry for what she had said, and she would have gone to comfort her daughter if Olive had not, at that moment, stood in imminent need of comfort.
 ‘I suppose,’ she said pettishly, ‘the letter you received this morning is from the Marquis, to say he won’t be here next Tuesday?’
 It was. For as the day fixed for his arrival at Brookfield approached, he would write to apologize, and to beg that he might be allowed to postpone his visit to Monday week or Wednesday fortnight. Mrs. Barton replied that they would be very glad to see him when he found it convenient to come and see them. She did not inquire into the reason of his rudeness, she was determined to fight the battle out to the end, and she did not dare to think that he was being prompted by that beast of a girl, Violet Scully.
 ‘He writes a very nice letter indeed. He says he has a very bad cold, and doesn’t like to show himself at Brookfield with a red nose, but that, unless he dies in the meantime, he will be with us on the twentieth of the month, and will — if we’ll have him — stop three weeks with us.’
 ‘I knew the letter was a put-off. I don’t believe he admires me at all, the little beast; and I know I shall never be a marchioness. You made me treat poor Edward shamefully, and for no purpose, after all.’
 ‘Now, Olive, you mustn’t speak like that. Go upstairs and ask Barnes if she has heard anything lately?’
 ‘Oh, I’m sick of Barnes; what has she heard?’
 ‘She is a great friend of Lady Georgina’s maid, who knows the Burkes intimately, particularly Lady Emily’s maid, and Barnes got a letter from her friend the other day, saying that Lady Emily was delighted at the idea of her brother marrying you, dear, and that he thinks of nobody else, speaks of nobody else. Run up and speak to her about it.’
 As we have seen, Mrs. Barton had drugged Olive’s light brain with visions of victories, with dancing, dresses, admiration; but now, in the tiring void of country days, memories of Edward’s love and devotion were certain to arise. He made, however, no attempt to renew his courtship. At Gort, within three miles, he remained silent, immovable as one of the Clare mountains. Sometimes his brown-gold moustache and square shoulders were caught sight of as he rode rapidly along the roads. He had once been seen sitting with Mrs. Lawler behind the famous cream-coloured ponies; and to allude to his disgraceful conduct without wounding Olive’s vanity was an art that Mrs. Barton practised daily; and to keep the girl in spirits she induced Sir Charles, who it was reported was about to emigrate his family to the wilds of Maratoga, to come and stay with them. If a rumour were to reach the Marquis’s ears, it might help to bring him to the point. In any case Sir Charles’s attentions to Olive would keep her in humour until the great day arrived.
 Well convinced that this was her last throw, Mrs. Barton resolved to smear the hook well with the three famous baits she was accustomed to angle with. They were — dinners, flattery, and dancing. Accordingly, an order was given to the Dublin fishmonger to send them fish daily for the next three weeks, and to the pastrycook for a French cook. The store of flattery kept on the premises being illimitable, she did not trouble about that, but devoted herself to the solution of the problem of how she should obtain a constant and unfailing supply of music. Once she thought of sending up to Dublin for a professional pianist, but was obliged to abandon the idea on account of the impossibility of devising suitable employment for him during the morning hours. A tune or two might not come in amiss after lunch, but to have him hanging about the shrubberies all the morning would be intolerable. She might ask a couple of the Brennans or the Duffys to stay with them, but they would be in the way, and occupy the Marquis’s time, and go tell-taling all over the country; no, that wouldn’t do either. Alice’s playing was wretched. It was a wonderful thing that a girl like her would not make some effort to amuse men — would not do something. Once Olive was married, she (Mrs. Barton) would try to patch up something for this gawk of a girl — marry her to Sir Charles; excellent match it would be, too — get all the children emigrated first: and if he would not have her, there was Sir Richard. It was said that he was quite reformed — had given up drink. But there was no use thinking of that: for the present she would have to put up with the girl’s music, which was wretched.
 Olive fell in with her mother’s plans, and she angled industriously for Lord Kilcarney. She did not fail to say in or out of season, ‘Il n’y a personne comme notre cher Marquis,’ and as the turbot and fruit, that had arrived by the afternoon train from Dublin, were discussed, Milord did not cease to make the most appropriate remarks. Referring to the bouquet that she had pinned into the Marquis’s buttonhole, he said:
 ‘Il y a des amants partout où il y a des oiseaux et des roses.’ And again: ‘Les regardes des amoureux sont la lumière comme le baiser est la vie du monde.’
 After dinner no time was lost, although the Marquis pleaded fatigue, in settling Alice at the piano, and dancing began in sober earnest. After each waltz Olive conducted him to the dining-room; she helped him liberally to wine, and when she held a match to his cigarette their fingers touched. But to find occupation for the long morning hours of her young couple was a grave trouble to Mrs. Barton. She was determined to make every moment of the little Marquis’s stay in Galway moments of sunshine; but mental no more than atmospheric sunshine is to be had by the willing, and the poor little fellow seemed to pine in his Galway cage like a moulting canary. He submitted to all the efforts made in his behalf, but his submission was that of a victim. After breakfast he always attempted to escape, and if he succeeded in eluding Mrs. Barton, he would remain for hours hidden in the laurels, enwrapped in summer meditations, the nature of which it was impossible even to conjecture. In the afternoon he spoke of the burden of his correspondence, and when the inevitable dancing was spoken of, he often excused himself on the ground of having a long letter to finish. If it were impossible for her to learn the contents of these letters, Mrs. Barton ardently desired to know to whom they were addressed. Daily she volunteered to send special messengers to the post on his account; the footman, the coachman, and pony-chaise, were in turn rejected by him.
 ‘Thank you, Mrs. Barton, thank you, but I should like to avail myself of the chance of a constitutional.’
 ‘La santé de notre petit Marquis avant tout,’ she would exclaim, with much silvery laughter and all the habitual movements of the white hands. ‘But what do you say: I am sure the young ladies would like a walk, too?’
 With a view to picturesque effect Mrs. Barton’s thoughts had long been centred on a picnic. They were now within a few days of the first of May, and there was enough sunshine in the air to justify an excursion to Kinvarra Castle. It is about four miles distant, at the end of a long narrow bay.
 Mrs. Barton applied herself diligently to the task of organization. Having heard from Dublin of the hoax that was being played on their enemy, the Ladies Cullen consented to join the party, and they brought with them one of the Honourable Miss Gores. The Duffys and Brennans numbered their full strength, including even the famous Bertha, who was staying with her sisters on a visit. The Goulds excused themselves on account of the distance and the disturbed state of the country. Mrs. Barton found, therefore, much difficulty in maintaining the noted characteristic of her parties. Sir Richard and Sir Charles had agreed to come; Mr. Adair, Mr. Ryan, and Mr. Lynch were also present. They drove up on outside cars, and were all attended by a bodyguard of policemen.
 And very soon everybody fell to babbling of the history of the Castle, which nobody knew: Ireland has had few chroniclers. Lord Dungory pointed out that in the seventeenth century people lived in Ireland naked — speaking Latin habitually — without furniture or tapestries or paintings or baths. The Castle suggested a military movement to Mr. Barton.
 ‘If things get any worse, we might all retire into this castle. The ladies will stand on the battlements, and I will undertake to hold the place for ever against those village ruffians.’
 ‘I do not think there will be any necessity for that,’ replied Mr. Adair sententiously. ‘I think that these last terrible outrages have awakened the Government to a sense of their responsibility. I have reason to believe that immediate steps will be taken to crush this infamous conspiracy.’
 Lord Dungory interposed with a neat epigram, and Mr. Adair fell to telling how he would crush the Land League out of existence if the Government would place him in supreme power for the space of one month.
 ‘That is all I would ask: one month to restore this island to peace and prosperity. I have always been a Liberal, but I confess that I entirely fail to understand the action the Government are taking in the present crisis.’
 As Lord Dungory was about to reply that he did not believe that the peasants could continue to resist the Government indefinitely, the police-sergeant in charge of the picnic-party approached, his face overcast.
 ‘We’ve just received bad news from Dublin, my lord. The worst. Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke were murdered this evening in the Phoenix Park. It is unfortunately true, sir; I’ve the telegram with me.’ And he handed the yellow envelope to Lord Dungory, who, after glancing at it, handed it on to Mr. Adair.
 The appearance of the police in conversation with Lord Dungory and Mr. Adair was a sign for the assembling of the rest of the company, and it was under the walls of old Kinvarra Castle that the picnic-party heard the awful news.
 Then, in turn, each ejaculated a few words.
 Mrs. Barton said: ‘It is dreadful to think there are such wicked people in the world.’
 Mr. Adair said: ‘There can be no doubt but that we have arrived at the crisis; Europe will ring with the echoes of the crime.’
 Olive said: ‘I think they ought to hang Mr. Parnell; I believe it was he who drove the car.’
 Mr. Barton said: ‘The landlords and Land-Leaguers will have to do what I say; they will have to fight it out. Now, at their head, I believe by a series of rapid marches — ’
 ‘Arthur, Arthur, I beg of you,’ exclaimed Mrs. Barton.
 ‘We shall all have to emigrate,’ Sir Charles murmured reflectively.
 ‘The law is in abeyance,’ said Mr. Lynch.
 ‘Precisely,’ replied Milord; ‘and as I once said to Lord Granville, "Les moeurs sont les hommes, mais la loi est la raison du pays."’
 Mr. Adair looked up; he seemed about to contest the truth of this aphorism, but he relapsed into his consideration of Mr. Gladstone’s political integrity. The conversation had fallen, but at the end of a long silence Mr. Ryan said:
 ‘Begorra, I am very glad they were murthered.’
 All drew back instinctively. This was too horrible, and doubt of Mr. Ryan’s sanity was expressed on every face.
 At last Mr. Adair said, conscious that he was expressing the feelings of the entire company: ‘What do you mean, sir? Have you gone mad? Do you not know that this is no fitting time for buffoonery?’
 ‘Will ye hear me cousin out?’ said Mr. Lynch.
 ‘Begorra, I’m glad they were murthered,’ continued Mr. Ryan; ‘for if they hadn’t been we’d have been — there’s the long and the short of it. I know the counthry well, and I know that in six months more, without a proper Coercion Act, we’d have been burned in our beds.’
 The unanswerableness of Mr. Ryan’s words, and the implacable certainty which forced itself into every heart, that he spoke but the truth, did not, however, make the company less inclined to oppose the utilitarian view he took of the tragedy.
 Unfinished phrases ... ‘Disgraceful’ ... ‘Shocking’ ... ‘Inconceivable’ ... ‘That anyone should say such a thing’ ... were passed round, and a disposition was shown to boycott Mr. Ryan.
 Mr. Adair spoke of not sitting in the room where such opinions were expressed, but Milord was seen whispering to him, ‘We’re not in a room, Adair, we’re out of doors;’ and Mrs. Barton, always anxious to calm troubled lives, suggested that ‘people did not mean all they said.’ Mr. Ryan, however, maintained through it all an attitude of stolid indifference, the indifference of a man who knows that all must come back sooner or later to his views.
 And presently, although the sting remained, the memory of the wasp that had stung seemed to be lost. Milord and Mr. Adair engaged in a long and learned discussion concerning the principles of Liberalism, in the course of which many allusions were made to the new Coercion Bill, which, it was now agreed, Mr. Gladstone would, in a few days, lay before Parliament. The provisions of this Bill were debated. Milord spoke of an Act that had been in force consequent on the Fenian rising in ‘69. Mr. Adair was of opinion that the importance of a new Coercion Act could not be over-estimated; Mr. Barton declared in favour of a military expedition — a rapid dash into the heart of Connemara. But the conversation languished, and in the ever-lengthening silences all found their thoughts reverting to the idea brutally expressed by Mr. Ryan: Yes, they were glad; for if Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke had not been assassinated, every landowner in the country would have been murdered.
 There was no dancing that evening; and as the night advanced the danger of the long drive home increased in intensity in the minds of Messrs. Lynch and Ryan. They sat on either side of Mr. Adair, and it was finally arranged that they should join their police-forces, and spend the night at his place. Sir Charles was sleeping at Brookfield; Milord had four policemen with him; and as all would have to pass his gate, he did not anticipate that even the Land League would venture to attack thirteen armed men. Mr. Barton, who saw the picturesque in everything, declared, when he came back, that they looked like a caravan starting for a pilgrimage across the desert. After a few further remarks, the ladies rose to retire; but when Mrs. Barton gave her hand to Lord Kilcarney, he said, his voice trembling a little:
 ‘I’m afraid I must leave you to-morrow, Mrs. Barton. I shall have to run over to London to vote in the House of Lords...’
 Mrs. Barton led the poor little man into the farther corner of the room, and making a place for him by her side, she said:
 ‘Of course we are very sorry you are leaving — we should like you to stop a little longer with us. Is it impossible for you... ?’
 ‘I am afraid so, Mrs. Barton; it is very kind of you, but — ’
 ‘It is a great pity,’ she answered; ‘but before we part I should like to know if you have come to any conclusion about what I spoke to you of in Dublin. If it is not to be, I should like to know, that I might tell the girl, so that she might not think anything more about — ’
 ‘What am I to say, what am I to do?’ thought the Marquis. ‘Oh! why does this woman worry me? How can I tell her that I wouldn’t marry her daughter for tens of thousands of pounds?’ ‘I think, Mrs. Barton — I mean, I think you will agree with me that until affairs in Ireland grow more settled, it would be impossible for anyone to enter into any engagements whatever. We are all on the brink of ruin.’
 ‘But twenty thousand pounds would settle a great deal.’
 The little Marquis was conscious of annihilation, and he sought to escape Mrs. Barton as he might a piece of falling rock. With a desperate effort he said:
 ‘Yes, Mrs. Barton — yes, I agree with you, twenty thousand pounds is a great deal of money; but I think we had better wait until the Lords have passed the new Coercion Bill — say nothing more about this — leave it an open question.’
 And on this eminently unsatisfactory answer the matter ended; even Mrs. Barton saw she could not, at least for the present, continue to press it. Still she did not give up hope. ‘Try on to the end; we never know that it is not the last little effort that will win the game,’ was the aphorism with which she consoled her daughter, and induced her to write to Lord Kilcarney. And almost daily he received from her flowers, supposed to be emblematical of the feeling she entertained for him; and for these Alice was sometimes ordered to compose verses and suitable mottoes.

XXIII
But Lord Kilcarney’s replies to these letters seldom consisted of more than a few well-chosen words, and he often allowed a week, and sometimes a fortnight, to elapse before answering at all. Olive — too vain and silly to understand the indifference with which she was treated — whined and fretted less than might have been expected. She spent a great deal of her time with Barnes, who fed her with scandal and flattery. But a storm was about to break, and in August it was known, without any possibility of a doubt, that the Marquis was engaged to Violet Scully, and that their marriage was settled for the autumn.
 And this marriage, and the passing of the Bill for the Prevention of Crime, were the two interests present in the mind of Irish landlordism during the summer of ‘82. Immediately the former event was publicly announced, every girl in Dublin ran to her writing desk to confirm to her friends and relatives the truth of the news which for the last two months she had so resolutely anticipated. The famous Bertha, the terror of the débutantes, rushed to Brookfield, but she did not get there before the Brennans, and the result was a meeting of these families of girls in Mrs. Barton’s drawing-room. Gladys was, however, the person chosen by God and herself to speak the wonderful words:
 ‘Of course you have heard the news, Mrs. Barton?’
 ‘No,’ replied Mrs. Barton, a little nervously; ‘what is it?’
 ‘Oh yes, what is it?’ exclaimed Olive. ‘Anyone going to be married?’
 ‘Yes. Can you guess?’
 ‘No; tell me quick ... no, do tell me. Are you going to be married?’
 Had Olive been suddenly dowered with the wit of Congreve she could not have contrived an answer that would have shielded her better from the dart that Gladys was preparing to hurl. The girl winced; and divining the truth in a moment of inspiration, Mrs. Barton said:
 ‘Ah! I know; Lord Kilcarney is engaged to Violet Scully.’
 The situation was almost saved, and would have been had Olive not been present. She glanced at her mother in astonishment; and Gladys, fearing utter defeat, hurled her dart recklessly.
 ‘Yes,’ she exclaimed, ‘and their marriage is fixed for this autumn.’
 ‘I don’t believe a word of it... . You only say so because you think it will annoy me.’
 ‘My dear Olive, how can it annoy you? You know very well you refused him,’ said Mrs. Barton, risking the danger of contradiction. ‘Gladys is only telling us the news.’
 ‘News, indeed; a pack of lies. I know her well; and all because — because she didn’t succeed in hooking the man she was after in the Shelbourne last year. I’m not going to listen to her lies, if you are;’ and on these words Olive flaunted passionately out of the room.
 ‘So very sorry, really,’ exclaimed Zoe. ‘We really didn’t know ... indeed we didn’t. We couldn’t have known that — that there was any reason why dear Olive wouldn’t like to hear that Lord Kilcarney was engaged to Violet.’
 ‘Not at all, not at all. I assure you that whatever question there may once have been, I give you my word, was broken off a long time ago; they did not suit each other at all,’ said Mrs. Barton. Now that she was relieved of the presence of her young, the mother fought admirably. But in a few minutes the enemy was reinforced by the arrival of the Hon. Miss Gores.
 ‘Oh, how do you do? I am so glad to see you,’ said Mrs. Barton, the moment they entered the room. ‘Have you heard the news? all is definitely settled between the little Marquis and Violet. We were all talking of it; I am so glad for her sake. Of course it is very grand to be a marchioness, but I’m afraid she’ll find her coronet a poor substitute for her dinner. You know what a state the property is in. She has married a beggar. The great thing after all, nowadays, is money.’
 It would have been better perhaps not to have spoken of Lord Kilcarney’s mortgages, but the Marquis’s money embarrassments were the weak point in Violet’s marriage, but it would not be natural (supposing that Olive had herself refused Lord Kilcarney) for her not to speak of them. So she prattled on gaily for nearly an hour, playing her part admirably, extricating herself from a difficult position and casting some doubt — only a little, it is true, but a little was a gain on the story that Olive had been rejected.
 As soon as her visitors left the room, and she went to the window to watch the carriages drive away and to consider how she might console her daughter — persuade her, perhaps, that everything had happened for the best.
 ‘Oh, mamma,’ she said, rushing into the room, ‘this is terrible; what shall we do — what shall we do?’
 ‘What’s terrible, my beautiful darling?’
 Olive looked through her languor and tears, and she answered petulantly:
 ‘Oh, you know very well I’m disgraced; he’s going to marry Violet, and I shall not be a marchioness after all.’
 ‘If my beautiful darling likes she can be a duchess,’ replied Mrs. Barton with a silvery laugh.
 ‘I don’t understand, mamma.’
 ‘I mean that we aren’t entirely dependent on that wretched little Marquis with his encumbered property; if he were fool enough to let himself be entrapped by that designing little beast, Violet Scully, so much the worse for him; we shall get someone far grander than he. It is never wise for a girl to settle herself off the first season she comes out.’
 ‘It is all very well to say that now, but you made me break off with dear Edward, who was ever so nice, and loved me dearly.’
 Mrs. Barton winced, but she answered almost immediately:
 ‘My dear, we shall get someone a great deal grander than that wretched Marquis. There will be a whole crowd of English dukes and earls at the Castle next year; men who haven’t a mortgage on their property, and who will all fight for the hand of my beautiful Olive. Mr. Harding, Alice’s friend, will put your portrait into one of the Society papers as the Galway beauty, and then next year you may be her Grace.’
 ‘And how will they do my portrait, mamma?’
 ‘I think you look best, darling, with your hair done up on the top of your head, in the French fashion.’
 ‘Oh! do you think so? You don’t like the way I have it done in now?’ said the girl; and, laughing, she ran to the glass to admire herself. ‘Barnes said I looked sweet this morning;’ and five minutes after she was tossing her head nervously, declaring she was miserable, and often she burst out crying for no assignable cause. Mrs. Barton consoled and flattered gaily; but the sweet placid countenance was sometimes a little troubled. As the girls left the breakfast-room one morning she said, as if asking their advice:
 ‘I have just received an invitation from Dungory Castle; they are giving a tennis-party, and they want us to go to lunch.’
 ‘Oh! mamma, I don’t want to go,’ cried Olive.
 ‘And why, my dear?’
 ‘Oh! because everybody knows about the Marquis, and I couldn’t bear their sneers; those Brennans and the Duffys are sure to be there.’
 ‘Bertha’s in Dublin,’ said Mrs. Barton, in an intonation of voice a little too expressive of relief.
 ‘Gladys is just as bad; and then there’s that horrid Zoe. Oh! I couldn’t bear it.’
 ‘It will look as if we were avoiding them; they will only talk the more. I always think it is best to put a bold face on everything.’
 ‘I couldn’t, I couldn’t. I’m broken-hearted, that’s what I am. I have nothing to do or to think of.’
 There could be little doubt that the Ladies Cullen had got up the tennis-party so that they might have an opportunity of sneering at her, but Milord would keep them in check (it might be as well to tell him to threaten to put down the school if they did not keep a guard on their tongues), and if Olive would only put a bold face on it and captivate Sir Charles, this very disagreeable business might blow over. Further than this Mrs. Barton’s thoughts did not travel, but they were clear and precise thoughts, and with much subtlety and insinuative force she applied herself to the task of overcoming her daughter’s weakness and strengthening her in this overthrow of vanity and self-love. But to the tennis-party they must go. Milord, too, was of opinion that they could not absent themselves, and he had doubtless been able to arrive at a very clear understanding with Lady Sarah and Lady Jane concerning the future of Protestantism in the parish, for on the day of the tennis-party no allusion was made to Lord Kilcarney’s visit to Brookfield; certain references to his marriage were, of course, inevitable, but it was only necessary to question Mr. Adair on his views concerning the new Coercion Act to secure for Mrs. Barton an almost complete immunity from feminine sarcasm.
 ‘I do not deny,’ said Mr. Adair, ‘that the Crimes Bill will restore tranquillity, but I confess that I can regard no Government as satisfactory that can only govern by the sword.’
 These sentiments being but only very partially appreciated by the rest of the company, the conversation came to an awkward pause, and Lady Jane said as she left the room:
 ‘I do not know a more able man on a county board than Mr. Adair. He took honours at Trinity, and if he hasn’t done as much since as we expected, it is because he is too honourable, too conscientious, to ally himself to any particular party.’
 ‘That was always the way with Lord Dungory,’ suggested Mrs. Gould.
 Lady Jane bit her lip, and continued, without taking notice of the interruption:
 ‘Now, I hope Mr. Adair will not write a pamphlet, or express himself too openly concerning the Crimes Act. The question of the day is the organization of the Land Act, and I hear that Mr. Gladstone says it will be impossible to get on without Mr. Adair’s assistance.’
 ‘Every six months,’ said Mrs. Gould, ‘it is given out that Gladstone cannot go on without him; but somehow Gladstone does manage to get on without him, and then we never hear any more about it.’
 Lady Jane looked angry; and all wondered at Mrs. Gould’s want of tact, but at that moment the footman announced Messrs. Ryan and Lynch, and Alice asked if she might go up to see Cecilia. More visitors arrived; the Brennans, the Duffys, the five Honourable Miss Gores, and the company adjourned to the tennis ground. Mr. Lynch was anxious to have May for a partner, but she refused him somewhat pettishly, declaring at the same time that she had given up tennis, and would never touch a racquet again. Her continuous silence and dejected appearance created some surprise, and her cheeks flushed with passion when her mother said she didn’t know what had come over May lately. Then obeying an impulse, May rose to her feet, and leaving the tennis players she walked across the pleasure grounds. Dungory Castle was surrounded by heavy woods and overtopping clumps of trees. As the house was neared, these were filled in with high laurel hedges and masses of rhododendron, and an opening in the branches of some large beech-trees revealed a blue and beautiful aspect of the Clare mountains.
 ‘I wonder what May is angry about?’ Cecilia said to Alice as they watched the tennis playing from their window; ‘suppose those horrid men are annoying her.’
 ‘I never saw her refuse to play tennis before,’ Alice replied demurely. And ten minutes after, some subtle desire of which she was not very conscious led her through the shrubberies towards the place where she already expected to find May. And dreaming of reconciliation, of a renewal of friendship, Alice walked through the green summer of the leaves, listening to the infinite twittering of the birds, and startled by the wood-pigeons that from time to time rose boisterously out of the high branches. On a garden bench, leaning forward, her hands rested on her knees, May sat swinging her parasol from side to side, playing with the fallen leaves. When she looked up, the sunlight fell full upon her face, and Alice saw that she was crying. But affecting not to see the tears, she said, speaking rapidly:
 ‘Oh, May dear, I have been looking for you. The last time we — ’
 But interrupted here by a choking sob, she found herself forced to say:
 ‘My dear May, what is the matter? Can I do anything for you?’
 ‘Oh, no, no; only leave me; don’t question me. I don’t want anyone’s help.’
 The ungraciousness of the words was lost in the accent of grief with which they were spoken.
 ‘I assure you I don’t wish to be inquisitive,’ Alice replied sorrowfully, ‘nor do I come to annoy you with good advice, but the last time we met we didn’t part good friends... . I was merely anxious to assure you that I bore no ill-feeling, but, of course, if you — ’
 ‘Oh no, no,’ cried May; reaching and catching at Alice’s arm she pulled her down into the seat beside her; ‘I am awfully sorry for my rudeness to you — to you who are so good — so good. Oh, Alice dear, you will forgive me, will you not?’ and sobbing very helplessly, she threw herself into her friend’s arms.
 ‘Oh, of course I forgive you,’ cried Alice, deeply affected. ‘I had no right to lecture you in the way I did; but I meant it for the best, indeed I did.’
 ‘I know you did, but I lost my temper. Ah, if you knew how sorely I was tried you would forgive me.’
 ‘I do forgive you, May dear; but tell me, cannot I help you now? You know that you can confide in me, and I will do any thing in my power to help you.’
 ‘No one can help me now,’ said the girl sullenly.
 Alice did not speak at once, but at the end of a long silence she said:
 ‘Does Fred Scully love you no more?’
 ‘I do not know whether he does or not; nor does it matter much. He’s not in Ireland. He’s far away by this time.’
 ‘Where is he?’
 ‘He’s gone to Australia. He wrote to me about two months ago to say that all had been decided in a few hours, and that he was to sail next morning. He’s gone out with some racehorses, and expects to win a lot of money. He’ll be back again in a year.’
 ‘A year isn’t long to wait; you’ll see him when he comes back.’
 ‘I don’t think I should care to see him again. Oh, you were right, Alice, to warn me against him. I was foolish not to listen to you, but it was too late even then.’
 Alice trembled; she had already guessed the truth, but hoping when she knew all hope was vain, she said:
 ‘You had better tell me, May; you know I am to be trusted.’
 ‘Can’t you guess it?’
 The conversation fell, and the girls sat staring into the depths of the wood. Involuntarily their eyes followed a small bird that ran up branch after branch of a beech-tree, pecking as it went. It seemed like a toy mouse, so quick and unvarying were its movements. At last May said, and very dolorously:
 ‘Alice, I thought you were kinder; haven’t you a word of pity? Why tell you, why ask me to tell you? Oh! what a fool I was!’
 ‘Oh! no, no, May, you did right to tell me. I am more sorry for you than words can express, and I didn’t speak because I was trying to think of some way of helping you.’
 ‘Oh! there’s no — no way of helping me, dear. There’s nothing for me to do but to die.’ And now giving way utterly, the girl buried her face in her hands and sobbed until it seemed that she would choke in thick grief.
 ‘Oh! May, May dear, you mustn’t cry like that: if anyone were to come by, what would they think?’
 ‘What does it matter? Everyone will know sooner or later — I wish I were dead — dead and out of sight for ever of this miserable world.’
 ‘No, May,’ said Alice, thinking instinctively of the child, ‘you mustn’t die. Your trial is a terrible one, but people before now have got over worse. I am trying to think what can be done.’
 Then May raised her weeping face, and there was a light of hope in her eyes. She clasped Alice’s hand. Neither spoke. The little brown bird pursued his way up and down the branches of the beech; beyond it lay the sky, and the girls, tense with little sufferings, yearned into this vision of beautiful peace.
 At last Alice said: ‘Did you tell Mr. Scully of the trouble? Does he know — ’
 ‘He was away, and I didn’t like to write it to him; his departure for Australia took me quite by surprise.’
 ‘Have you told your mother?’
 ‘Oh no, I’d rather die than tell her; I couldn’t tell her. You know what she is.’
 ‘I think she ought to be told; she would take you abroad.’
 ‘Oh no, Alice dear; it would never do to tell mamma. You know what she is, you know how she talks, she would never leave off abusing the Scullys; and then, I don’t know how, but somehow everybody would get to know about it. But find it out they will, sooner or later; it is only a question of time.’
 ‘No, no, May, they shall know nothing of this — at least, not if I can help it.’
 ‘But you can’t help it.’
 ‘There is one thing quite certain; you must go away. You cannot stop in Galway.’
 ‘It is all very well talking like that, but where can I go to? A girl cannot move a yard away from home without people wanting to know where she has gone.’
 Alice’s eyes filled with tears.
 ‘You might go up to Dublin,’ she said, ‘and live in lodgings.’
 ‘And what excuse should I give to mother?’ said May, who in her despair had not courage to deny the possibility of the plan.
 ‘You needn’t tell her where you are,’ replied Alice; and then she hesitated, feeling keenly conscious of the deception she was practising. But her unswerving common sense coming, after a moment’s reflection, to her aid, she said: ‘You might say that you were going to live in the convent. Go to the Mother Superior, tell her of your need, beg of her, persuade her to receive and forward your letters; and in that way, it seems to me that no one need be the wiser of what is going to happen.’
 The last words were spoken slowly, as if with a sense of shame at being forced to speak thus. May raised her face, now aflame with hope and joy.
 ‘I wonder if it is possible to — ‘ A moment after the light died out of her face, and she said:
 ‘But how shall I live? Who will support me? I cannot ask mother for money without awakening suspicion.’
 ‘I think, May, I shall be able to give you almost all the money you want,’ replied Alice in a hesitating and slightly embarrassed manner.
 ‘You, Alice?’
 ‘But I haven’t told you; I have been writing a good deal lately for newspapers, and have made nearly twenty pounds. That will be all you will want for the present, and I shall be able, I hope, to make sufficient to keep you supplied.’
 ‘I don’t think that anyone was ever as good as you, Alice. You make me feel ashamed of myself.’
 ‘I am doing only what anyone else would do if they were called upon. But we have been sitting here a long time now, and before we go back to the tennis-ground we had better arrange what is to be done. When do you propose leaving?’
 ‘I had better leave at once. It is seven months ago now — no one suspects as yet.’
 ‘Well, then, when would you like me to send you the money? You can have it at once if you like.’
 ‘Oh, thanks, dear; mother will give me enough to last me a little while, and I will write to you from Dublin. You are sure no one sees your letters at Brookfield?’
 ‘Quite sure; there’s not the slightest danger.’ She did not question the advice she had given, and she felt sure that the Reverend Mother, if a proper appeal were made to her common sense, would consent to conceal the girl’s fault. Two months would not be long passing, but the expenses of this time would be heavy, and she, Alice, would have to meet them all. She trembled lest she might fail to do so, and she tried to reckon them up. It would be impossible to get rooms under a pound a week, and to live, no matter how cheaply, would cost at least two pounds; three pounds a week, four threes are twelve! The twenty pounds would scarcely carry her over a month, she would not be well for at least two; and then there was the doctor, the nurse, the flannels for the baby. Alice tried to calculate, thinking plainly and honestly. If a repulsive detail rose suddenly up in her mind, she did not shrink, nor was she surprised to find herself thinking of such things; she did so as a matter of course, keeping her thoughts fixed on the one object of doing her duty towards her friend. And how to do this was the problem that presented itself unceasingly for solution. She felt that somehow she would have to earn twenty pounds within the next month. Out of the Lady’s Paper, in which ‘Notes and Sensations of a Plain Girl at Dublin Castle,’ was still running, she could not hope to make more than thirty shillings a week; a magazine had lately accepted a ten-page story worth, she fancied, about five pounds, but when they would print it and pay her was impossible to say. She could write the editor an imploring letter, asking him to advance her the money. But even then there was another nine pounds to make up. And to do this seemed to her an impossibility. She could not ask her father or mother; she would only do so if the worst came to the worst. She would write paragraphs, articles, short stories, and would send them to every editor in London. One out of three might turn up trumps.

’GARDNER STREET, ‘MOUNTJOY SQUARE.
‘DARLING ALICE, ‘I have been in Dublin now more than a week. I did not write to you before because I wished to write to tell you that I had done all you told me to do. The first thing I did was to go to the convent. Would you believe it, the new Rev. Mother is Sister Mary who we knew so well at St. Leonards! She has been transferred to the branch convent in Dublin; she was delighted to see me, but the sight of her dear face awoke so many memories, so many old associations, that I burst out crying, and it seemed to me impossible that I should ever be able to find courage to tell her the truth. None will ever know what it cost me to speak the words. They came to me all of a sudden, and I told her everything. I thought she would reproach me and speak bitterly, but she only said, "My poor child, I am sorry you hadn’t strength to resist temptation; your trial is a dreadful one." She was very, very kind. Her face lighted up when I spoke of you, and she said: "Sweet girl; she was always an angel; one of these days she will come back to us. She is too good for the world." Then I insisted that it was your idea that I should seek help from the convent, but she said that it was my duty to go to my mother and tell her the whole truth. Oh, my darling Alice, I cannot tell you what a terrible time I went through. We were talking for at least two hours, and it was only with immense difficulty that I at last succeeded in making her understand what kind of person poor mamma is, and how hopeless it would be to expect her to keep any secret, even if her daughter’s honour was in question. I told her how she would run about, talking in her mild unmeaning way of "poor May and that shameful Mr. Scully;" and, at last, the Rev. Mother, as you prophesied she would, saw the matter in its proper light, and she has consented to receive all my letters, and if mother writes, to give her to understand that I am safe within the convent walls. It is very good of her, for I know the awful risk she is wilfully incurring so as to help me out of my trouble.
 ‘The house I am staying in is nice enough, and the landlady seems a kind woman. The name I go by is Mrs. Brandon (you will not forget to direct your letters so), and I said that my husband was an officer, and had gone out to join his regiment in India. I have a comfortable bedroom on the third floor. There are two windows, and they look out on the street. The time seems as if it would never pass; the twelve hours of the day seem like twelve centuries. I have not even a book to read, and I never go out for fear of being seen. In the evening I put on a thick veil and go for a walk in the back streets. But I cannot go out before nine; it is not dark till then, and I cannot stop out later than ten on account of the men who speak to you. My coloured hair makes me look fast, and I am so afraid of meeting someone I know, that this short hour is as full of misery as those that preceded it. Every passer-by seems to know me, to recognize me, and I cannot help imagining that he or she will be telling my unfortunate story half an hour after in the pitiless drawing-rooms of Merrion Square. Oh, Alice darling, you are the only friend I have in the world. If it were not for you, I believe I should drown myself in the Liffey. No girl was ever so miserable as I. I cannot tell you how I feel, and you cannot imagine how forlorn it all is; and I am so ill. I am always hungry, and always sick, and always longing. Oh, these longings; you may think they are nothing, but they are dreadful. You remember how active I used to be, how I used to run about the tennis-court; now I can scarcely crawl. And the strange sickening fancies: I see things in the shops that tempt me, sometimes it is a dry biscuit, sometimes a basket of strawberries; but whatever it is, I stand and look at it, long for it, until weary of longing and standing with a sort of weight weighing me down, and my stays all rucking up to my neck, I crawl home. There I am all alone; and I sit in the dark, on a wretched hard chair by the window; and I cry; and I watch the summer night and all the golden stars, and I cannot say what I think of during all these long and lonely hours; I only know that I cannot find energy to go to bed. And I never sleep a whole night through; the cramp comes on so terribly that I jump up screaming. Oh, Alice, how I hate him! When I think of it all I see how selfish men are; they never think of us — they only think of themselves. You would scarcely know me if you saw me now; all my complexion — you know what a pretty complexion it was — is all red and mottled. When you saw me a fortnight ago I was all right: it is extraordinary what a change has come about. I think it was the journey and the excitement; there would be no concealing the truth now. It is lucky I left Galway when I did.
 ‘Mother gave me five pounds on leaving home. My ticket cost nearly thirty shillings, a pound went in cabs and hotel expenses, and my breakfasts brought my bill up yesterday to two pounds — I cannot think how, for I only pay sixteen shillings for my room — and when it was paid I had only a few shillings left. Will you, therefore, send the money you promised, if possible, by return of post? ‘Always affectionately yours, ‘MAY GOULD.’

The tears started to Alice’s eyes as she read the letter. She did not consider if May might have spared her the physical details with which her letter abounded; she did not stay to think of the cause, of the result; for the moment she was numb to ideas and sensations that were not those of humble human pity for humble human suffering: like the waters of a new baptism, pity made her pure and whole, and the false shame of an ancient world fell from her. Leaning her head on her strong, well-shaped hand, she set to arranging her little plans for her friend’s help — plans that were charming for their simplicity, their sweet homeliness. The letter she had just read had come by the afternoon post, and if she were to send May the money she wrote for that evening, it would be necessary to go into Gort to register the letter. Gort was two miles away; and if she asked for the carriage her mother might propose that the letters should be sent in by a special messenger. This of course was impossible, and Alice, for the first time in her life found herself obliged to tell a deliberate lie. For a moment her conscience stood at bay, but she accepted the inevitable and told her mother that she had some MSS. to register, and did not care to entrust them to other hands. It was a consolation to know that eighteen pounds were safely despatched, but she was bitterly unhappy, and the fear that money might be wanting in the last and most terrible hours bound her to her desk as with a chain; and when her tired and exhausted brain ceased to formulate phrases, the picture of the lonely room, the night walks, and the suffering of the jaded girl, stared her in the face with a terrible distinctness. Her only moments of gladness were when the post brought a cheque from London. Sometimes they were for a pound, sometimes for fifteen shillings. Once she received five pounds ten — it was for her story. On the 10th of September she received the following letter:
style="MARGIN-TOP: 2em">’DARLING ALICE, ‘Thanks a thousand times for your last letter, and the money enclosed. It came in the nick of time, for I was run almost to my last penny. I did not write before, because I didn’t feel in the humour to do anything. Thank goodness! I’m not sick any more, though I don’t know that it isn’t counterbalanced by the dreadful faintness and the constant movement. Isn’t it awful to sit here day after day, watching myself, and knowing the only relief I shall get will be after such terrible pain? I woke up last night crying with the terror of it. Cervassi says there are cases on record of painless confinements, and in my best moods I think mine is to be one of them. I know it is wrong to write all these things to a good girl like you, but I think talking about it is part of the complaint, and poor sinner me has no one to talk to. Do you remember my old black cashmere? I’ve been altering it till there’s hardly a bit of the original body left; but now the skirt is adding to my troubles by getting shorter and shorter in front. It is now quite six inches off the ground, and instead of fastening it I have to pin the placket-hole, and then it falls nearly right... . Only three weeks longer, and then... But there, I won’t look forward, because I know I am going to die, and all the accounting for it, and everything else, will be on your shoulders. Good-bye, dear; I shan’t write again, at least not till afterwards. And if there is an afterward, I shall never be able to thank you properly; but still I think it will be a weight off you. Is it so, dear? Do you wish I were dead? I know you don’t. It was unkind to write that last line; I will scratch it out. You will not be angry, dear. I am too wretched to know what I am writing, and I want to lie down. ‘Always affectionately yours, ‘MAY GOULD.’
style="MARGIN-TOP: 2em">Outside the air was limpid with sunlight, and the newly mown meadow was golden in the light of evening. The autumn-coloured foliage of the chestnuts lay mysteriously rich and still, harmonizing in measured tones with the ruddy tints of the dim September sunset. The country dozed as if satiated with summer love. Heavy scents were abroad — the pungent odours of the aftermath. A high baritone voice broke the languid silence, and, in embroidered smoking-jacket and cap, Mr. Barton twanged his guitar. Milord had been thrown down amid the hay; and Mrs. Barton and Olive were showering it upon him. The old gentleman’s legs were in the air.
 Crushing the letter, Alice’s hands fell on the table; she burst into tears. But work was more vital than tears; and, taking up her pen, she continued her story — penny journal fiction of true love and unending happiness in the end. A month later she received this note:

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

XXIV
Then Alice heard that the baby was dead, and that a little money would be required to bury it. Another effort was made, the money was sent; and the calm of the succeeding weeks was only disturbed by an uneasy desire to see May back in Galway, and hear her say that her terrible secret was over and done with for ever. One day she was startled by a quick trampling of feet in the corridor, and May rushed into the room. She threw herself into Alice’s arms and kissed her with effusion, with tears. The girls looked at each other long and nervously. One was pale and over-worn, her spare figure was buttoned into a faded dress, and her hair was rolled into a plain knot. The other was superb with health, and her face was full of rose-bloom. She was handsomely dressed in green velvet, and her copper hair flamed and flashed beneath a small bonnet with mauve strings.
 ‘Oh, Alice, how tired and pale you look! You have been working too hard, and all for me! How can I thank you? I shall never be able to thank you — I cannot find words to tell you how grateful I am — but I am grateful, Alice, indeed I am.’
 ‘I am sure you are, dear. I did my best for you, it is true; and thank heaven I succeeded, and no one knows — I do not think that anyone even suspects.’
 ‘No, not a soul. We managed it very well, didn’t we? And the Reverend Mother behaved splendidly — she just took the view that you said she would. She saw that no good would come of telling mamma about me when I made her understand that if a word were said my misfortune would be belled all over the country in double-quick time. But, Alice dear, I had a terrible time of it, two months waiting in that little lodging, afraid to go out for fear someone would recognize me; it was awful. And often I hadn’t enough to eat, for when you are in that state you can’t eat everything, and I was afraid to spend any money. You did your best to keep me supplied, dear, good guardian angel that you are.’ Then the impulsive girl flung herself on Alice’s shoulders, and kissed her. ‘But there were times when I was hard up — oh, much more hard up than you thought I was, for I didn’t tell you everything; if I had, you would have worried yourself into your grave. Oh, I had a frightful time of it! If one is married one is petted and consoled and encouraged; but alone in a lodging — oh, it was frightful.’
 ‘And what about the poor baby?’ said Alice.
 ‘The poor little thing died, as I wrote you, about ten days after it was born. I nursed it, and I was sorry for it. I really was; but of course ... well, it seems a hard thing to say, but I don’t know what I should have done with it if it had lived. Life isn’t so happy, is it, even under the best of circumstances?’
 The conversation came to a sudden close. At last the nervous silence that intervened was broken by May:
 ‘We were speaking about money. I will repay you all I owe you some day, Alice dear. I will save up all the money I can get out of mother. She is such a dear old thing, but I cannot understand her. Not a penny did she send me for the first six weeks, and then she sent me £25; and it was lucky she did, for the doctor’s bill was something tremendous. And I bought this dress and bonnet with what was left ... I ought to have repaid you first thing, but I forgot it until I had ordered the dress.’
 ‘I assure you it does not matter, May; I shall never take the money from you. If I did, it would take away all the pleasure I have had in serving you.’
 ‘Oh, but I will insist, Alice dear; I could not think of such a thing. But there’s no use in discussing that point until I get the money... . Tell me, what do you think of my bonnet?’
 ‘I think it very nice indeed, and I never saw you looking better.’
 And thus ended May Gould’s Dublin adventure. It was scarcely spoken of again, and when they met at a ball given by the officers stationed in Galway, Alice was astonished to find that she experienced no antipathy whatever towards this rich-blooded young person. ‘My dear guardian angel, come and sit with me in this corner; I’d sooner talk to you than anyone — we won’t go down yet a while — we’ll make the men wait;’ and when she put her arms round Alice’s waist and told her the last news of Violet and her Marquis, Alice abandoned herself to the caress and heard that thirty years ago the late Marquis had entered a grocer’s shop in Galway to buy a pound of tea for an importuning beggar: ‘And what do you think, my dear? — It was Mrs. Scully who served it out to him; and do you know what they are saying? — that it is all your fault that Olive did not marry Kilcarney.’
 ‘My fault?’
 ‘Your fault, because you gave the part of the beggar-maid to Violet, and if Olive had played the beggar-maid and hadn’t married Kilcarney, the fault would have been laid at your door just the same.’
 The pale cheeks of Lord Rosshill’s seven daughters waxed a hectic red; the Ladies Cullen grew more angular, and smiled and cawed more cruelly; Mrs. Barton, the Brennans, and Duffys cackled more warmly and continuously; and Bertha, the terror of the débutantes, beat the big drum more furiously than ever. The postscripts to her letters were particularly terrible: ‘And to think that the grocer’s daughter should come in for all this honour. It is she who will turn up her nose at us at the Castle next year.’ ‘Ah, had I known what was going to happen it is I who would have pulled the fine feathers out of her.’ Day after day, week after week, the agony was protracted, until every heart grew weary of the strain put upon it and sighed for relief. But it was impossible to leave off thinking and talking; and the various accounts of orange-blossoms and the bridesmaids that in an incessant postal stream were poured during the month of January into Galway seemed to provoke rather than abate the marriage fever. The subject was inexhaustible, and little else was spoken of until it was time to pack up trunks and prepare for the Castle season. The bride, it was stated, would be present at the second Drawing-Room in March.
 Nevertheless Alice noticed that the gladness of last year was gone out of their hearts; none expected much, and all remembered a little of the disappointments they had suffered. A little of the book had been read; the lines of white girls standing about the pillars in Patrick’s Hall, the empty waltz tunes and the long hours passed with their chaperons were terrible souvenirs to pause upon. Still they must fight on to the last; there is no going back — there is nothing for them to go back to. There is no hope in life for them but the vague hope of a husband. So they keep on to the last, becoming gradually more spiteful and puerile, their ideas of life and things growing gradually narrower, until, in their thirty-fifth or fortieth year, they fall into the autumn heaps, to lie there forgotten, or to be blown hither or thither by every wind that blows.
 Two of Lord Rosshill’s daughters had determined to try their luck again, and a third was undecided; the Ladies Cullen said that they had their school to attend to and could not leave Galway; poverty compelled the Brennans and Duffys to remain at home. Alice would willingly have done the same, but, tempted by the thin chance that she might meet with Harding, she yielded to her mother’s persuasions. Harding did not return to Dublin, and her second season was more barren of incident than the first. The same absence of conviction, the same noisy gossiping and inability to see over the horizon of Merrion Square, the same servile adoration of officialism, the same meanness committed to secure an invitation to the Castle, the same sing-song waltz tunes, the same miserable, mocking, melancholy, muslin hours were endured by the same white martyrs.
 And if the Castle remained unchanged, Mount Street lost nothing of its original aspect. Experience had apparently taught Mrs. Barton nothing; she knew but one set of tricks — if they failed she repeated them: she was guided by the indubitableness of instinct rather than by the more wandering light that is reason. Mr. Barton, who it was feared might talk of painting, and so distract the attention from more serious matters, was left in Galway, and amid eight or nine men collected here, there, and everywhere out of the hotels and barrack-rooms, the three ladies sat down to dinner.
 Mrs. Barton, who could have talked to twenty men, and have kept them amused, was severely handicapped by the presence of her daughters. Olive, at the best of times, could do little more than laugh; and as Alice never had anything to say to the people she met at her mother’s house, the silences that hung over the Mount Street dinner-table were funereal in intensity and length. From time to time questions were asked relating to the Castle, the weather, and the theatre.
 Therefore, beyond the fact that neither Lord Kilcarney nor Mr. Harding was present, the girls passed their second season in the same manner as their first. Les deux pièces de résistance at Mount Street were a dissipated young English lord and a gouty old Irish distiller, and Mrs. Barton was making every effort to secure one of these. A pianist was ordered to attend regularly at four o’clock. And now if Alice was relieved of the duty of spelling through the doleful strains of ‘Dream Faces,’ she was forced to go round and round with the distiller until an extra glass of port forced the old gentleman to beg mercy of Mrs. Barton. At one o’clock in the morning the young lord used to enter the Kildare Street Club weary. But not much way was made with either, and when one returned to London and the other to a sick-bed, Olive abandoned herself to a series of flirtations. At the Castle she danced with all who asked her, and she sat out dances in the darkest corners of the most distant rooms with every officer stationed in Dublin. Mrs. Barton never refused an invitation to any dance, no matter how low, and in all the obscure ‘afternoons’ in Mount Street and Pembroke Street Olive’s blonde cameo-like face was seen laughing with every official of Cork Hill and the gig-men of Kildare Street.
 In May the Bartons went abroad, and Olive flirted with foreign titles — French Counts, Spanish Dukes, Russian Princes, Swedish noblemen of all kinds, and a goodly number of English refugees with irreproachable neckties and a taste for baccarat. In the balmy gardens of Ostend and Boulogne, jubilant with June and the overture of Masaniello, Milord and Mrs. Barton walked in front, talking and laughing gracefully. Olive chose him who flattered her the most outrageously; and Alice strove hard to talk to the least objectionable of the men she was brought in contact with. Amid these specious talkers there were a few who reminded her of Mr. Harding, and she hoped later on to be able to turn her present experiences to account. There was, of course, much dining at cafés and dining at the casinos, and evening walks along the dark shore. Alice often feared for her sister, but the girl’s vanity and lightheadedness were her safeguards, and she returned to Galway only a little wearied by the long chase after amusement.
 The soft Irish summer is pleasant after the glare of foreign towns, and the country, the rickety stone walls and the herds of cattle, the deep curved lines of the plantations of the domain lands, the long streaks of brown bog, the flashing tarns of bog-water, and the ruined cottage, lay dozing in beautiful silvery haze. There was much charm for Alice in these familiar signs; and, although she did not approve of — although she would not care ever to meet them again — the people she had met at Ostend and Dieppe had interested her. She had picked up ideas and had received impressions, and with these germinating in her, a time of quiet, a time for reading and thinking, came as a welcome change after the noise of casinos and the glitter of fireworks. The liberty she had enjoyed, the sense it had brought with it that she was neither a doll nor a victim, had rendered her singularly happy. The plot of a new story was singing in her head, the characters flitted before her eyes, and to think of them or to tell Cecilia of them was a pleasure sufficient for all her daily desire. Olive, too, was glad. The sunlight has gone into her blood, and she romps with her mother and Milord amid the hay, or, stretched at length, she listens to the green air of the lawn, her dreams ripple like water along a vessel’s side, the white wake of the past in bubble behind her; and when the life of the landscape is burnt out, and the day in dying seems to have left its soul behind, she stands watching, her thoughts curdling gently, the elliptical flight of the swallows through the gloom, and the flutter of the bats upon the dead sky.
 But the thoughtless brain, fed for many weeks upon noise and glitter, soon began to miss its accustomed stimulants, and Mrs. Barton was quick to comprehend sudden twitchings of the face and abrupt movements of the limbs. And, keenly alive to what was passing in her daughter’s mind, she insisted on Olive’s accompanying her to the tennis-parties with which the county teemed. Sir Charles, Mr. Adair, and even poor Sir Richard were put forward as the most eligible of men.
 ‘It is impossible to say when the big fish will be caught; it is often the last try that brings him to land,’ murmured Mrs. Barton. But Olive had lost courage, and could fix her thoughts on no one. And, often when they returned home, she would retire to her room to have a good cry.
 ‘Leave me alone, Alice; oh, go away. Don’t tease me, don’t tease me! I only want to be left alone.’
 ‘But listen, dear; can I do anything for you?’
 ‘You! no, no, indeed you can’t. I only want to be left alone. I am so miserable, so unhappy; I wish I were dead!’
 ‘Dead?’
 ‘Yes, dead; what’s the use of living when I know that I shall be an old maid? We shall all be old maids. What’s the use of being pretty, either, when Violet, though she be but a bag of bones, has got the Marquis? I have been out two seasons now, and nothing has come of all the trying. And yet I was the belle of the season, wasn’t I, Alice?’ And now, looking more than ever like a cameo Niobe, Olive stared at her sister piteously. ‘Oh yes, Alice, I know I shall be an old maid; and isn’t it dreadful, and I the belle of the season? It makes me so unhappy. No one ever heard of the belle (and I was the belle not of one, but of two seasons) remaining an old maid. I can understand a lot of ugly things not getting married, but I — ’
 Alice smiled, and half ironically she asked herself if Olive really suffered. No heart-pang was reflected in those blue mindless eyes; there was no heart to wound: only a little foolish vanity had been bruised.
 ‘And to think,’ cried this whimpering beauty, when Alice had seen her successfully through a flood of hysterical tears, ‘that I was silly enough to give up dear Edward. I am punished for it now, indeed I am; and it was very wicked of me — it was a great sin. I broke his heart. But you know, Alice dear, that it was all mamma’s fault; she urged me on; and you know how I refused, how I resisted her. Didn’t I resist — tell me. You know, and why won’t you say that I did resist?’
 ‘You did, indeed, Olive; but you must not distress yourself, or you will make yourself ill.’
 ‘Yes, perhaps you are right, there’s nothing makes one look so ugly as crying, and if I lost my looks and met Edward he might not care for me. He’d be disappointed, I mean — but I haven’t lost my looks; I am just as pretty as I was when I came out first. Am I not, Alice?’
 ‘Indeed you are, dear.’
 ‘You don’t think I have gone off a bit — now do tell me? and I want to ask you what you think of my hair in a fringe; Papa says it isn’t classical, but that’s nonsense. I wish I knew how Edward would like me to wear it.’
 ‘But you mustn’t think of him, Olive dear; you know mother would never hear of it.’
 ‘I can’t help thinking of him... . And now I will tell you something, Alice, if you promise me on your word of honour not to scold me, and, above all, not to tell mamma.’
 ‘I promise.’
 ‘Well, the other day I was walking at the end of the lawn feeling so very miserable. You don’t know how miserable I feel; you are never miserable, for you think of nothing but your books. Well (mind, you have given me your word not to tell anyone), I saw Captain Hibbert riding along the road, and when he saw me he stopped his horse and kissed his hand to me.’
 ‘And what did you do?’
 ‘I don’t know what I did. He called me, and then I saw Milord coming along the road, and fled but, oh, isn’t it cruel of mamma to have forbidden Edward to come and see us? and he loving me as much as ever.’
 This was not the moment to advise her sister against clandestine meetings with Captain Hibbert; she was sobbing violently, and Alice had to assure her again and again that no one who had been the belle of the season had ever remained an old maid. But Alice (having well in mind the fate that had befallen May Gould) grew not a little alarmed when, in the course of next week, she suddenly noticed that Olive was in the habit of going out for long walks alone, and that she invariably returned in a state of high spirits, all the languor and weariness seeming to have fallen from her.
 Alice once thought of following her sister. She watched her open the wicket and walk across the meadows towards the Lawler domain. There was a bypath there leading to the highroad, but the delicacy of their position in relation to the owners prevented the Bartons from ever making use of it. Nor did Alice fail to notice that about the same time, Barnes, on the pretence of arranging the room for the evening, would strive to drive her from her writing-table, and beds were made and unmade, dresses were taken out of the wardrobe, and importuning conversations were begun. But, taking no heed of the officious maid, Alice, her thoughts tense with anxiety, sat at her window watching the slender figure of the girl growing dim in the dying light. Once she did not return until it was quite dark, and, reproaching herself for having remained so long silent, Alice walked across the pleasure-grounds to meet her.
 ‘What, you here?’ cried Olive, surprised at finding her sister waiting for her at the wicket. She was out of breath; she had evidently been running.
 ‘Yes, Olive, I was anxious to speak to you — you must know that it is very wrong to meet Captain Hibbert — and in the secrecy of a wood!’
 ‘Who told you I had been to meet Captain Hibbert? I suppose you have been following me!’
 ‘No, Olive, I haven’t, and you have no right to accuse me of such meanness. I have not been following you, but I cannot help putting two and two together. You told me something of this once before, and since then you have scarcely missed an evening.’
 ‘Well, I don’t see any harm in meeting Edward; he is going to marry me.’
 ‘Going to marry you?’
 ‘Yes, going to marry me; is there anything so very extraordinary in that? Mamma had no right to break off the match, and I am not going to remain an old maid.’
 ‘And have you told mother about this?’
 ‘No, where’s the use, since she won’t hear of it?’
 ‘And are you going to run away with Captain Hibbert?’
 ‘Run away with him!’ exclaimed Olive, laughing strangely. ‘No, of course I am not.’
 ‘And how are you to marry him if you don’t tell mother?’
 ‘I shall tell her when the time comes to tell her. And now, Alice dear, you will promise not to betray me, won’t you? You will not speak about this to anyone, you promise me? If you did, I know I should go mad or kill myself.’
 ‘But when will you tell mother of your resolution to marry Captain Hibbert?’
 ‘Tell her? I’ll tell her to-morrow if you like; that is to say, if you will give me your word of honour not to speak to her about my meeting Edward in the Lawler Wood.’
 Afterwards Alice often wondered at her dullness in not guessing the truth. But at the time it did not occur to her that Olive might have made arrangements to elope with Captain Hibbert; and, on the understanding that all was to be explained on the following day, she promised to keep her sister’s secret.

XXV
Lord Dungory dined at Brookfield that evening. He noticed that Olive was nervous and restless, and he reminded her of what a French poet had said on the subject of beauty. But she only turned her fair head impatiently, and a little later on when her mother spoke to her she burst into tears. Nor was she as easily consoled as usual, and she did not become calm until Mrs. Barton suggested that her dear child was ill, and that she would go upstairs and put her to bed. Then, looking a little alarmed, Olive declared she was quite well, but she passionately begged to be left alone. As they left the dining-room she attempted to slip away; Alice made a movement as if to follow her, but Mrs. Barton said:
 ‘Leave her to herself, Alice; she would rather be left alone. She has overstrained her nerves, that is all.’
 Olive heard these words with a singular satisfaction, and as she ascended the stairs from the first landing, her heart beat less violently. On the threshold of her room she paused to listen for the drawing-room door to shut. Through the silent house the lock sounded sharply.
 ‘I hope none of them will come upstairs bothering after me,’ the girl murmured to herself. ‘If they do I shall go mad;’ and standing in the middle of the floor she looked round the room vacantly, unable to collect her thoughts. The wardrobe was on her right, and, seeing herself in the glass, she wondered if she were looking well. Her eyes wandered from her face to her shoulders, and thence to her feet. Going over to the toilette-table she sought amid her boots, and, having selected a strong pair, she began to button them. Her back was turned to the door, and at the slightest sound she started. Once or twice the stairs creaked, and she felt something would occur to stop her. Her heart was beating so violently that she thought she was going to be ill; and she almost burst out crying because she could not make up her mind if she should put on a hat and travelling-shawl, or run down to the wood as she was, to meet the Captain. ‘He will surely,’ she thought, ‘have something in the carriage to put around me, but he may bring the dog-cart, and it looks very cold. But if Alice or mamma saw me coming downstairs with a shawl on, they’d suspect something, and I shouldn’t be able to get away. I wonder what time it is? I promised to meet Edward at nine; he’ll of course wait for me, but what time is it? We dined at half-past seven; we were an hour at dinner, half-past eight, and I have been ten minutes here. It must be nearly nine now, and it will take me ten minutes to get to the corner of the road. The house is quiet now.’
 Olive ran down a few steps, but at that moment heavy footsteps and a jingling of glasses announced that the butler was carrying glasses from the dining-room to the pantry. ‘When will he cease, when will he cease; will he hang about that passage all night?’ the girl asked herself tremblingly; and so cruel, so poignant had her suspense become, that had it been prolonged much further her overwrought nerves would have given way, and she would have lapsed into a fit of hysterics. But the tray-full of glasses she had heard jingling were now being washed, and the irritative butler did not stir forth again. This was Olive’s opportunity. From the proximity of the drawing-room to the hall-door it was impossible for her to open it without being heard; the kitchen-door was equally, even more, dangerous, and she could hear the servants stirring in the passages; there was no safe way of getting out of the house unseen, except through the dining-room.
 The candles were lighted, the crumbs were still on the tablecloth; passing behind the red curtain she unlocked the French window, and she shivered in the keen wind that was blowing.
 It was almost as bright as day. A September moon rose red, and in a broken and fragmentary way the various aspects of the journey that lay before her were anticipated: as she ran across the garden swards she saw the post-horses galloping in front of her; as her nervous fingers strove to unfasten the wicket, she thought of the railway-carriage; and as she passed under the great dark trunks of the chestnut-trees she dreamed of Edward’s arm that would soon be cast protectingly around her, and his face; softer than the leafy shadows above her, would be leaned upon her, and his eyes filled with a brighter light than the moon’s would look down into hers.
 The white meadow that she crossed so swiftly gleamed like the sea, and the cows loomed through the greyness like peaceful apparitions. But the dark wood with its sepulchral fir-tops and mysteriously spreading beech-trees was full of formless terror, and once the girl screamed as the birds flew with an awful sound through the dark undergrowth. A gloomy wood by night has terrors for the bravest, and it was only the certainty that she was leaving girl-life — chaperons, waltz-tunes, and bitter sneering, for ever — that gave courage to proceed. A bit of moss-grown wall, a singularly shaped holly-bush, a white stone, took fantastic and supernatural appearances, and once she stopped, paralyzed with fear, before the grotesque shadow that a dead tree threw over an unexpected glade. A strange bird rose from the bare branches, and at that moment her dress was caught by a bramble, and, when her shriek tore the dark stillness, a hundred wings flew through the pallor of the waning moon.
 At the end of this glade there was a paling and a stile that Olive would have to cross, and she could now hear, as she ran forward, the needles of the silver firs rustling with a pricking sound in the wind. The heavy branches stretched from either side, and Olive thought when she had passed this dernful alley she would have nothing more to fear; and she ran on blindly until she almost fell in the arms of someone whom she instantly believed to be Edward.
 ‘Oh! Edward, Edward, I am nearly dead with fright!’ she exclaimed.
 ‘I am not Edward,’ a woman answered. Olive started a step backwards; she would have fainted, but at the moment the words were spoken Mrs. Lawler’s face was revealed in a beam of weak light that fell through a vista in the branches.
 ‘Who are you? Let me pass.’
 ‘Who am I? You know well enough; we haven’t been neighbours for fifteen years without knowing each other by sight. So you are going to run away with Captain Hibbert!’
 ‘Oh, Mrs. Lawler, let me pass. I am in a great hurry, I cannot wait; and you won’t say anything about meeting me in the wood, will you?’
 ‘Let you pass, indeed; and what do you think I came here for? Oh, I know all about it — all about the corner of the road, and the carriage and post-horses! a very nice little plan and very nicely arranged, but I’m afraid it won’t come off — at least, not to-night.’
 ‘Oh, won’t it, and why?’ cried Olive, clasping her hands. ‘Then it was Edward who sent you to meet me, to tell me that — that — What has happened?’
 ‘Sent me to tell you! Whom do you take me for? Is it for a — well, a nice piece of cheek! I carry your messages? Well, I never!’
 ‘Then what did you come here for — how did you know? ...’
 ‘How did I know? That’s my business. What did I come here for? What do you think? Why, to prevent you from going off with Teddy.’
 ‘With Teddy!’
 ‘Yes, with Teddy. Do you think no one calls him Teddy but yourself?’
 Then Olive understood, and, with her teeth clenched she said, ‘No, it isn’t true; it is a lie; I will not believe it. Let me pass. What business have you to detain me? — what right have you to speak to me? We don’t know you; no one knows you: you are a bad woman whom no one will know.’
 ‘A bad woman! I like that — and from you. And what do you want to be, why are you running away from home? Why, to be what I was. We’re all alike, the same blood runs in our veins, and when the devil is in us we must have sweethearts, get them how we may: the airs and graces come on after; they are only so much trimming.’
 ‘How dare you insult me, you bad woman? Let me pass; I don’t know what you mean.’
 ‘Oh yes, you do. You think Teddy will take you off to Paris, and spoon you and take you out; but he won’t, at least not to-night. I shan’t give him up so easily as you think for, my lady.’
 ‘Give him up! What is he to you? How dare you speak so of my future husband? Captain Hibbert only loves me, he has often told me so.’
 ‘Loves nobody but you! I suppose you think that he never kissed, or spooned, or took anyone on his knee but you. Well, I suppose at twenty we’d believe anything a man told us; and we always think we are getting the first of it when we are only getting someone else’s leavings. But it isn’t for chicks of girls like you that a man cares, it isn’t to you a man comes for the love he wants; your kisses are very skim milk indeed, and it is we who teach them the words of love that they murmur afterwards in your ears.’
 The women looked at each other in silence, and both heard the needles shaken through the darkness above them. Mrs. Lawler stood by the stile, her hand was laid on the paling. At last Olive said:
 ‘Let me pass. I will not listen to you any longer; nor do I believe a word you have said. We all know what you are; you are a bad woman whom no one will visit. Let me pass!’ and pushing passionately forward she attempted to cross the stile. Then Mrs. Lawler took her by the shoulder and threw her roughly back. She fell to the ground heavily.
 ‘Now you had better get up and go home,’ said Mrs. Lawler, and she approached the prostrate girl. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you; but you shan’t elope with Teddy if I can prevent it. Why don’t you get up?’
 ‘Oh! my leg, my leg; you have broken my leg!’
 ‘Let me help you up.’
 ‘Don’t touch me,’ said Olive, attempting to rise; but the moment she put her right foot to the ground she shrieked with pain, and fell again.
 ‘Well, if you are going to take it in that way, you may remain where you are, and I can’t go and ring them up at Brookfield. I don’t think there will be much eloping done to-night, so farewell.’

XXVI
About ten o’clock on the night of Olive’s elopement, Alice knocked tremblingly at her mother’s door.
 ‘Mother,’ she said, ‘Olive is not in her room, nor yet in the house; I have looked for her everywhere.’
 ‘She is downstairs with her father in the studio,’ said Mrs. Barton; and, signing to her daughter to be silent, she led her out of hearing of Barnes, who was folding and putting some dresses away in the wardrobe.
 ‘I have been down to the studio,’ Alice replied in a whisper.
<6>’Then I am afraid she has run away with Captain Hibbert. But we shall gain nothing by sending men out with lanterns and making a fuss; by this time she is well on her way to Dublin. She might have done better than Captain Hibbert, but she might also have done worse. She will write to us in a few days to tell us that she is married, and to beg of us to forgive her.’
 And that night Mrs. Barton slept even more happily, with her mind more completely at rest, than usual; whereas Alice, fevered with doubt and apprehension, lay awake. At seven o’clock she was at her window, watching the grey morning splinter into sunlight over the quiet fields. Through the mist the gamekeeper came, and another man, carrying a woman between them, and the suspicion that her sister might have been killed in an agrarian outrage gripped her heart like an iron hand. She ran downstairs, and, rushing across the gravel, opened the wicket-gate. Olive was moaning with pain, but her moans were a sweet reassurance in Alice’s ears, and without attempting to understand the man’s story of how Miss Olive had sprained her ankle in crossing the stile in their wood, and how he had found her as he was going his rounds, she gave the man five shillings, thanked him, and sent him away. Barnes and the butler then carried Olive upstairs, and in the midst of much confusion Mr. Barton rode down the avenue in quest of Dr. Reed — galloped down the avenue, his pale hair blowing in the breeze.
 ‘I wish you had come straight to me,’ said Mrs. Barton to Alice, as soon as Barnes had left the room. ‘We’d have got her upstairs between us, and then we might have told any story we liked about her illness.’
<9>’But the Lawlers’ gamekeeper would know all about it.’
 ‘Ah, yes, that’s true. I never heard of anything so unfortunate in my life. An elopement is never very respectable, but an elopement that does not succeed, when the girl comes home again, is just as bad as — I cannot think how Olive could have managed to meet Captain Hibbert and arrange all this business, without my finding it out. I feel sure she must have had the assistance of a third party. I feel certain that all this is Barnes’s doing. I am beginning to hate that woman, with her perpetual smile, but it won’t do to send her away now; we must wait.’ And on these words Mrs. Barton approached the bed.
 Shaken with sudden fits of shivering, and her teeth chattering, Olive lay staring blindly at her mother and sister. Her eyes were expressive at once of fear and pain.
 ‘And now, my own darling, will you tell me how all this happened?’
 ‘Oh, not now, mother — not now ... I don’t know; I couldn’t help it... . You mustn’t scold me, I feel too ill to bear it.’
 ‘I am not thinking of scolding you, dearest, and you need not tell me anything you do not like... . I know you were going to run away with Captain Hibbert, and met with an accident crossing the stile in the Lawler Wood.’
 ‘Oh, yes, yes; I met that horrid woman, Mrs. Lawler; she knew all about it, and was waiting for me at the stile. She said lots of dreadful things to me ... I don’t remember what; that she had more right to Edward than I — ’
 ‘Never mind, dear; don’t agitate yourself thinking of what she said.’
 ‘And then, as I tried to pass her, she pushed me and I fell, and hurt my ankle so badly that I could not get up; and she taunted me, and she said she could not help me home because we were not on visiting terms. And I lay in that dreadful wood all night. But I can’t speak any more, I feel too ill; and I never wish to see Edward again... . The pain of my ankle is something terrible.’
 Mrs. Barton looked at Alice expressively, and she whispered in her ear:
 ‘This is all Barnes’s doing, but we cannot send her away... . We must put a bold face on it, and brave it out.’
 Dr. Reed was announced.
 ‘Oh, how do you do, doctor? ... It is so good of you to come at once... . We were afraid Mr. Barton would not find you at home. I am afraid that Olive has sprained her foot badly. Last night she went out for a walk rather late in the evening, and, in endeavouring to cross a stile, she slipped and hurt herself so badly that she was unable to return home, and lay exposed for several hours to the heavy night dews. I am afraid she has caught a severe cold... . She has been shivering.’
 ‘Can I see her foot?’
 ‘Certainly. Olive, dear, will you allow Dr. Reed to see your ankle?’
 ‘Oh, take care, mamma; you are hurting me!’ shrieked the girl, as Mrs. Barton removed the bedclothes. At this moment a knock was heard at the door.
 ‘Who on earth is this?’ cried Mrs. Barton. ‘Alice, will you go and see? Say that I am engaged, and can attend to nothing now.’
 When Alice returned to the bedside she drew her mother imperatively towards the window. ‘Captain Hibbert is waiting in the drawing-room. He says he must see you.’
 At the mention of Captain Hibbert’s name Mrs. Barton’s admirably governed temper showed signs of yielding: her face contracted and she bit her lips.
 ‘You must go down and see him. Tell him that Olive is very ill and that the doctor is with her. And mind you, you must not answer any questions. Say that I cannot see him, but that I am greatly surprised at his forcing his way into my house after what has passed between us; that I hope he will never intrude himself upon us again; that I cannot have my daughter’s life endangered, and that, if he insists on persecuting us, I shall have to write to his Colonel.’
 ‘Do you not think that father would be the person to make such explanations?’
 ‘You know your father could not be trusted to talk sensibly for five minutes — at least,’ she said, correcting herself, ‘on anything that did not concern painting or singing... . But,’ she continued, following her daughter to the door, ‘on second thoughts I do not think it would be advisible to bring matters to a crisis... . I do not know how this affair will affect Olive’s chances, and if he is anxious to marry her I do not see why he should not; ... she may not be able to get any better. So you had better, I think, put him off — pretend that we are very angry, and get him to promise not to try to see or to write to Olive until, let us say, the end of the year. It will only make him more keen on her.’
 When Alice opened the drawing-room door Captain Hibbert rushed forward; his soft eyes were bright with excitement, and his tall figure was thrown into a beautiful pose when he stopped.
 ‘Oh, I beg your pardon. Miss Barton. I had expected your sister.’
 ‘My sister is very ill in bed, and the doctor is with her.’
 ‘Ill in bed!’
 ‘Yes, she sprained her ankle last night in attempting to cross the stile in the wood at the end of our lawn.’
 ‘Oh, that was the reason ... then ... Can I see your sister for a few minutes?’
 ‘It is quite impossible; and my mother desires me to say that she is very much surprised that you should come here... . We know all about your attempt to induce Olive to leave her home.’
 ‘Then she has told you? But if you knew how I love her, you would not blame me. What else could I do? Your mother would not let me see her, and she was very unhappy at home; you did not know this, but I did, and if luck hadn’t been against me — Ah! but what’s the use in talking of luck; luck was against me, or she would have been my wife now. And what a little thing suffices to blight a man’s happiness in life; what a little, oh, what a little!’ he said, speaking in a voice full of bitterness; and he buried his face in his hands.
 Alice’s eyes as she looked at him were expressive of her thoughts — they beamed at once with pity and admiration. He was but the ordinary handsome young man that in England nature seems to reproduce in everlasting stereotype. Long graceful legs, clad in tight-fitting trousers, slender hips rising architecturally to square wide shoulders, a thin strong neck and a tiny head — yes, a head so small that an artist would at once mark off eight on his sheet of double elephant. And now he lay over the back of a chair weeping like a child; in the intensity of his grief he was no longer commonplace; and as Alice looked at this superb animal thrown back in a superb abandonment of pose, her heart filled with the natural pity that the female feels always for the male in distress, and the impulse within her was to put her arms about him and console him; and then she understood her sister’s passion for him, and her mind formulated it thus: ‘How handsome he is! Any girl would like a man like that.’ And as Alice surrendered herself to those sensuous, or rather romantic feelings, her nature quickened to a sense of pleasure, and she grew gentler with him, and was glad to listen while he sobbed out his sorrows to her.
 ‘Oh, why,’ he exclaimed, ‘did she fall over that thrice-accursed stile! In five minutes more we would have been in each other’s arms, and for ever. I had a couple of the best post-horses in Gort; they’d have taken us to Athenry in a couple of hours, and then — Oh! what luck, what luck!’
 ‘But do you not know that Olive met Mrs. Lawler in the wood, and that it was she who — ’
 ‘What do you say? You don’t mean to tell me that it was Mrs. Lawler who prevented Olive from meeting me? Oh, what beasts, what devils women are,’ he said; ‘and the worst of it is that one cannot be even with them, and they know it. If you only knew,’ he said, turning almost fiercely upon Alice, ‘how I loved your sister, you would pity me; but I suppose it is all over now. Is she very ill?’
 ‘We don’t know yet. She has sprained her ankle very badly, and is shivering terribly; she was lying out all night in the wet wood.’
 He did not answer at once. He walked once or twice up and down the room, and then he said, taking Alice’s hand in his, ‘Will you be a friend to me, Miss Barton?’ He could get no further, for tears were rolling down his cheeks.
 Alice looked at him tenderly; she was much touched by the manifestation of his love, and at the end of a long silence she said:
 ‘Now, Captain Hibbert, I want you to listen to me. Don’t cry any more, but listen.’
 ‘I dare say I look a great fool.’
 ‘No, indeed you do not,’ she answered; and then in kindly worded phrases she told him that, at least for the present, he must not attempt to correspond with Olive. ‘Give me your word of honour that you will neither write nor speak to her for, let us say, six months, and I will promise to be your friend.’
 ‘I will do anything you ask me to do, but will you in return promise to write and tell me how she is getting on, and if she is in any danger?’
 ‘I think I can promise to do that; I will write and tell you how Olive is in a few days. Now we must say good-bye; and you will not forget your promise to me, as I shall not forget mine to you.’
 When Alice went upstairs, Dr. Reed and Mrs. Barton were talking on the landing.
 ‘And what do you think, doctor?’ asked the anxious mother.
 ‘It is impossible to say. She has evidently received a severe nervous shock, and this and the exposure to which she was subjected may develop into something serious. You will give her that Dover’s powder to-night, and you will see that she has absolute quiet and rest. Have you got a reliable nurse?’
 ‘Yes, the young ladies have a maid; I think Barnes can be trusted to carry out your orders, doctor.’
 ‘Oh, mamma, I hope you will allow me to nurse my sister; I should not like to leave her in charge of a servant.’
 ‘I am afraid you are not strong enough, dear.’
 ‘Oh, yes, I am; am I not strong enough, doctor?’
 Dr. Reed looked for a moment steadily at Alice. ‘Your sister will,’ he said, ‘require a good deal of looking after. But if you will not overdo it, I think you seem quite strong enough to nurse her. But you must not sit up at night with her too regularly; you must share the labour with someone.’
 ‘She will do that with me,’ said Mrs. Barton, speaking more kindly, Alice thought, than she had ever heard her speak before.
 Then a wailing voice was heard calling to Alice.
 ‘Go in and see what she wants, dear, but you will not encourage her to talk much; the doctor does not wish it.’
 The room did not look the same to Alice as it had ever looked before. Her eyes fell on the Persian rugs laid between the two white beds and the tall glass in the wardrobe where Olive wasted half-an-hour every evening, examining her beauty. Would she ever do so again? Now a broken reflection of feverish eyes and blonde hair was what remained. The white curtains of the chimneypiece had been drawn aside, a bright fire was burning, and Barnes was removing a foot-pan of hot water.
 ‘Sit down here by me, Alice; I want to talk to you.’
 ‘The doctor has forbidden you to talk, dear; he says you must have perfect rest and quiet.’
 ‘I must talk a little to you; if I didn’t I should go mad.’
 ‘Well, what is it, dear?’
 ‘I will tell you presently,’ said the sick girl, glancing at Barnes.
 ‘You can tidy up the room afterwards, Barnes; Miss Olive wants to talk to me now.’
 ‘Oh, Alice, tell me,’ cried the girl, when the servant had left the room, ‘I don’t want to ask mamma — she won’t tell me the exact truth; but you will. Tell me what the doctor said... . Did he say I was going to die?’
 ‘Going to die? Olive, who ever heard of such a thing? You really must not give way to such fancies.’
 ‘Well, tell me what he said.’
 ‘He said that you had received a severe nervous shock, that you had been subjected to several hours’ exposure, that you must take great care of yourself, and, above all, have perfect rest and quiet, and not excite yourself, and not talk.’
 ‘Is that all he said? Then he cannot know how ill I feel; perhaps I ought to see another doctor. But I don’t believe anyone could do me much good. Oh, I feel wretchedly ill, and somehow I seem to know I am going to die! It would be very horrible to die; but young girls no older than I have died — have been cut off in the beginning of their life. And we have seen nothing of life, only a few balls and parties. It would be terrible to die so soon. When Violet carried off the Marquis I felt so bitterly ashamed that I thought I would have liked to die; but not now — now I know that Edward loves me I would not care to die; it would be terrible to die before I was married. Wouldn’t it, Alice? ... But you don’t answer me; did you never think about death?’
 Then, as the thin wailing voice sank into her ears, Alice started from her dreams, and she strove to submit her attention to her sister.
 ‘Yes, dear, of course I have. Death is, no doubt, a very terrible thing, but we can do no good by thinking of it.’
 ‘Oh yes, we should, Alice, for this is not the only world — there is another and a better one; and, as mamma says, and as religion says, we are only here to try and get a good place in it. You are surprised to hear me speak like this; you think I never think of anything but the colour of a bonnet-string, but I do.’
 ‘I am sure you do, Olive; I never doubted it; but I wish you would now do what the doctor orders, and refrain from talking and exciting yourself, and try and get well. You may then think of death and other gloomy things as much as you like.’
 ‘You don’t understand, Alice; one can’t think of death, then — one has so much else to think of; one is so taken up with other ideas. It is only when one is ill that one really begins to see what life is. You have never been ill, and you don’t know how terribly near death seems to have come — very near. Perhaps I ought to see the priest; it would be just as well, just in case I should die. Don’t you think so?’
 ‘I don’t think there is any more danger of your dying now than there was a month ago, dear, and I am sure you can have nothing on your mind that demands immediate confession,’ she said, her voice trembling a little.
 ‘Oh yes, I have, Alice, and a very great deal; I have been very wicked.’
 ‘Very wicked!’
 ‘Well, I know you aren’t pious, Alice, and perhaps you don’t believe there is harm in such things, but I do; and I know it was very wrong, and perhaps a mortal sin, to try to run away with Edward. But I loved him so very dearly, and I was so tired of staying at home and being taken out to parties. And when you are in love with a man you forget everything. At least I did; and when he asked to kiss me I couldn’t refuse. You won’t tell anyone, Alice dear, that I told you this.’ Alice shook her head, and Olive continued, in spite of all that the doctor had said:
 ‘But you don’t know how lonely I feel at home; you never feel lonely, I dare say, for you only think of your books and papers, and don’t realize what a disgrace it would be if I didn’t marry, and after all the trouble that mamma has taken. But I don’t know what will become of me now. I’m going to be dreadfully ill, and when I get well I shall be pretty no longer; I am sure I am looking wretchedly. I must see myself — fetch the glass, Alice, Alice.’
 Olive lay whining and calling for her sister, and when Dr. Reed came he ordered several inches of the pale silky hair to be cut away and a cold lotion to be applied to the forehead, and some sliced lemons were given to her to suck.
 The clear blue eyes were dull, the breathing quick, the skin dry and hot; and on the following day four leeches had to be applied to her ankle. They relieved her somewhat, and, when she had taken her draught, she sank to sleep. But as the night grew denser, Alice was suddenly awakened by someone speaking wildly in her ear: ‘Take me away, dear! I am sick of home; I want to get away from all these spiteful girls. I know they are laughing at me because Violet cut me out with the Marquis. We shall be married, shan’t we, the moment we arrive in Dublin? It’s horrible to be married at the registrar’s, but it’s better than not being married at all. But do you think they will catch us up? It would be dreadful to be taken back home, I couldn’t bear it. Oh, do drive on; we don’t seem to be moving. You see that strange tree on the right, we haven’t passed it yet; I don’t think we ever shall. Whip up that bay horse; don’t you see he is turning round, wants to go back? I am sure that this isn’t the road; that man at the corner told you a lie. I know he was mocking at us — I saw it in his eye... . Look, look, Edward! Oh, look — it is papa, or Lord Dungory, I can’t tell which, he won’t lift his cloak.’ And then the vision would fade, and she would fancy herself in the wood, arguing once again with Mrs. Lawler. ‘No, what you say isn’t true; he never loved you. How could he? You are an old woman. Let me pass — let me pass. Why do you speak to me? We don’t visit, we never did visit you. No; it was not at our house you met Edward. You were on the streets; and Edward shall not, he could not, think of running away with you — will you, darling? Oh, help me, help me out of this dreadful wood. I want to go home, but I can’t walk. That terrible bird is still watching me, and I dare not pass that tree till you drive it away.’
 The two beds, with their white curtains and brass crowns, showed through the pale obscurity, broken only by the red-glowing basin where a night-light burnt, and the long tongues of flame that the blazing peat scattered from time to time across the darkened ceiling. The solitude of the sleeping house grew momentarily more intense in Alice’s brain, and she trembled as she strove to soothe her sister, and covered the hot feverish arms over with the bedclothes.
 ‘What sort of night has Olive had?’ Mrs. Barton asked when she came in about eight.
 ‘Not a very quiet one; I am afraid she’s a little delirious.’
 ‘Dr. Reed promised to be here early. How do you feel, dear?’ Mrs. Barton asked, leaning over the bed.
 ‘Oh, very ill; I can scarcely breathe, and I have such a pain in my side.’
 ‘Your lips look very sore, dear; do they hurt you?’ — Olive only moaned dismally — and, looking anxiously at her elder daughter, she said:
 ‘And you, too, Alice, are not looking well. You are tired, and mustn’t sit up another night with your sister. To-night I’ll take your place.’
 ‘Oh, mother, no! I assure you it is a pleasure to me to nurse Olive. I am very well indeed; do not think about me.’
 ‘Indeed, I will think about you, and you must do as I tell you. I’ll look after Olive, and you must try and get a good night’s rest We will take it in turns to nurse her. And now come down to breakfast. Barnes, you’ll not think of leaving Miss Olive until we come back; and, if any change occurs, ring for me immediately.’
 When Dr. Reed arrived, Alice was again sitting by the bedside.
 ‘And how is our patient to-day?’
 ‘I cannot say she is any better; she has a distressing cough, and last night I am afraid she was a little delirious.’
 ‘Ah, you say the cough is distressing?’
 ‘I am afraid I must call it distressing; is that a very bad sign?’
 ‘Probably there is not much wrong, but it would be better to ascertain the condition of the patient, and then we may be able to do something to relieve her.’
 The doctor drew a stethoscope from his pocket, and they lifted the patient into a sitting position.
 ‘I should like to examine her chest;’ and his fingers moved to unfasten her night-gown.
 ‘Don’t expose me,’ she murmured feebly.
 ‘Now, Olive dear, remember it is only the doctor; let him examine you.’
 Olive’s eyes were a dull filmy blue, the lips were covered with sores, and there was a redness over the cheekbones — not the hectic flush of phthisis, but a dusky redness. And the patient was so weak that during the stethoscopic examination her head fell from side to side as she was moved, and when the doctor pressed her right side her moans were pregnant with pain.
 ‘Now let me see the tongue. Dry and parched.’
 ‘Shall I die, doctor?’ the girl asked feebly and plaintively as she sank amidst the pillows.
 ‘Die! no, not if you take care of yourself and do what you are told.’
 ‘But tell me, Dr. Reed,’ Alice asked. ‘You can tell me the truth.’
 ‘She’ll get well if she takes care of herself. It is impossible to say. No one can predict the turn pneumonia will take.’
 ‘Pneumonia! What is that?’
 ‘Congestion of the lungs, or rather an advanced stage of it. It is more common in men than in women, and it is the consequence of long exposure to wet and cold.’
 ‘Is it very dangerous?’
 ‘Very; and now let me tell you that it is all-important that the temperature of the room should not be allowed to vary. I attended a case of it some three or four miles from here, but the damp of the cabin was so great that it was impossible to combat the disease. The cottage, or rather hovel, was built on the edge of a soft spongy bog, and so wet was it that the woman had to sweep the water every morning from the floor, where it collected in great pools. I am now going to visit an evicted family, who are living in a partially roofed shed fenced up by the roadside. The father is down with fever, and lies shivering, with nothing to drink but cold water. His wife told me that last week it rained so heavily that she had to get up three times in the night to wring the sheets out.’
 ‘And why were they evicted?’
 ‘Oh, that is a long story; but it is a singularly characteristic one. In the first place, he was an idle fellow; he got into difficulties and owed his landlord three years’ rent. Then he got into bad hands, and was prevented from coming to terms with his landlord. There was a lot of jobbing going on between the priest and the village grocer, and finally it was arranged that the latter should pay off the existing debt if the landlord could be forced into letting him the farm at a "fair rent," that is to say, thirty per cent reduction on the old rent. In recognition of his protecting influence, the priest was to take a third of the farm off the grocer’s hands, and the two were then to conjointly rack-rent poor Murphy for the remaining third portion, which he would be allowed to retain for a third of the original rent; but the National League heard of their little tricks, and now the farm is boycotted, and Murphy is dying in the ditch for the good of his counthry.’
 ‘I thought boycotting was ended, that the League had lost all power.’
 ‘It has and it hasn’t. Sometimes a man takes a farm and keeps it in defiance of his neighbours; sometimes they hunt him out of it. It is hard to come to a conclusion, for when in one district you hear of rents being paid and boycotted farms letting freely, in another, only a few miles away, the landlords are giving reductions, and there are farms lying waste that no one dare look at. In my opinion the fire is only smouldering, and when the Coercion Act expires the old organization will rise up as strong and as triumphant as before. This is a time of respite for both parties.’
 The conversation then came to a sudden pause. Alice felt it would be out of place for her to speak her sympathies for the Nationalistic cause, and she knew it would be unfair to lead the doctor to express his. So at the end of a long silence, during which each divined the other’s thoughts, she said:
 ‘I suppose you see a great deal of the poor and the miseries they endure?’
 ‘I have had good opportunities of studying them. Before I came here I spent ten years in the poorest district in Donegal. I am sure there wasn’t a gentleman’s house within fifteen miles of me.’
 ‘And didn’t you feel very lonely?’
 ‘Yes, I did, but one gets so used to solitude that to return to the world, after having lived long in the atmosphere of one’s own thoughts, is painful. The repugnance that grows on those who live alone to hearing their fellow-creatures express their ideas is very remarkable. It must be felt to be understood; and I have often wondered how it was that I never met it in a novel.’
 ‘It would be very difficult to write. Do you ever read fiction?’
 ‘Yes, and enjoy it. In my little home amid the northern bogs, I used to look forward when I had finished writing, to reading a story.’
 ‘What were you writing?’
 ‘A book.’
 ‘A book!’ exclaimed Alice, looking suddenly pleased and astonished.
 ‘Yes, but not a work of fiction — I am afraid I am too prosaic an individual for that — a medical work.’
 ‘And have you finished your book?’
 ‘Yes, it is finished, and I am glad to say it is in the hands of a London publisher. We have not yet agreed about the price, but I hope and believe that, directly and indirectly, it will lead to putting me into a small London practice.’
 ‘And then you will leave us?’
 ‘I am afraid so. There are many friends I shall miss — that I shall be very sorry to leave, but — ’
 ‘Oh, of course it would not do to miss such a chance.’
 They fell to discussing the patient, and when the doctor left, Alice proceeded to carry out his instructions concerning the patient, and, these being done, she sat down by the bedside and continued her thoughts of him with a sense of pleasure. She remembered that she had always liked him. Yes, it was a liking that dated as far back as the spinsters’ ball at Ballinasloe. He was the only man there in whom she had taken the slightest interest. They were sitting together on the stairs when that poor fellow was thrown down and had his leg broken. She remembered how she had enjoyed meeting him at tennis-parties, and how often she had walked away with him from the players through the shrubberies; and above all she could not forget — it was a long sweet souvenir — the beautiful afternoon she had spent with him, sitting on the rock, the day of the picnic at Kinvarra Castle. She had forgotten, or rather she had never noticed, that he was a short, thick-set, middle-aged man, that he wore mutton-chop whiskers, and that his lips were overhung by a long dark moustache. His manners were those of an unpolished and somewhat commonplace man. But while she thought of his grey eyes her heart was thrilled with gladness, and as she dreamed of his lonely life of labour and his ultimate hopes of success, all her old sorrows and fears seemed to have evaporated. Then suddenly and with the unexpectedness of an apparition the question presented itself: Did she like him better than Harding? Alice shrank from the unpleasantness of the thought, and did not force herself to answer it, but busied herself with attending to her sister’s wants.
 While the dawn of Alice’s happiness, Olive lay suffering in all the dire humility of the flesh. Hourly her breathing grew shorter and more hurried, her cough more frequent, and the expectoration that accompanied it darker and thicker in colour. The beautiful eyes were now turgid and dull, the lids hung heavily over a line of filmy blue, and a thick scaly layer of bloody tenacious mucus persistently accumulated and covered the tiny and once almost jewel-like teeth. For three or four days these symptoms knew no abatement; and it was over this prostrated body, weakened and humiliated by illness, that Alice and Dr. Reed read love in each other’s eyes, and it was about this poor flesh that their hands were joined as they lifted Olive out of the recumbent position she had slipped into, and built up the bowed-in pillows. And as it had once been all Olive in Brookfield, it was now all Alice; the veil seemed suddenly to have slipped from all eyes, and the exceeding worth of this plain girl was at last recognized. Mrs. Barton’s presence at the bedside did not soothe the sufferer; she grew restless and demanded her sister. And the illness continued, her life in the balance till the eighth day. It was then that she took a turn for the better; the doctor pronounced her out of danger, and two days after she lay watching Alice and Dr. Reed talking in the window. ‘Were they talking about her?’ she asked herself. She did not think they were. It seemed to her that each was interested in the other. ‘Laying plans,’ the sick girl said to herself, ‘for themselves.’ At these words her senses dimmed, and when she awoke she had some difficulty in remembering what she had seen.

XXVII
‘Ah, ce cher Milord, comme il est beau, comme il est parfait!’ exclaimed Mrs. Barton, as she led him to his chair and poured out his glass of sherry.
 But there was a gloom on his face which laughter and compliments failed for a moment to dissipate — at last he said:
 ‘Ah, Mrs. Barton, Mrs. Barton! if I hadn’t this little retreat to take refuge in, to hide myself in, during some hours of the day, I should not be able to bear up — Brookfield has prolonged my life for — ’
 ‘I cannot allow such sad thoughts as these,’ said Mrs. Barton laughing, and waving her white hands. ‘Who has been teasing notre cher Milord? What have dreadful Lady Jane and terrible Lady Sarah been doing to him?’
 ‘I shall never forget this morning, no, not if I lived to a thousand,’ the old gentleman murmured plaintively. ‘Oh, the scenes — the scenes I have been through! Cecilia, as I told you yesterday, has been filling the house with rosaries and holywater-fonts; Jane and Sarah have been breaking these, and the result has been tears and upbraidings. Last night at dinner I don’t really know what they didn’t say to each other; and then the two elder ones fell upon me and declared that it was all my fault, that I ought never to have sent my daughter to a Catholic convent. I was obliged to shut myself up in the study and lock the door. Then this morning, when I thought it was all over, it began again worse than ever; and then in the middle of it all, when Jane asked Cecilia how many Gods there were in the roll of bread she was eating if the priest were to bless it — if a Papist wasn’t one who couldn’t worship God till somebody had turned Him into a biscuit — a most injudicious observation, I said so at the time, and I must apologize to you, my dear Mrs. Barton, for repeating it, but I am really so upset that I scarcely know what I am saying. Well, Jane had no sooner spoken than Cecilia overthrew the teacups and said she wasn’t going to stay in the house to hear her religion insulted, and without another word she walked down to the parish priest and was baptized a Catholic; nor is that all. She returned with a scapular round her neck, a rosary about her waist, and a Pope’s medal in her hand. I really thought Jane and Sarah would have fainted; indeed I am sure they would have fainted if Cecilia hadn’t declared that she was going to pack up her things and return at once to St. Leonards and become a nun. Such an announcement as this was, of course, far beyond fainting, and ... but no, I will not attempt to describe it, but I can assure you I was very anxious to get out of the house.’
 ‘Cecilia going to be a nun; oh, I am so glad!’ exclaimed Olive. ‘It is far the best thing she could do, for she couldn’t hope to be married.’
 ‘Olive, Olive!’ said Mrs. Barton, ‘you shouldn’t speak so openly. We should always consider the religious prejudices of others. Of course, as Catholics we must be glad to hear of anyone joining the true Church, but we should remember that Milord is going to lose his daughter.’
 ‘I assure you, my dear Mrs. Barton, I have no prejudices. I look upon all religions as equally good and equally bad, but to be forced to live in a perpetual discussion in which teacups are broken, concerning scapulars, bacon and meal shops, and a school which, putting aside the question of expense, makes me hated in the neighbourhood, I regard as intolerable; and when I go home this evening, I shall tell Jane that the school must be put down or carried on in a less aggressive way. I assure you I have no wish to convert the people; they are paying their rents very well now, and I think it absurd to upset them; and the fact of having received Cecilia into the Church might incline the priest very much towards us.’
 ‘And Cecilia will be so happy in that beautiful convent!’ suggested Mrs. Barton.
 ‘C’est le génie du Catholicisme de nous débarrasser des filles laides.’
 And upon this expression of goodwill towards the Church of Rome Cecilia’s future life was discussed with much amiability. Mrs. Barton said she would make a sweet little nun; Olive declared that she would certainly go to St. Leonard’s to see her ‘professed’; and Milord’s description of Lady Sarah’s and Lady Jane’s ill-humour was considered very amusing, and just as he was about to recount some new incident — one that had escaped his memory till then — the door opened and the servant announced Dr. Reed.
 ‘Now, what can he want? Olive is quite well. He looks at her tongue and feels her pulse. How do you do, Dr. Reed? Here is your patient, whom you will find in the best health and spirits.’
 As he was about to reply, Alice came into the room, and she tried to carry on the conversation naturally. But the silence of Mrs. Barton and Milord made this difficult; Dr. Reed was not a ready talker, and this morning his replies were more than ever awkward and constrained. At last it dawned on Alice that he wanted to speak to her alone; and in answer to a remark he had made concerning the fever dens in Gort she said:
 ‘I wanted to ask you a question or two about typhoid fever, Dr. Reed; one of my heroines is going to die of it, and I should like to avoid medical impossibilities. May I show you the passage?’
 ‘Certainly, Miss Barton; I shall be delighted to help you — if I can.’
 As soon as Alice left the room to fetch her manuscript the doctor hurriedly bade his patient, Milord, and Mrs. Barton, good-bye.
 ‘Aren’t you going to wait to see Alice?’ Mrs. Barton asked.
 ‘I have to speak to the boy in charge of my car; I shall see Miss Barton as she comes downstairs.’
 Mrs. Barton looked as if she thought this arrangement not a little singular, but she said nothing; and when Alice came running downstairs with a roll of MSS. in her hand, she attempted to explain her difficulty to the doctor. He made a feeble attempt to listen to the passage she read aloud to him; and when their eyes met across the paper she saw he was going to propose to her.
 ‘Will you walk down the drive with me? and we will talk of that as we go along.’
 Her hat was on the hall-table; she took it up, and in silence walked with him out on the gravel.
 ‘Will I put the harse up, sor?’ cried the boy from the outside car.
 ‘No; follow me down the avenue.’
 It was a wild autumn evening, full of wind and leaves. The great green pasture-lands, soaked and soddened with rain, rolled their monotonous green turf to the verge of the blown beech-trees, about which the rooks drifted in picturesque confusion. Now they soared like hawks, or on straightened wings were carried down a furious gust across the tumultuous waves of upheaved yellow, and past the rift of cold crimson that is tossed like a banner through the shadows of evening.
 ‘I came here to tell you that I am going away; that I am leaving Ireland for ever. I’ve bought the practice I spoke to you of in Notting Hill.’
 ‘Oh, I am so glad!’
 ‘Thank you! But there is another and more important matter on which I should like to speak to you. For a long time back I had resolved to leave Ireland a sad or an entirely happy man. Which shall it be? You are the only woman I ever loved — will you be my wife?’
 ‘Yes, I will.’
 ‘I was afraid to ask you before. But,’ he added, sighing, ‘I shan’t be able to give you a home like the one you are leaving. We shall have to be very economical; we shall not have more than three hundred a year to live upon. Will you be satisfied with that?’
 ‘I hope, indeed — I am sure we shall get on very well. You forget that I can do something to keep myself,’ she added, smiling. ‘I have two or three orders.’
 She passed her arm through Dr. Reed’s; and as he unfolded his plans to her, he held her hand warmly and affectionately in his: and as the twilight drifted it was wrapped like a veil about them. The rooks in great flitting flocks passed over their heads, the tempestuous crimson of the sky had been hurled further away, and only the form of the grey horse, that the boy had allowed to graze, stood out distinctly in the gloom that descended upon the earth.

XXVIII
On the very first opportunity she could find Alice told her mother that Dr. Reed had proposed to her, and that she had accepted him. Mrs. Barton said it was disgraceful, and that she would never hear of such a marriage; and when the doctor called next day she acquainted him with her views on the subject. She told him he had very improperly taken advantage of his position to make love to her daughter; she really didn’t know how he could ever have arrived at the conclusion that a match was possible, and that for the future his visits must cease at Brookfield. And when Alice heard what had passed between Dr. Reed and her mother she wrote, assuring him that her feelings towards him would remain uninfluenced by anything that anyone might say. All the same, it might be as well, having regard for what had happened, that the marriage should take place with the least possible delay.
 She took this letter down to the post-office herself, and when she returned she entered the drawing-room and told Mrs. Barton what she had done.
 ‘I wish you had shown me the letter before you sent it. There is nothing we need advice about so much as a letter.’
 ‘Yes, mother,’ replied Alice, deceived by the gentleness of Mrs. Barton’s manner; ‘but we seemed to hold such widely different views on this matter that there did not seem to be any use in discussing it.’
 ‘Mother and daughter should never hold different views; my children’s interests are my interests — what interests have I now but theirs?’
 ‘Oh, mother! Then you will consent to this marriage?’
 Mrs. Barton’s face always changed expression before a direct question. ‘My dear, I would consent to anything that would make you happy; but it seems to me impossible that you could be happy with Dr. Reed. I wonder how you could like him. You do not know — I mean, you do not realize what the intimacies of married life are. They are often hard to put up with, no matter who the man may be, but with one who is not a gentleman — ’
 ‘But, mother, Dr. Reed seems to me to be in every way a gentleman. Who is there more gentlemanly in the country? I am sure that from every point of view he is preferable to Mr. Adair or Sir Charles, or Sir Richard or Mr. Ryan, or his cousin, Mr. Lynch.’
 ‘My darling child, I would sooner see you laid in your coffin than married to either Mr. Ryan or Mr. Lynch; but that is not the question. It is, whether you had not better wait for a few years before you throw yourself away on such a man as Dr. Reed. I know that you have been greatly tried; nothing is so trying to a girl as to come out with her sister who is the belle of the season, and I must say you have shown a great deal of pluck; and perhaps I haven’t been considerate enough. But I, too, have had my disappointments — Olive’s affairs did not, as you know, turn out as well as I had expected, and to see you now marry one who is so much beneath us!’
 ‘Mother, dear, he is not beneath us. There is no one who has earned his career but Dr. Reed; he owes nothing to anyone; he has done it all by his own exertions; and now he has bought a London practice.’
 ‘Then you do not love him; it is only for the sake of settling yourself in life that you are marrying him?’
 ‘I respect Dr. Reed more than any man living; I bear for him a most sincere affection, and I hope to make him a good wife.’
 ‘You don’t love him as you did Mr. Harding? If you will only wait you may get him. The tenants are paying their rents very well, and I am thinking of going to London in the spring.’
 The girl winced at the mention of Harding, but she looked into her mother’s soft appealing brown eyes; and, reading clearer than she had ever read before all the adorable falseness that lay therein, she answered:
 ‘I do not want to marry Mr. Harding; I am engaged to Dr. Reed, and I do not intend to give him up.’
 This answer was given so firmly that Mrs. Barton lost her temper for a moment, and she said:
 ‘And do you really know what this Dr. Reed originally was? Lord Dungory is dining here to-night; he knows all about Dr. Reed’s antecedents, and I am sure he will be horrified when he hears that you are thinking of marrying him.’
 ‘I cannot recognize Lord Dungory’s right to advise me on any course I may choose to take, and I hope he will have the good taste to refrain from speaking to me of my marriage.’
 ‘What do you mean? How dare you speak to me like that, you impertinent girl!’
 ‘I am not impertinent, mother, and I hope I shall never be impertinent to you; but I am now in my twenty-fifth year, and if I am ever to judge for myself, I must do so now.’
 Alice was curiously surprised by her own words; it seemed to her that it was some strange woman, and not herself — not the old self with whom she was intimately acquainted — who was speaking. Life is full of these epoch-marking moments. We have all at some given time experienced the sensation of finding ourselves either stronger or weaker than we had ever before known ourselves to be; Alice now for the first time felt that she was speaking and acting in her own individual right; and the knowledge as it thrilled through her consciousness was almost a physical pleasure. But notwithstanding the certitude that never left her of the propriety of her conduct, and the equally ever-present sentiment of the happiness that awaited her, she suffered much during the next ten days, and she was frequently in tears. Cecilia had started for St. Leonards without coming to wish her good-bye, and the cruel sneers, insinuations of all kinds against her and against Dr. Reed, which Mrs. Barton never missed an occasion of using, wounded the girl so deeply, that it was only at the rarest intervals that she left her room — when she walked to the post with a letter, when the luncheon or dinner bell rang. Why she should be thus persecuted, Alice was unable to determine; and why her family did not hail with delight this chance of getting rid of a plain girl, whose prospects were limited, was difficult to say; nor could the girl arrive at any notion of the pleasure or profit it might be to anyone that she should waste her life amid chaperons and gossip, instead of taking her part in the world’s work. And yet this seemed to be her mother’s idea. She did not hesitate to threaten that she would neither attend herself, nor allow Mr. Barton to attend the ceremony. Alice might meet Dr. Reed at the corner of the road, and be married as best she could. Alice appealed to her father against this decision, but she soon had to renounce the hope of obtaining any definite answer. He had been previously told that if he attempted any interference, his supply of paints, brushes, canvases, and guitar-strings would be cut off, and, as he was at present deeply engaged on a new picture of Julius Cæsar overturning the Altars of the Druids, he hesitated before the alternatives offered to him. He spoke with much affection; he regretted that Alice could not see her way to marrying somebody whom her mother could approve! He explained the difficulties of his position, and the necessity of his turning something out — seeing what he really could do before the close of the year. Alice was disappointed, and bitterly, but she bore her disappointment bravely, and she wrote to Dr. Reed, telling him what had occurred, and proposing to meet him on a certain day at the Parish Church, where Father Shannon would marry them; and, that if he refused, they would proceed to Dublin, and be married at the Registry Office. In a way Alice would have preferred this latter course, but her good sense warned her against the uselessness of offering any too violent opposition to the opinions of the world. And so it was arranged; and sad, weary, and wretched, Alice lingered through the last few days of the life that had always been to her one of humiliation, and which now towards its close had quieted to one of intense pain.
 The Brennans had promised to meet her in the chapel, and one day, as she was sitting by her window, she saw May in all the glory of her copper hair, drive a tandem up to the door. This girl threw the reins to the groom, and rushed to her friend.
 ‘And how do you do, Alice, and how well you are looking, and how pleased I am to see you. I would have come before, only my leader was coughing and I couldn’t take him out. Oh, I was so wild; it is always like that; nothing is so disappointing as horses; whenever you especially require them they are laid up, and you can’t imagine the difficulty I had to get him along; I must really get another leader; he was trying to turn round the whole way — if it hadn’t been for the whip. I took blood out of him three times running. But I know you don’t care anything about horses, and I want to hear about this marriage. I am so glad, so pleased, but tell me, do you like him? He seems a very nice sort of man, you know, a man that would make a woman happy... . I am sure you will be happy with him, but it is dreadful to think we are going to lose you. I shall, I know, be running over to London on purpose to see you; but tell me, what I want to know is, do you like him? Would you believe it, I never once suspected there was anything between you?’
 ‘Yes, my dear May,’ Alice replied smiling, ‘I do like Edward Reed; nor do I think that I should ever like any other man half as much: I have perfect confidence in him, and where there is not confidence there cannot be love. He has bought a small practice in Notting Hill, which with care and industry he hopes may be worked up into a substantial business. We shall be very poor at first, but we shall be able to make both ends meet.’
 ‘I can see it all; a little suburban semi-detached house, with green Venetian blinds, a small mahogany sideboard, and a clean capped maid-servant; and in the drawing-room you won’t have a piano — you don’t care for music, but you’ll have some basket chairs, and small bookcases, and a tea-table with tea-cakes at five — oh, won’t you look quiet and grave at that tea-table. But tell me, it is all over the county that Mrs. Barton won’t hear of this marriage, and that she won’t allow your father to go to the chapel to give you away. It is a shame, and for the life of me I can’t see what parents have to do with our marriages, do you?’
 Without waiting for an answer, May continued the conversation, and with vehemence she passed from one subject to another utterly disconnected without a transitional word of explanation. She explained how tiresome it was to sit at home of an evening listening to Mrs. Gould bemoaning the state of the country; she spoke of her terrier, and this led up to a critical examination of the good looks of several of the officers stationed at Gort; then she alluded to the last meet of the hounds, and she described the big wall she and Mrs. Manly had jumped together; a new hat and an old skirt that she had lately done up came in for a passing remark, and, with an abundance of laughter, May gave an account of a luncheon-party at Lord Rosshill’s; and, apparently verbatim, she told what each of the five Honourable Miss Gores had said about the marriage. Then growing suddenly serious, she said:
 ‘It is all very well to laugh, but, when one comes to think of it, it is very sad indeed to see seven human lives wasting away, a whole family of girls eating their hearts out in despair, having nothing to do but to pop about from one tennis-party to another, and chatter to each other or their chaperons of this girl and that who does not seem to be getting married. You are very lucky indeed, Alice — luckier than you think you are, and you are quite right to stick out and do the best you can for yourself in spite of what your people say. It is all very well for them to talk, but they don’t know what we suffer: we are not all made alike, and the wants of one are not the wants of another. I dare say you never thought much about that sort of thing; but as I say, we are not all made alike. Every woman, or nearly every one, wants a husband and a home, and it is only natural she should, and if she doesn’t get them the temptations she has to go through are something frightful, and if we make the slightest slip the whole world is down upon us. I can talk to you, Alice, because you know what I have gone through. You have been a very good friend to me — had it not been for you I don’t know what would have become of me. You didn’t reproach me, you were kind and had pity for me; you are a sensible person, and I dare say you understood that I wasn’t entirely to blame. And I wasn’t entirely to blame; the circumstances we girls live under are not just — no, they are not just. We are told that we must marry a man with at least a thousand a year, or remain spinsters; well, I should like to know where the men are who have a thousand a year, and some of us can’t remain spinsters. Oh! you are very lucky indeed to have found a husband, and to be going away to a home of your own. I wish I were as lucky as you, Alice, indeed I do, for then there would be no excuse, and I could be a good woman. You won’t hate me too much, will you, Alice? I have made a lot of good resolutions, and they shall be kept some day.’
 ‘Some day! You don’t mean that you are again — ’
 ‘No; but I’ve a lover. It is dreadfully sinful, and if I died I should go straight to hell. I know all that. I wish I were going to be married, like you! For then one is out of temptation. Haven’t you a kind word for me? Won’t you kiss me and tell me you don’t despise me?’
 ‘Of course I’ll kiss you, May; and I am sure that one of these days you will — ’
 Alice could say no more; and the girls kissed and cried in each other’s arms, and the group was a sad allegory of poor humanity’s triumph, and poor humanity’s more than piteous failures. At last they went downstairs, and in the hall May showed Alice the beautiful wedding-present she had bought her, and the girl did not say that she had sold her hunter to buy it.

XXIX
At Brookfield on the morning of December 3, ‘84, the rain fell persistently in the midst of a profound silence. The trees stood stark in the grey air as if petrified; there was not wind enough to waft the falling leaf; it fell straight as if shotted.
  Not a living thing was to be seen except the wet sheep, nor did anything stir either within or without till an outside car, one seat overturned to save the cushions from the wet, came careering up the avenue. There was a shaggy horse and a wild-looking driver in a long, shaggy frieze ulster. Even now, at the last moment, Alice expected the drawing-room door to open and her mother to come rushing out to wish her good-bye. But Mrs. Barton remained implacable, and after laying one more kiss on her sister’s pale cheek, Alice, in a passionate flood of tears, was driven away.
 In streaming mackintoshes, and leaning on dripping umbrellas, she found her husband, and Gladys and Zoe Brennan, waiting for her in the porch of the church.
 ‘Did you ever see such weather?’ said Zoe.
<6>’Isn’t it dreadful!’ said Gladys.
 ‘It was good of you to come,’ said Alice.
 ‘It was indeed!’ said the bridegroom.
<9>’What nonsense!’ said Zoe. ‘We were only too pleased; and if to-day be wet, to-morrow and the next and the next will be sunshine.
 And thanking Zoe inwardly for this most appropriate remark, the party ascended the church toward the altar-rails, where Father Shannon was awaiting them. Large, pompous, and arrogant, he stood on his altar-steps, and his hands were crossed over his portly stomach. On either side of him the plaster angels bowed their heads and folded their wings. Above him the great chancel window, with its panes of green and yellow glass, jarred in an unutterable clash of colour; and the great white stare of the chalky walls, and the earthen floor with its tub of holy water, and the German prints absurdly representing the suffering of Christ, bespoke the primitive belief, the coarse superstition, of which the place was an immediate symbol. Alice and the doctor looked at each other and smiled, but their thoughts were too firmly fixed on the actual problem of their united lives to wander far in the most hidden ways of the old world’s psychical extravagances. What did it matter to them what absurd usages the place they were in was put to? — they, at least, were only making use of it as they might of any other public office — the police-station, where inquiries are made concerning parcels left in cabs; the Commissioner before whom an affidavit is made. And it served its purpose as well as any of the others did theirs. The priest joined their hands, Edward put the ring on Alice’s finger, and the usual prayers did no harm if they did no good; and having signed their names in the register and bid good-bye to the Miss Brennans, they got into the carriage, man and wife, their feet set for ever upon one path, their interests and delights melted to one interest and one delight, their separate troubles merged into one trouble that might or might not be made lighter by the sharing; and penetrated by such thoughts they leaned back on the blue cushions of the carriage, happy, and yet a little frightened.
 Rather than pass three hours waiting for a train at the little station of Ardrahan, it had been arranged to spend the time driving to Athenry; and, as the carriage rolled through the deliquefying country, the eyes of the man and the woman rested half fondly, half regretfully, and wholly pitifully, on all the familiar signs and the wild landmarks which during so many years had grown into and become part of the texture of their habitual thought; on things of which they would now have to wholly divest themselves, and remember only as the background of their younger lives. Through the streaming glass they could see the strip of bog; and the half-naked woman, her soaked petticoat clinging about her red legs, piling the wet peat into the baskets thrown across the meagre back of a starveling ass. And farther on there were low-lying, swampy fields, and between them and the roadside a few miserable poplars with cabins sunk below the dung-heaps, and the meagre potato-plots lying about them; and then, as these are passed, there are green enclosures full of fattening kine, and here and there a dismantled cottage, one wall still black with the chimney’s smoke, uttering to those who know the country a tale of eviction. Beyond these, beautiful plantations sweep along the crests of the hills, the pillars of a Georgian house showing at the end of a vista. The carriage turned up a narrow road, and our travellers came upon a dozen policemen grouped round a roadside cottage, out of which the furniture had just been thrown. The family had taken shelter from the rain under a hawthorn-tree, and the agents were consulting with their bailiffs if it would not be as well to throw down the walls of the cottage.
 ‘If we don’t,’ one of the men said, ‘they will be back again as soon as our backs are turned, and our work will have to be begun all over again.’
 ‘Shocking,’ Alice said, ‘that an eviction scene should be our last glimpse of Ireland. Let us pay the rent for them, Edward,’ and as she spoke the words the thought passed through her mind that her almsgiving was only another form of selfishness. She wished her departure to be associated with an act of kindness. She would have withdrawn her request, but Edward’s hand was in his pocket and he was asking the agent how much the rent was. Five years’ rent was owing — more than the travellers had in their purses.
 ‘It is well that we cannot assist them to remain here,’ said Edward. ‘Circumstances are different, and they will harden; none is of use here. Of what use — ‘
 ‘You believe, then, that this misery will last for ever?’
 ‘Nothing lasts in Ireland but the priests. And now let us forget Ireland, as many have done before us.’

 * * * * *

 Two years and a half have passed away, and the suburban home predicted by May, when she came to bid Alice a last good-bye, arises before the reader in all its yellow paint and homely vulgarity. In this suburb we find the ten-roomed house with all its special characteristics — a dining-room window looking upon a commodious area with dust and coal holes. The drawing-room has two windows, and the slender balcony is generally set with flower-boxes. Above that come the two windows of the best bedroom belonging to Mr. and Mrs., and above that again the windows of two small rooms, respectively inhabited by the eldest son and daughter; and these are topped by the mock-Elizabethan gable which enframes the tiny window of a servant’s room. Each house has a pair of trim stone pillars, the crude green of the Venetian blinds jars the cultured eye, and even the tender green of the foliage in the crescent seems as cheap and as common as if it had been bought — as everything else is in Ashbourne Crescent — at the Stores. But how much does this crescent of shrubs mean to the neighbourhood? Is it not there that the old ladies take their pugs for their constitutional walks, and is it not there that the young ladies play tennis with their gentleman acquaintances when they come home from the City on a Saturday afternoon?
 In Ashbourne Crescent there is neither Dissent nor Radicalism, but general aversion to all considerations which might disturb belief in all the routine of existence, in all its temporal and spiritual aspects, as it had come amongst them. The fathers and the brothers go to the City every day at nine, the young ladies play tennis, read novels, and beg to be taken to dances at the Kensington Town Hall. On Sunday the air is alive with the clanging of bells, and in orderly procession every family proceeds to church, the fathers in all the gravity of umbrellas and prayer-books, the matrons in silk mantles and clumsy ready-made elastic sides; the girls in all the gaiety of their summer dresses with lively bustles bobbing, the young men in frock-coats which show off their broad shoulders — from time to time they pull their tawny moustaches. Each house keeps a cook and housemaid, and on Sunday afternoons, when the skies are flushed with sunset and the outlines of this human warren grow harshly distinct — black lines upon pale red — these are seen walking arm-in-arm away towards a distant park with their young men.
 Ashbourne Crescent, with its bright brass knockers, its white-capped maid-servant, and spotless oilcloths, will pass away before some great tide of revolution that is now gathering strength far away, deep down and out of sight in the heart of the nation, is probable enough; but for the moment it is, in all its cheapness and vulgarity, more than anything else representative, though the length and breadth of the land be searched, of the genius of Empire that has been glorious through the long tale that nine hundred years have to tell. Ashbourne Crescent may possibly soon be replaced by something better, but at present it commands our admiration, for it is, more than all else, typical England. Neither ideas nor much lucidity will be found there, but much belief in the wisdom shown in the present ordering of things, and much plain sense and much honesty of purpose. Certainly, if your quest be for hectic emotion and passionate impulses, you would do well to turn your steps aside; you will not find them in Ashbourne Crescent. There life flows monotonously, perhaps sometimes even a little moodily, but it is built upon a basis of honest materialism — that materialism without which the world cannot live. And No. 31 differs a little from the rest of the houses. The paint on its walls is fresher, and there are no flowers on its balcony: the hall-door has three bells instead of the usual two, and there is a brass plate with ‘Dr. Reed’ engraved upon it. The cook is talking through the area-railings to the butcher-boy; a smart parlourmaid opens the door, and we see that the interior is as orderly, commonplace, and clean as we might expect at every house in the crescent. The floorcloths are irreproachable, the marble-painted walls are unadorned with a single picture. On the right is the dining-room, a mahogany table bought for five pounds in the Tottenham Court Road, a dozen chairs to match, a sideboard and a small table; green-painted walls decorated with two engravings, one of Frith’s ‘Railway Station,’ the other of Guido’s ‘Fortune.’ Further down the passage leading to the kitchen-stairs there is a second room: this is the Doctor’s consulting-room. A small bookcase filled with serious-looking volumes, a mahogany escritoire strewn with papers, letters, memoranda of all sorts. The floor is covered with a bright Brussels carpet; there are two leather armchairs, and a portrait of an admiral hangs over the fireplace.
 Let us go upstairs. How bright and clean are the high marble-painted walls! and on the first landing there is a large cheaply coloured window. The drawing-room is a double room, not divided by curtains but by stiff folding-doors. The furniture is in red, and the heavy curtains that drape the windows fall from gilt cornices. In the middle of the floor there is a settee (probably a reminiscence of the Shelbourne Hotel); and on either side of the fireplace there are sofas, and about the hearthrug many arm-chairs to match with the rest. Above the chimneypiece there is a gilt oval mirror, worth ten pounds. The second room is Alice’s study; it is there she writes her novels. A table in black wood with a pile of MSS. neatly fastened together stands in one corner; there is a bookcase just behind; its shelves are furnished with imaginative literature, such as Shelley’s poems, Wordsworth’s poems, Keats’ poems. There are also handsome editions of Tennyson and Browning, presents from Dr. Reed to his wife. You see a little higher up the shelf a thin volume, Swinburne’s Atalanta in Calydon, and next to it is Walter Pater’s Renaissance — studies in art and poetry. There are also many volumes in yellow covers, evidently French novels.
 The character of the house is therefore essentially provincial, and shows that its occupants have not always lived amid the complex influences of London life — viz., is not even suburban. Nevertheless, here and there traces of new artistic impulses are seen. On the mantelpiece in the larger room there are two large blue vases; on a small table stands a pot in yellow porcelain, evidently from Morris’s; and on the walls there are engravings from Burne Jones. Every Thursday afternoon numbers of ladies, all of whom write novels, assemble here to drink tea and talk of their work.
 It is now eleven o’clock in the morning. Alice enters her drawing-room. You see her: a tall, spare woman with kind eyes, who carries her arms stiffly. She has just finished her housekeeping, she puts down her basket of keys, and with all the beautiful movement of the young mother she takes up the crawling mass of white frock, kisses her son and settles his blue sash. And when she has talked to him for a few minutes she rings the bell for nurse; then she sits down to write. As usual, her pen runs on without a perceptible pause. Words come to her easily, but she has not finished the opening paragraph of the article she is writing when the sound of rapid footsteps attracts her attention, and Olive bursts into the room.
 ‘Oh, Alice, how do you do? I couldn’t stop at home any longer, I am sick of it.’
 ‘Couldn’t stop at home any longer, Olive; what do you mean?’
 ‘If you won’t take me in, say so, and I’ll go.’
 ‘My dear Olive, I shall be delighted to have you with me; but why can’t you stop at home any longer — surely there is no harm in my asking?’
 ‘Oh, I don’t know; don’t ask me; I am so miserable at home; I can’t tell you how unhappy I am. I know I shall never be married, and the perpetual trying to make up matches is sickening. Mamma will insist on riches, position, and all that sort of thing — those kind of men don’t want to get married — I am sick of going out; I won’t go out any more. We never missed a tennis-party last year; we used to go sometimes ten miles to them, so eager was mamma after Captain Gibbon, and it did not come off; and then the whole country laughs.’
 ‘And who is Captain Gibbon? I never heard of him before.’
 ‘No, you don’t know him: he was not in Galway in your time.’
 ‘And Captain Hibbert! Have you heard from him since he went out to India?’
 ‘Yes, once; he wrote to me to say that he hoped to see me when he came home.’
 ‘And when will that be?’
 ‘Oh, I don’t know; when people go out to India one never expects to see them again.’
 Seeing how sore the wound was, Alice did not attempt to probe it, but strove rather to lead Olive’s thoughts away from it, and gradually the sisters lapsed into talking of their acquaintances and friends, and of how life had dealt with them.
 ‘And May, what is she doing?’
 ‘She met with a bad accident, and has not been out hunting lately. She was riding a pounding match with Mrs. Manly across country: May’s horse came to grief at a big wall, and broke several of her ribs. They say she has given up riding — now she does nothing but paint. You remember how well she used to paint at school.’
 ‘And the Brennans?’
 ‘Oh, they go up to the Shelbourne every year, but none of them are married; and I am afraid that they must be very hard up, for their land is very highly let, and the tenants are paying no rent at all now — Ireland is worse than ever; we shall all be ruined, and they say Home Rule is certain. But I am sick of the subject.’
 Then the Duffys, the Honourable Miss Gores, and the many other families of unmarried girls — the poor muslin martyrs, whose sufferings were the theme of this book, were again passed in review; their failures sometimes jeeringly alluded to by Olive, but always listened to pityingly by Alice — and, talking thus of their past life, the sisters leant over the spring fire that burnt out in the grate. At the end of a long silence Alice said:
 ‘Well, dear, I hope you have come to live with us, or at any rate to pay us a long visit.’

The End