The Mills of God.

Southern Cross, Volume 6, Issue 9, 4 June 1898, Page 13

The Mills of God.

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS,

CHAPTER YII

COPYRIGHT

CHAPTERS I. & ll.—The story opens in a London hospital, where Nellie Nugent a y«ung Irish girl, is entering upon her novitiate as a hospital nurse. Her first patient was a young man suffering from enteric fever, whom Nellie, under the superintendence of Nurse Gray—an enthusiast in her profession, who nad taken a strong liking to the girl—nurses to recovery. He is a gentleman by education, a journalist by profession, but unsuccessful in life, homeless and friendless Nellie is very anxiousus to what will become of Dick Barrymore when he leaves the hospital, but nurse Gray tells her that troubling herself about the future of discharged patients is a habit she must at once get rid of. CHAPTER 111. & IV.—ln a month Dick Barrymore is convalescent and pronounced fit to leave the hospital. Through the interest of his young nurse, whose brother is subeditor of an Irish newspaper, he is going to Dublin, to fill a vacancy on the reporting staff. The day before his departure, however, a wealthy uncle from Colorardo turns up unexpectedly, who is much touched by the emaciated appearance and distressful circumstances of his nephew, and filled with remorse for having broken the promise made to tho lad’s mother, to look after him. To atone for past neglect, he proposes to adopt Dick as his heir, and leaving a handsome cheque for the benefit of the hospitul funds, likes him away, intending to try what foreign travel will do for the restoration of his health. Before going Dick asks Nellie for permission to write to her. CHAPTERS V. & VI. —Nine months’ ■experience as a probationer in the hospital ward suffices to convince the medical staff that Nellie Nugent is not physically equal to the work. Besides she is troubled with “ nerves - ’ —faints in the operating room, &o. They therefore, while fully recognising her willing devotion and the success which has attended her labours, advise her to seek some less exacting occupation. She has bad one letter from Dick, in which be writes, “ I owe my life to you, and the debt will rest heavy upon me until I repay it in some degree. I will do anything in the world to serve you.” She has not answered this letter, nor applied to the millionaire uncle, Mr Geoffrey Master man, which Nurse Gray thinks very foolish. On leaving the hospital Nellie is surprised at the number of parting gifts and other evidences of her popularity with the staff. Among the presents is a leather-bound notebook with lock and key, from Nurse Gray.

On the north-west shores of Bantry Bay lies a fairy valley. It is surrounded by wild hills, bare and broken and irregular, and the apprrach to it is so desolate and dreary that, when blue water and fairy islets and leafy woods *burst suddenly upon one, it looks as if Nature had been trying her hand at a transformation scene. The coach from Bantry was dashing along in the sunset ot a June evening, laden with passengers and luggage. The trotted swiftly down the leafy road, where dusky branches of yew, and arbutus, and holly shut out the westering light. It was very lovely, in the heart of those deep woods, and the noise of the trampling hoofs and cracking whip seemed a desecration of their exquisite solitude. Then, suddenly, the road widened and opened out on either side. On the left, hemmed in by purple mountains, and flooded now by the gold of sunset, spread a wide, blue bay, crowned with tiny islands ; on the right, sheltered by tall firs, and bowered in luxuriant foliage of shrubs and flowering plants, stood a long, white building with a glass porch. It was the first of the three hotels in GlengarifF, for that was the name of the fairy valley, with its Alpine scenery and its semi-tropical climate. The tempered breezes of the Atlantic swept in from the Gulf stream. The spacious stretching mountains sheltered it from summer heat and winter cold. ft looked as if Nature

(Published by Special Arrangement.)

By “ Rita,” Author of “ Kitty the Rag,” “ A Woman in It,” “A Husband of No Importance,” “Joan and Mrs Carr,” “ Sheba,” &c,, &c. &c.

loved it, and had given it for dower her fairest gifts of wood and stream and mountain ; of cool, green depths, where waterfalls and torrents fell and foamed, of lovely air and ever-chang-ing skies. Two of the passengers on the coach were so lost in wonder and delight that tliey r forgot to dismount. It needed a reminder in the polite Irish fashion to bring them down to the commonplace level of the waiting ladder. ‘ Wasn’t it Roche’s, you said, Miss P Shure, we’re waiting for ye these ten minutes, and yer baggage is out on the steps beyant !’ One of the women started. * Come, Nell,’ she said. ‘ What are we dreaming about ? And how many seconds go to an Irish ten minutes ?’ ‘ About sixty, I fancy,’ said the other passenger, as she proceeded to follow’ her companion, crab-fashion, down the step-ladder. There were some people in the glass porch, which was open on one side, furnished with basket chairs {.ml a table or two, and bright with tall fuchsias and hydrangeas that stood about in earthenware pots. The voice of the übiquitous American was audible ‘guessing’ and ‘considering’ and generally making itself noticeable in the person of a tw’eed-clad woman of ample proportions and wonderful headgear, and a still ampler tweed clad man whose stature and corpulence were a living contradiction of the nationaPcharacteristics of his race.

‘ Our room is ordered,’ said Nell, for Nell it was who had arrived, to the hotel proprietor as he advanced. ‘Miss Nugent and Miss Gray. We telegraphed from Cork.’ The courteous manager remembered the names. Yes, a room had been reserved. He hoped the ladies would find it comfortable. The hotel was very full just now. He had scarcely a room free. He touched the bell and ordered their luggage to be taken upstairs, and told a chambermaid to show them the way. When they reached their room, at the end of a long corridor, they r gave an exclamation of delight. Two windows were open to the mountains and the ha}'. A flood of amethyst and golden light made radiant all the circling heights ; below, the densely purple shadows lost themselves amid piled masses of rugged rocks and the thickness of shrub?. Everywhere the light glowed and fell —translucent, changeful, wondrous—for never yet was alchemist who could boast of such prodigal skill as the sun at setting time when he lingers behind some favoured mountain crest. ‘Oh, isn’t it heavenly,’cried Nell, as she gazed and gazed in everincreasing wonder. ‘ I never saw anything so beautiful. Ob, Debbie, aren’t you glad we came, and you wanted to stay at Bantry. . - Oh, to fancy we might have missed this !’ The comprehensive sweep of her hands spoke volumes. ‘How many more Ohs to make up the sura of your rapture, Nell ?’ said Deborah Gray, in her quiet, deep voice, but her eyes were as eloquent and appreciative as Nell’s own. It was her holiday. The promised holiday to which they had both looked forward. The one from the stifling city, and the crowded hospital, the other from the shabby Dublin lodgings where she had been living with her brother, taking a day at Kingstown or Bray as her only change.

Bat the sacrifices made, the little economies, the carefully-saved pocket money, were all ; forgotten in this glorious moment. Here they were, in an earthly paradise, the treasures of sea and islet and mountain at their feet ; the warm sweet summer days of idleness and repose at last their own. ‘ Oh, I am so happy! So happy!’ cried the girl, at last, lifting her radiant eyes to the quiet face beside her. ‘ One is glad to be alive, to be human in such a scene as this. Debbie, why don’t you speak ? Can’t you get up a little enthusiasm for once ?’ ‘ Perhaps I feel it as strongly as you do, Nell, but I can’t express it. One often feels that words have an poverty-stricken effect when one is very deeply moved. So I take refuge in silence.’

‘ But you are not disappointed ? You are glad you came P’ * More glad than I can tell you.’ ‘ And for two long lovely weeks we should look at -this!’ continued Nell. ‘ Feast our eyes and senses to our heart’s content. I wonder what sort of people are staying here,’ she added, suddenly. ‘ I heard the voice of an American cousin in the porch. I hope she won’t want to know us. I believe Americans always do want to know everybody, though, when they’re travelling.’ ‘Oh, we can easily avoid them,’ said Deborah Gray, as she left the window and went over to the toilet table to remove her hat. She had left her nursing dress behind her, and Nell thought she did not look nearly as well in orthodox travelling gear. The girl still hung out of the window, unable to tear herself from the lovely view. She did not mind being hot and dusty, or remember that they had had a day’s travelling on no better provisions than a few sandwiches and a glass of lemonade. Food seemed coarse and commonplace beside this changeful splendour of the mountains, the opal light on the stirless waters, this fragant dusk of woods that held all the breath and beauty of summer in their leafy depths. ‘ I don’t want to disturb you,’ said Deborah Gray, at last. ‘ But may I ask if you intend to dine off a view tonight p The table d’hote is long over, but I must remind you that a cold chicken and accessories are awaiting us in the dining-room.’ Nell gave a long sigh and left the window.

‘ Oh, dear, you are quite ready,’ she exclaimed, as she noted Deborah’s neatly-coiled hair and clean collar, and the fresh tints that cold water and soap had given to her dusky face. ‘ Of course I am,’ laughed Deborah ; ‘and you, I see, have got out of all your good habits already.’ ‘ I won’t be five minutes, really,’ said Nell, ‘ and I’ll make you a present of them. So go to the window, and thank the gods you have eyes to see and a heart to appreciate such a scene.’ ‘ All the same, lam very hungry,’ said Deborah, with a smile. ‘ Goth and Yandal ! Why, the very thought of eating is a sacrilege. ‘ I am afraid the hotel would fare badly if everyone who came here shared that opinion,’ said Deborah Gray. Yet, for all her jesting, she appreciated the beauty before her as keenly as Nell herself. The first flush and brilliance of the sunset were fading now. The mountains had a warm, violet tint that deepened and changed to brown as the twilight shadows crept down the rocky slopes. The steep pathways were bordered with geraniums and wild fuchsia, and the lovely coral blossoms of the escallonia. A stretch of green lawn fronted the building, on which some cows were grazing. From below came the sound of voices, the bark of a dog, a ripple of girlish laughter. Figures passed to and fro under the trees, discussing plans for the morrow. It was an idyllic scene. Deborah Gray knew that in her chamber of memories none half so lovely or so full of restful peace had ever found a place.

When Nell had washed the dust of the journey from her face and hands, and smoothed her ruddy, chestnut hair, they went down into the dining-room. A considerate waiter had laid a table for two in a window recess that looked out on to the garden. The window stood open, the soft, balmy air blew in,.laden with the breath of aromatic shrubs. A shaded lamp threw a rosy tinge on a white cloth, and on the flowers in their slender glasses, on the dainity arrangements which made even fowl and salad, and bread and butter, look more poetic than mere food often does. There was no one else in the dining room. They ate, and drank, and chatted and laughed over the incidents of the journey with a sense of pei feet freedom and perfect enjoyment. After all, there are things in a girl’s life which a man would only spoil for her. That sense of utter unconcern, of heart-whole enjoyment, of perfect content with the hour, and what it brings. These were Nell’s own, at last. She acknowledged to herself they were good and desirable things-, and that she was the better for their possession. When they had finished their meal they went out, and found a path that led them to the water’s edge. The fajty islands lay before them, sleeping under the liquid gleam of moonlight. The plash o the ebbing tide on the pebbly strand was only sound in the perfect stillness. They seated themselves on the bank, where the great tree roots had made a natural seat. It was not a time to speak. It was just one of those blessed restful pauses that Fate vouchsafes to tired mortals. These two women had known what it was to be tired- -very, very tired. They acknowledged in this moment that it was worth while to have known and suffered for that feeling. How could they so well appreciate the present peace were it not for past toil ?

It might, have been a long or short time they had sat there, saying nothing, only dreaming and resting as the quiet stars came out in clustering groups, and the moonlight grew slowly brighter above the purple blackness of the mountains. In such a moment one takes no count of passing moments. It is enough just to be, and to dream.

A step, crushing the dry twigs and uneven stones on the path behind them, roused them at last. Their solitude,was to be disturbed, evidently. They sat still; their dark blue linen dresses were not distinguishable from the bracken and undergrowth ; their hats lay on their laps. The step came steadily on. There was a sound of soft whistling, and a light cane idly switched the low-stretching bough on either side. Then a man came suddenly upon those two still figures, so suddenly that his foot trod on Nell’s skirt before he even saw there was a woman’s skirt in his way. He stopped short with a murmured apology. Nell glanced up, and a gleam of moonlight fell on her uncovered head, and lit up the blue eyes beneath their delicate arched brows. There was a faint cry of wonder—an exclamation—and then she sprang to her feet. The stranger was Dick Barrymore. He recognised her in a moment, though it was the first time he had seen her without the nurse’s cap covering her pretty chestnut hair. Aa they shook bands and uttered ‘ wonders ’ at so strange a meeting, Deborah Gray also rose to meet him. Then camethe inevitable and commonplace explanations It appeared that Diuk and his uncle were staying at Killarney, but had come up to Glenarriff for a couple of days, having heard that it was so expected of the tourist. They had been ‘doing Ireland ’ for the last two mouths, beginning at the Giant’s Causeway, and so working on to the south and south-west coast. After the explanation there was a little embarrassed silence while they mentally studied each other under the clear moon rays and noted the

changes that these past months had made. Dick had certainly altered for the better. His face had recovered colour and flesh; the fair hair cm led close about his temples, and the soft, thick moustache set off the somewhat stern mouth and sharply cut features. The well-moulded chin was no longer disfigured by a beard, as when Hell had last seen it. His fignre was well clad, and he carried himself with the ease and grace of recovered strength. She forgot her embarrassment as she made mental notes of these improvements, and spoke of the change with candid approval. ‘ And you ?’ he said. ‘ Are you still in the hospital ?’ ‘ Oh, no, I have left,’ said Hell. ‘ They said I was not strong enough for the work, so I am taking a rest. My friend, Miss Gray, is paying her respects to my country for the first time, and we have come here for our holiday. Isn’t it strange thet we should have all met again—and in such a manner ?’ l lt is strange,’ he said, ‘ but very pleasant! I have often hoped to sea yon again, Miss Hugent. I—l often wondered if you got my letter.’ 1 Oh, yes,’ she said, ‘ I got it.’ ‘ You never answered it,’ he said, reproachfully, and in a slightlylowered voice. ‘ I was very busy,’ she said, ‘ at the time. The ward was full, and they were all bad cases. Besides, I did not think you would care to hear. There was nothing to interest you in what I could write.’ He was silent, but his eyes took up the reproach of his voice, and Deborah Gray suddenly felt herself reminded of an old proverb, respecting the one too many.

‘ And so you are staying here,’ he went on, presently. ‘At Roche’s, I suppose. We are at the other one, lower down. My uncle would go there, though I wanted him to come here, It has such a lovely situation. Eccles is on the road. It is supposed to be the crack hotel, and my uncle has a weakness for ‘ crack hotels.’ In that respect he is quite American. Eor my part I would always avoid them. They mean high charges, crowds, and inattention. He was talking now for the sake of talking, conscious all the time of the slight figure so close to him, of the large soft eyes that rested on his face, of every movement of the small restless hands, swaying the white sailor hat to and fro by its elastic fastening. He had never known how much he had longed to see her again until this sudden meeting. The feeling which swept over him was one that her nearness and her laughing speeches intensified each moment. She looked so small and delicate and fragile in this pale light that his heart seemed to go out and gather her up in a warm protecting embrace as one would gather a child in one’s arms who was lonely and troubled and unloved.

‘ I think,’ he said, at last, ‘ you must have needed a holiday. You are very much changed.’ ‘ I wonder what you would have said if you had seen me when I left the hospital ?’ laughed Nell. ‘ My brother thought it was my ghost when he saw me coming off the steamer. But now I am quite strong and well. I don’t need any pity, I assure you.’ There was another pause, and Deborah Gray came to the rescue, and suggested it was getting late and they ought to be returning. ‘ It is cruel to shut oneself out from such a lovely night and scene,’ pouted Nell; but all the same, she returned, and he with them, and they walked slowly up the steep path and through the wooded grounds until the lights from the hotel came into view. Dick Barrymore felt be had no excuse for lingering. He stood—where bis own road branched off—half afraid of the question trembling on his lips. Nell took it off for him quite naturally, with a careless grace that made it seem a very ordinary one indeed. ‘ I suppose we shall see you again,’ she said, 1 as we are fellow-travellers

and so near one another. I have a longing to be on the water, to float all day among those islands. I suppose it is to be managed.’ * Certainly,’ he said, with surprising eagerness. ‘lt is our programme also for to-morrow. Would you object to sharing our boat with ns. We have an excellent man he knows every place and point of interest about ?’ * We pride ourselves on our independence,’ said Hell; ‘ but we may as well waive objections for once. What say you, Debbie F And Debbie smiled, and said exactly what was expected of her.

CHAPTER VIII

There was not a very prolonged discussion between the two friends respecting this meeting, even though there was every temptation afforded it by that sharing of the same room, and that quarter of an hour of hairbrushing which is so conducive to feminine confidence. But Deborah Dray was a wise woman in her way. She let Hell say jnst as much as she pleased, and made very few comments herself. All the same she foresaw that this expected holiday would be shared by a third person, and its hours engrossed by a new claimant for Hell’s attention. Still, she had come out to enjoy it, and she meant to do so, even if the proverb of which she had been reminded were verified. So she laid her head on her pillow and looked at Hell in her little white bed opposite and smiled the smile of one who knows life and the ways of women, and closed her eyes in satisfied drowsiness, and slept as she had rarely slept for many a month. They bad promised each other to wake early and be out and down to the waterside before breakfast, but when Hell did wake she saw the blind swaying up and down to the persuasion of a gusty chilling wind, that swept in through the open window, and her dismayed glance as she pulled it aside took in a changed and most melancholy scene. The mountain tops were shrouded in grey mist, the sky was grey, the atmosphere was grey, the trees stood out in blurred masses, their branches weighed down with heavy moisture, A group of patientcows huddled together under the firs, a crowd of noisy poultry wended their way across the wet grass, the fairy islets were blotted out altogether. It was a weeping, mournful, mistenshrouded Glengarriff that lay in its mantle of haze, swept ever and again by a cold and chilling wind, that seemed to have strayed back from some winter quarter by mistake. Hell glenced at Deborah Gray, and saw she was asleep, so she crept back to her own bed again, comforting herself with the thought that it was but six o’clock, and the weather might change by breakfast time. Bat when breakfast time came, and they went down into the long dining-room, already crowded with hungry feeders, the prospect was even worse. The rain fell in a steady, continuous downpour, the thick haze still obscured the prospect, and the weather-wise among tourists and visitors who knew the ways of Glengarriff, were uttering dismal prophecis between mouthfuls of fried sole and hot coffee. The two friends found the same table laid ready for them, and the cheerful waiter answered their anxious inquiries with all an Irishman’s hopefulness. ‘ It won't last, Miss, never fear. It mayn’t be fine altogether, but just a bit hazy,’ Then he whisked off the cover from the delicately-fried sole, and brought them their own teapot and supplies of toast and eggs and marmalade enough to atone for any amount of bad weather. Hell ate and drank with an appetite that spoke of mountain air and recovered health. Her spirits rose. She began to take notes of their fellow-travellers, and amused Deborah with her criticisms. At last her attention was attracted by a table adjoining their own. It also stood in a window, it also was

prepared for two, and a waiter hoved round giving a final touch to its arrangements, and evidently waiting a given signal to bring in the breakfast. ‘ I wonder who will come then,’ said Well with a careless nod in its direction. ‘ Why wonder about it ?’ said Deborah Gray. * You will see for yourself in a moment. A honeymoon I shall say judging from the waiter’s attention. Newly-married men are apt to be reckless in respect of tips.’ ‘lt might be two lone females, like ourselves,’ said Nell, ‘ I fancy not/ said Deborah. ‘ I think it will be a man and a woman !’ Her back was to the door. Nell, from her point of view, had the table on her right, the door on her left. Almost as Deborah spoke, she saw two people enter. The man struck her as being the her eyes had ever rested upon. He was very tall, he had the dark, rich colouring, the clear-cut features, that mark the Spanish race, and often seen in some districts in Ireland. He moved with an easy grace that had something foreign about it ; a grace that the stare of some two score eyes could not discompose in the slightest degree. He walked up to the vacant table, drew out a chair, and stood waiting for the slower approach of the lady following him. She walked feebly. She had the unhealthy pallor and languid eyes of ill-health. Whatever beauty she had once possessed had been wrested from her by suffering, and marred by the weariness of pain.

Her features were sharp the mouth betrayed intense melancholy. Her hair, soft and abundant as it was, had no gloss or richness of tint. It was ot pale, dull fairness, and he blue grey eyes were rendered almost expressionless by lashes as neutral tinted as the hair. The contrast between the two was almost startling. The vivid tints, the glow of health and strength on the one face, the wistful, kttenuated feebleness of the other. Deborah Gray’s keen, professional eye took in the invalid’s general appearance with interest. She merely glanced at the man, and as quickly looked away. * Not a honeymoon, after all,’ said Nell, in a low voice ; ‘only ordinary man and wife.’ ‘ Man and wife, certainly,’ said Deborah Gray, equally low, ‘ but not —ordinary.’ * Don’t tell me you are seeing visions, and reading fates,’ said Nell. T shall begin to be afraid of you, Debbie, my dear.’ So lightly do we jest with fate ; so dimly do we see even one inch of that road of the future stretching before us, leading to issues strange and mystic, and unguessed of, as the hand of time points onward. The man took his place after the lady had seated herself. Then his splendid dark eyes turned to the adjoining table and its occupants. He read the undisguised admiration in Nell’s innocent face ; but Deborah Gray’s was like a mask—hard, impassive, inscrutable. His olive skin took a warmer shade of colour. There was just the faintest contraction of the features, scarcely more than a shadow on glass. No one noted it, save, perhaps, Deborah Gray herself. She turned slightly away, and, raising the teapot, poured herself out another cup of tea. Her band was perfectly steady, but the blood surged from her heart to her temples, and the whole room seemed to sway before her., Nell went on with her gay chatter, but it seemed as if her voice came from some far distance. There was a bustle of people rising, the noise of tourists’ heavy boots, the sharp accents of the American voices proclaiming disappointment at spoiled plans. Then, suddenly, the old instinct of self-repression came to her aid. Her voice was steady as ever as she answered some question of Nell’s. She finished her tea as if perfectly unconscious of the furtive glances that from time to time bridged the

space between the two tables —at space that, multiplied by years of severance, lay forever between twolives. There was a general move into the porch, and Nell and her friend found themselves there also. The American lady, who seemed to live in her bat, bad taken possession of one of the basket chairs. She spoke her mind ont on many points with that frankness peculiar to her interesting nation. Her husband was occupied with a toothpick, and made an appreciativeaudience. The tourists were determined to face the weather on bicycles and no one raised any objection to their doing so. Nell’s anxious glances still turned skywards. Now and then the haze lifted under some attacking shaft of sunlight, and showed the bay was an existing fact ; she had begun to doubt it, but the momentary brightness was only briefly tantalising and the mist took swift revenge by enwrapping the scene in yet more impenetrable mystery. Disconsolate eyes turned from point to point of the hazy landscape, trying to see hopeful signs from those momentary gleams or detect them in a change of wind, or hear them in the crowing of a cock, which has been known at times to foretell good weather.

A lady with rheumatic ankles and. list shoes, who also occupied a basket chair, took a gloomy view of the situation. She had been staying at the hotel foi a week, and there had : been five such days as this already. A pretty boy, spending a holiday with a maiden aunt, tried to give a. cheerful tone to the conversation by relating histories of worse days and worse weather, during which be appeared to have killed time in a way more satisfactory to himself than to the maiden relative. Nell appropriated him and his conversation with alacrity. They seemed the most cheerful things about, and she did not want to lose her holiday spirits. The boy thought that it might clear up, for an hour or two in the course of the day, upon which Nell accepted readily his invitation to go off and play a sort of parlour Badmington of his own invention, in the deserted billiard-room. Deborah Gray did not go with them. Instead, she went swiftly up the stairs to her room, and then locked the door and sank into a chair by the window. Her eyes were glowing with a fierce light. Her whole frame was trembling with suppressed passion. Wprds broke from her unconsciously. ‘ So it was for her I was thrown over —for her and her money! Poor soul, what a sorry bargain she made ! And he—l saw he remembered me. God! how small the world is after all! Couldn’t we two have been kept apart ?’ Her hands clenched on the soft linen of her gown, her breast was heaving with a passion of resentment. ‘ She looks ill—dying, I should say. Dying, after six years of married life. And what hopeless sorrow in her face—poor soul, poor soul, I need not surely envy her ! ’ She rose abruptly, and began to move about the room.

‘ What can I do P’ she cried, hoarsely. ‘ If I wish to leave, Nell will think it so strange, especially as I can give no reason, and yet, to pretend be is a stranger, that is hard. Would he have spoken, I wonder, had I given him the chance P No, I fancy not. He must be glad enough to avoid me, if he has a conscience at all. What was it he used to call me —a woman with a head and no heart p No heart! My God, if only I had had none for him to win and break, and cast aside as a worthless toy ! If only I could forget as he has forgotten ! ’ It was no longer Deborah Gray, the quiet, composed nurse, the woman of iron nerve and no emotions, who paced to and fro in that locked chamber. It was a woman fighting a battle, fierce and ominous, with herself and with the past. It said much for her strength of will that she did not cry out or give external sign of the hysterical passion.

that rent her very soul —that no tear fell from her flaming eyes? nor s °h» nor sigh, escaped her quivering lips. The years of discipline and selfrepression came to her aid. She calmed herself jnst as she would have tried to calm a turbulent patient, a despairing mourner. From the corridor beyond came the sound of high-pitched voices, the curious drawl that has its distinctive use in smart sayings. She ceased her restless pacings, and went over to the window and knelt down, leaning her arms on the sill. There was a little rift of light in the clouds above the Caha Range—but to right and left they lay in heavy masses. The rain still pattered on the gravel roadway and glistened on the heavy foliage. Some ducks were solemnly pacing to and fro the wet sward and quacking their appreciation of unwary worms, or taking •occasional baths in the little pools beneath the clumps of pampas grass. ‘ Shall I put on a waterproof and go out F thought Deborah. ‘ I feel stifling, and rain never hurts me. . . . If I could but escape Nell !’ She rose and took her cloak from ihe peg where it hung, and put a tweed travelling cap on her head—then softly opened the door and went downstairs. She knew she most pass through the porch to get out, but she trusted that Nell and the pretty boy were still at their game. Whether they were or not, at least Nell was not visible. She hurried through the door way and down the steps, taking bo notice of the people she passed. She drew the hood of her waterproof over her head and walked straight on down the wet drive, under the drenched and sodden boughs. A few naces further on she came face to face with a man also waterproofed, and holding an .umbrella over himself. It was Dick Barrymore. She stopped in sudden dismay. ‘ Oh, are you going to the hotel,’ she cried. ‘ Surely you don’t expect ns to carry out your programme in this weather.’ £ No, that’s just it,’ said the young man glancing round, to see if she were alone. ' I was coming to say it must be put off till to-morrow. They tell me it uever rains two days running like this. Are you going for a walk ?’ k I am, but you will find Miss Nugent in the hotel—in the billiard room, I believe,’ said Deborah. ‘ She doesn’t know I’m out. I don’t wish her to get wet,’ she added, diplomatically, ‘ bat I’m so strong rain never hurts me.’

‘ Oh, I’ll prevent her going out,’ he said, eagerly. ‘ My uncle was coming over to call on you both,’ he added. ‘ But he thought he would give the weather a chance of improving, but 1 was to ask you if you and Mi ss Nugent would come for a drive after luncheon, if it did clear. We thought of going to the Bantry shooting-lodge. It is charming, we bear, and just a nice distance. Do say you’ll come.’ ‘ 1 have no objection,’said Deborah. ‘ if Nell wishes ?’ ‘ May I tell her so ?’ ‘ Certainly, but the weather has something to say in the matter as well.’ ‘ Oh, I have hopes of the weather,’ he said, laughing. ‘I suppose you are going to the village ?’ he added as Deborah seemed to feel inclined to move forward. She nodded, and with a hasty goodbye, passed on. ‘He will entertain Nell. Nothing could be better,’ she said to herself. ‘ And she won’t miss me. I can fight my ‘ seven devils ’ out of me as I please,’ She turned aside, attracted by the sound of water foaming and dashing over a rocky bed. The path that led to it was stony and narrow, the wet boughs struck her face and showered their glittering moisture over her hair. She felt nothing, heeded nothing, saw nothing. Only her eyes burnt like a flame beneath their flu sky brows, and the fierce beats of her heart almost stifled her. The throbbing of an unhealed wound hurt

her with almost physical pain. After seven years of peace that wound would still remind her of its give r. , She stumbled on, led instinctively by the sound of the one thing in natnre that seemed in harmony with her mood. She reached it at last. A torrent falling and dashing over great rocky boulders, a cascade of impotent wrath that foamed and raged, dashed itself wildly against opposing barriers, as puny human wills often dashed themselves against the iron barriers of fate. She stood there, and gazed down, a human embodiment of passion as vain and useless as those seething waters, rushing with overlapping haste to the cold and quiet heart of a distant river. The birds twittered above, amidst the quick patter of the rain and the chill breath of the wind. Naught cared they for the agony of a human soul fighting out its battle of womanly pride and womanly love. Naught knew they of the dumb agony that rent that motionless figure, as with pangs of childbirth. Shecovered her face with her hands, and a groan of anguish escaped her. Then the iron bands of misery broke, and a rain of hot tears showered from her hidden eyes. ‘ Once I cursed life and him,’ she moaned. ‘Oh God ! Am I still such a weak fool that the mete sight of him can make me regret •’ (To be continued.)