Hungry Hill

BOOK FOUR Henry, 1858–1874

IT WAS WINTER AGAIN at Clonmere, and the cap of Hungry Hill was white with snow. The sun shone brightly, and there was a crisp, fine tang about the air, a sense of lightness, as though the old, wet melancholy of autumn was laid aside forever and forgotten, while this new cold clarity heralded the spring. The fallen leaves in the park were dry, and crinkled with the frost. The naked trees lifted black branches to the blue sky, and the short grass before the castle was dusted with silver. The tide ebbed swiftly from the creek, the surface of the water shipped with a lively ripple, and the thin smoke from the castle chimneys rose straight in the air like a column.

Tim the coachman drove the carriage round to the front door, and climbing from his seat, stamped up and down before the horses, blowing upon his fingers. It was Sunday, and he was to drive Mr. and Mrs. Henry to the little church at Ardmore, as was their custom. It was a pleasant thing, thought Tim, as he waited for his master and mistress, to have the life about the place natural and normal once more, almost as though the old gentleman himself was alive again, and the first Mr.

Henry and Mr. John and poor Miss Barbara and Miss Jane all back again and living, instead of being, some of them, these thirty years in their graves.

The intervening years seemed to have slipped away, and Tim, who would be sixty next birthday, would often find himself casting his mind back to his early days as stable-boy under old Baird. He would find himself confusing the present generation with the one that had gone before, and he would shake his head and sigh, and bid "Mr.

Henry" guard against the cold air for fear it should bring back his cough, confusing him with the uncle who had been dead for thirty years.

Here he came now, Mr. Henry, his master, dressed for church, with his tall hat in his hand, and his gloves and his stick, looking for all the world as his uncle Henry had looked, all those years ago. And hadn't he the same way with him too, the same winning smile, the laugh, the friendly touch on the shoulder? And he would walk around the place on a Sunday afternoon, with his hands behind his back, in consultation with the agent, just as the old gentleman had done, when he was alive. He rode every morning to the mines too, and drove into Slane once a week, and indeed there was a fixed routine of living that pleased the coachman after so long a spate of muddle and disorder.

How different Mrs. Henry was in every way from the other Mrs. Brodrick, Mr. Henry's mother.

No pride here, no wild temper, no driving of her servants to distraction with the changing orders and the demands she put upon them, but a quiet, sweet reasonableness with every request she made, and a firmness of purpose that made the silly chatterers in the kitchen know their place.

There was peace "at the back" at Clonmere, where there had been nothing but strife and grumbles and discontent for years. She put her touch upon every room in the castle, did Mrs. Henry, and the room was lighter for it.

"You'd say," said the cook, "that she had a healing hand."

Gone was the accumulation of dust and disorder, of litter and rubbish, that Fanny-Rosa had allowed; vanished was the chill discomfort, the grey misery that Wild Johnnie had accepted. The rooms were swept, the fires were lit, the windows flung open to the air. Once more flowers and fruit were brought in to the house, once more the grass was cut, the paths were weeded, the shrubs were pruned, as they had been when Barbara, as eldest daughter of the house, kept Clonmere for her father. The house "belonged" once more.

The mistress stood now on the doorstep beside the master, bidding Tim good-morning, and they looked, thought the coachman, the handsomest couple in the country.

She was nearly as tall as himself, andwiththe warm cape wrapped round her, and her smooth, dark hair showing from her bonnet, she might have been a queen.

"How are we for time, Tim?" asked Mr.

Henry.

"It's just turned the quarter, sir," replied the coachman, holding open the door of the carriage.

The master was a great stickler for time, like the old gentleman. It would never do to be late for church.

But he had a graciousness about him and a courtesy, quite different from his grandfather.

And now the mistress was seated in her corner of the carriage and the master was tucking the rug round her, putting her feet in the foot-warmer, the whole done with such a loving care and so much gentleness that Tim remembered the talk at "the back" of how there was another baby expected before many months. The nurse was standing in the open doorway, holding little Miss Molly in her arms, the child Waving a plump hand to her father and mother. And then Tim climbed up to his seat and gathered the reins in his hands, and the carriage bowled away down the drive, under the archway past the rhododendrons, and swept round beside the creek and through the woods to the park.

Henry held Katherine's hand under the rug and wondered, for the five hundredth time, perhaps, what she was thinking about; so detached, so remote, her calm, quiet manner different in every way from his own eager impetuosity.

"Are you warm enough?" he said anxiously, peering into her face. "Are you sure you feel equal to the drive?"

"Yes, of course," she answered, warming his heart with her smile. "I feel very well indeed.

And I could not bear to miss the weekly drive to Ardmore, you know that."

He leant back again in the carriage, reassured.

Uncle Willie Armstrong had impressed upon him to be careful with her.

"Your mother," Uncle Willie had told him, "gave birth to all you boys without turning a hair in the process. She had all the toughness of old Simon Flower. But if you're going to follow your father's example and rear a large family, I advise you to do it rather more slowly than he did. Your Katherine is a much more delicate plant than Fanny-Rosa Flower."

And here they were, with young Molly barely a year old and another one already on the way. But perhaps Uncle Willie Armstrong was inclined to fuss…

Henry gazed out of the carriage window. The trees at the far end of the park, close to the road, were looking a bit shorn after their lopping in the autumn. Still, they would be all the better for it, and would be well enough in two or three years' time.

Katherine was bowing and smiling at Mrs. Mahoney at the gate-house. Henry purposely turned his head away. The gate-house brought unpleasant thoughts, reminders of something that was best forgotten.

Jack Donovan and his sister had left the country and gone to America, no trace of them remained in the little lodge at the entrance to the drive, and yet whenever Henry passed through the gates he would remember, for all his wishes to forget, the insolent, familiar manner of the fellow when his fare was paid to him, the furtive, crafty expression of his sister, and through them both the helpless, tragic eyes of poor Johnnie the last time he had seen him at Clonmere. No, those things were not the best food for thought on a Sunday morning, and Henry, once more caressing Katherine's hand under the carriage rug, began to chatter lightly and gaily about nothing at all, of the shooting party the week before, of Petty Sessions the following Tuesday in Mundy, of a letter received from his mother Fanny-Rosa from Nice the day before.

"You noticed," he said to Katherine, laughingly, "that it was full of the usual extravagances. I believe she is having the time of her life."

"I wonder," said Katherine.

"Oh, dearest, you don't know my mother sufficiently well to judge. I quite thought poor Johnnie's death would break her completely, but I am inclined to think, after the first shock of it wore off, she dismissed the matter from her mind and poor Johnnie too."

"Your mother is not so superficial as she would have everyone believe," said Katherine. "She pretends to other people, and to herself as well."

"My mother pretends to no one," said Henry, "you can rest assured about that. No, she has her little villa, and her foreign counts, and her casino, and is very well content. Look, there is that disagreeable Mrs. Kelly actually curtseying to you. What have you done to the people of Doonhaven? I have never known anyone of that family smile at a Brodrick before, unless it was to do something very dirty afterwards."

"Perhaps," said Katherine, looking sideways under her bonnet, "the Brodricks never smiled at the people of Doonhaven."

"I am quite certain they did not," said Henry, "and that is why the first of them was shot in the back. What do you think of the new road out to the mine? The new surface is a capital affair, quite different from the old gravel that became almost impassable in winter.

Grandfather would have been pleased with it."

"I think, with you, that it is a great improvement, but I should like it better if the miners' houses had been taken in hand at the same time. Some of those huts are a disgrace. I cannot bear to think of little children being obliged to live in them."

"Are they really so bad?" asked Henry. "I'm afraid I have never been through them, and have only concerned myself with the efficiency of the mine. I can easily give orders to have the wood strengthened, and the worst places painted. That should keep out the cold and damp."

"Why not give orders to have them pulled down altogether, and brick houses built instead?" said Katherine.

"Dear heart, that would cost a lot of money."

"I thought the mines made such an enormous profit last year."

"So they did, but if we once start pulling down the miners' huts and building them small palaces, there will be no profit at all."

"Now who is exaggerating?" smiled Katherine.

"The miners don't ask for palaces, Henry love. They only ask for a bit of warmth and comfort, which, considering how hard they work for you, I think they deserve."

Henry pulled a face.

"Now you make me feel a worm," he said.

"Very well then, I shall go into the matter, and see what can be done. But I warn you they won't be grateful.

They will say, in all probability, that they prefer the old wooden cabins."

"Never mind about gratitude," said Katherine, "at least those little children will be warm… Hungry Hill has a smiling face today. Do you see the sun on the ridge? It looks like a crown of gold."

"Hungry Hill has too many moods for my liking," said Henry. "The bad weather before Christmas interfered with the work, and a whole shipment of copper was held up."

"Nature works slowly, in her own time," said Katherine, "and if you become impatient she gets angry. Why, there is Tom Callaghan walking to church. His horse must be lame. I wonder he did not wait for us to pick him up in Doonhaven.

Tell Tim to stop the horses, dear."

Laughing, Henry climbed out of the carriage, and called out to the curate, who was walking ahead of them, covering the ground with immense long strides.

"Tom, you madman," he shouted, "what do you mean by not waiting for us? Come and take a seat beside Katherine. We are seriously affronted."

The young curate turned, and smiled. He was a great big fellow, with a fine handsome face and a brown beard.

"The morning was so lovely," he protested, "and Prince wanting a shoe, so I promised myself the treat of a walk. The first few miles were delightful, but I was just beginning to think myself a martyour."

"You can make the sermon shorter in consequence," said Henry, "Come, jump in and bury your pride.

Katherine is quite disgusted with you."

"I have never known Katherine disgusted with anyone," said the curate.

Tom Callaghan was an Oxford friend of Henry's who, with a very small amount of persuasion, had accepted the appointment of curate to the living at Doonhaven, and whose weekly duty was to take the service at the furthermost church in the parish, the little church by the sea at Ardmore. He could have done much better for himself across the water, but his affection for Henry was such that he preferred to bury himself in isolation, to be near his friend, rather than win esteem and prosperity in a large town.

"What do you think is her latest whim?" said Henry. "Nothing more than that I should pull down the miners' huts and build them brick cottages instead. I shall be ruined."

"An excellent plan," said Tom decisively. "First, because those huts are a disgrace. And secondly, because you have more money than you know what to do with."

"That," agreed Katherine, "is what I am always telling him."

"The trouble is," said Henry, "that you both have Noncomformist consciences. And you try to give me one too. My grandfather would not have listened to you."

"From what I hear of your grandfather," said Tom, "he was a godless man. At least you do not work the mines on Sundays, as he used to do."

"And that also was Katherine's doing," smiled Henry. "I tell you, Tom, I have married into a family which has so many principles that they quite bewilder a fellow. Take my advice, and avoid 'em like the plague."

"I would rather be good like the Eyres than clever like you Brodricks," said Tom Callaghan. "The only reason you are not as hard a man as your grandfather is because you had the sense to marry Katherine. Here we are at church, and there will be three other people in the congregation besides yourselves, I have no doubt."

The little church stood quite alone, windswept and solitary, looking out over the wide waters of Mundy Bay. But for all its stark position, exposed to the four winds and the rains of winter, there was something comforting and strong in its grey solidity, something ageless in the lichen that clung about its walls.

Inside all was peaceful, all was quiet, as though no evil thought, no hard memory, could penetrate the still serenity. The gales might blow, the floods might come, but the church of Ardmore would withstand them all, a small bastion in eternity.

Henry, kneeling beside Katherine, watched her calm profile, her dark eyes turned to the altar, and he thought how no man but himself would ever know how beautiful she was, how true, how tender. Was Tom Callaghan right? Would he be as hard a man as his grandfather but for Katherine? The thought was an uncomfortable one, and, like all uncomfortable thoughts, he dismissed it as absurd. He was not hard. Tom must have been joking. He had always, as far back as he could remember, thought about other people before himself. Put duty before pleasure, right before wrong. He could say, in all good conscience, that he had never done a low, foul, or evil thing. True, he had been lucky, successful and happy in his work and his friends; but luck, after all, was a gift from the Almighty, and anyway he was grateful for it. No, Johnnie had been the hard member of the family. Johnnie had been the selfish, ruthless one, spreading misery, poor devil, wherever he went. Tom Callaghan ought to have known him.

And Henry, making the General Confession in a loud, clear voice as was his custom, "We have erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep," thought, as he always did, that really the words did not apply to him, or any other normal law-abiding fellow who lived an honest life and did his duty to God and the Queen. They applied to the thieves, and the adulterers, and the drunkards, who never even bothered to come inside a church.

When the service was over, and Tom Callaghan was changing in the vestry, Henry and Katherine went and stood in the churchyard and looked down upon the sea.

The long rollers from the Atlantic swept past them up the bay. A robin was singing from a gorse bush beneath them, his song plaintive yet sweet, strangely nostalgic in the cold, clean winter air.

"I am glad we had Molly christened here," said Katherine. "We will do the same with the next baby, and with all our children. And when the time comes for us to go, I should like you and me to lie here, dearest, together."

"Don't be morbid," said Henry, drawing her to him. "I hate discussions about death. Kiss me instead. There goes the Emma Mary, bound for Bronsea. They must be taking advantage of this weather, otherwise they would not have sailed on a Sunday. She's well laden, isn't she?

Nearly one hundred tons of copper there, my girl."

"Never mind the copper," said Katherine. "Will you remember my wish about this little churchyard?"

"I refuse to commit myself about anything so damnable," said Henry, "and don't let's stand about any longer, you will catch cold. Look, there is old Tom waiting for us by the carriage. What a dear fellow he is, and how glad I am he has come to live down here. In fact," he continued happily, drawing Katherine's arm through his, "I can think of nothing more delightful than to have all one's best friends in the neighbourhood. Tom, old boy, you preached a capital sermon, just what I might have said myself if I were in Orders, and to show my appreciation I propose to build you a house. You can't possibly go on living in that miserable cottage in the village."

"Indeed I can."

"Indeed you can do nothing of the sort. Don't argue, I dislike argument before lunch. And to convince you that I mean business I will show you the site I have in mind. It came to me when we were singing "Rock of Ages." Just after you turn out of Doonhaven, before you come to the rise in the road and the Oakmount cottages, there is a fine piece of ground nearly level that will make an excellent foundation. We will call it Heathmount, and as soon as the old rector dies you shall have the living, and make Heathmount the Rectory."

"And Tom shall marry, and settle down, and his children will be able to play with ours," said Katherine.

"It certainly saves a lot of trouble when one's friends arrange the future," said Tom Callaghan.

"Why not go to even greater lengths and write my sermons for me too?"

"I will do so," said Henry, "on condition that I preach them as well.

It would give me great pleasure to use the text "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's," with reference, of course, to the usual arrears of rent."

The site of Tom's future home was duly pointed out and appreciated, and then the carriage turned in at the gates and down the drive to Clonmere, with hot luncheon awaiting them in the dining-room, the setters barking a chorus from the steps, the smoky tang of the piled turf fire filling the hall, the warm, familiar atmosphere of home, dearly loved, rising to greet them.

Little Molly, beribboned and in white, was brought down to dessert to sit upon her mother's knee, and Henry, pushing back his chair and stretching his legs, cracked walnuts to make her laugh. And, himself well filled with roast mutton and apple tart, he felt all the pleasing, drowsy contentment of a man whose idle afternoon stretches before him, to make it what he will.

"I think," said Tom, watching his friend with a smile, "that you ought to consider yourself the luckiest of men. You have a fine property, a vast fortune, a flourishing business, a distinguished career up to date, an angel of a wife, a delightful baby daughter, and, in fact- nothing in the world you lack.

If I were not a parson I should envy you."

"But because you are a parson you take care to preach at me instead," laughed Henry, "and no doubt wish to warn me not to lay up treasures upon earth, where moth and rust corrupt. It's no use, Tom, old fellow. I live in the world, and although I don't count myself a materialist I believe in using to advantage, and in enjoying too, what the world provides. There is no sin in that, as far as I can see."

"I think I know what Tom had in his mind," said Katherine. "When a man is happy and contented, with nothing going wrong, he is in danger of the deadliest of sins, which is complacency. No, Molly dear, no more sugar, you have had plenty. Any more will give you a pain. You may play with mamma's locket instead."

The child, who had puckered up her face, was soon distracted by the dangling chain and the little case that opened and then closed with a snap.

"Training starts, you see, Tom?" winked Henry. "Molly wants sugar, but is fobbed off with something else! No complacency there. I would let her eat all the sugar her small stomach could hold, and then wait for the inevitable pain. That would teach her a lesson, and she would not eat sugar again."

"That's where you are wrong," said Katherine.

"Molly is too small to connect cause and effect. The pain, to her, would have nothing to do with the sugar. A baby must be distracted, then when reason dawns she must learn obedience, and the necessity of obedience."

"She has it all arranged," said Henry, "from the first lessons in A. b. c. down to the final examinations. I never knew anyone take the upbringing of children so seriously. I cannot remember my mother ever teaching us a thing. She certainly never corrected us."

"It's a wonder to me that you are fit for society at all," said Tom. "You take my advice, and leave the education of your offspring to Katherine."

"Very well," said Henry, "and if they don't come to heel quickly I'll flay the hides off 'em.

One thing at least, they'll never want for anything."

"The next deadly sin," murmured Tom-"too much money. Poor Katherine, you are going to be fully employed, I can see."

Henry threw a nutshell at his friend.

"Supposing you leave my sins alone," he said, "and give me a word of practical advice instead.

There's to be a by-election at Bronsea, as you know. Old Sir Nicholas Venning has died.

I'm thinking of contesting the seat in the Conservative interest."

"Are you indeed?"

"It would give me a lot of fun, if nothing else, and the Brodricks have had connections in that county ever since 1820."

"And what does Katherine think?" said Tom.

"Katherine thinks that her husband's energy is such," smiled Henry's wife, "that if he does not plunge into politics it might be something worse.

And it will keep him out of mischief."

"A truly wifely remark," said Henry.

"No high ambitions for me, you observe, Tom.

No hope or even suggestion that I might become Prime Minister. Just a kindly smile that it may "keep me out of mischief."?

"I agree with Katherine," said his friend. "Go ahead by all means, make your speeches, give your dinners, kiss the Bronsea babies, and accept the rotten eggshells with a bow. I wish you all the luck in the world. And if you do succeed in finding your way to Westminster, I will cross the water too and listen to your maiden speech, and tell the people sitting next me that Henry Brodrick is my oldest friend. You might get me a bishopric in twenty years."

"Seriously, though," said Henry, "I might easily win the seat by a handsome majority, although it has been held by a Liberal for so long. The family will rally round me. Herbert at Lletharrog-I told you he had the living there, didn't I, and is living at the old house? — and Aunt Eliza at Saunby. I can spin a good yarn about my Bronsea connections, although perhaps I won't say much about my step-grandmother who lives in the village and curtseys whenever she sees Herbert."

"I believe you are a snob after all," laughed Tom.

"Indeed I am not, but it doesn't do to produce the skeleton in the cupboard on a political platform. I tell you what, we'll take a house in London for the season, whether I win or not, and you shall come and stay with us. It will look well to be seen about with you, and will show that I have a respect for the Church."

"Can't you damp his ardour, Tom?" said Katherine. "We were talking of complacency, and there he stands before you, more pleased with himself than anyone living. Come, Molly, we will leave your papa and your uncle to discuss the world, and go and play with your beads by the fire in the drawing-room."

Later in the day, when Tom Callaghan had gone back to take Evensong in Doonhaven, and Molly had been put to bed, and the long curtains were drawn across the windows, Katherine lay on the sofa that had been Barbara's and was now moved close to the fire, and Henry sat on the floor beside her, her hand against his lips.

"Am I really complacent?" he said anxiously.

"Are you getting tired of me?"

She smiled, and ran her fingers through his hair.

"To the first question "yes,"? she answered, "to the second "no." Oh, I don't mean complacent, dear one. But when a person is very happy he is apt to become less sensitive, less aware. And I would not like you to become too worldly, too preoccupied with business, and money, and the success of Henry Brodrick."

"I can't help being happy," he said, "married to you. Every day I love you a little more. And whatever I do, whatever I accomplish, is because of you; don't you know that?"

"Yes, dearest, I do, and it makes me very proud, but a bit worried too. You put me first in life, before God, and that is not right."

"God is not real to me as He is to you," said Henry. "You I can touch, I can hold, I can kiss, I can love. God is something mysterious, intangible. And so, in a humble way, you take the place of God."

"Yes, sweetheart, but people pass away, and God is eternal."

"Damn eternity. I don't want eternity.

I want you, and the present, forever and forever." He leant across the sofa, and buried his head against her.

"I can't help it," he repeated, "I can't help loving you. It's in my blood. My father was just the same about my mother, and although I barely remember him-I was only four years old when he died-I can recollect him standing by the creek, watching her as she played with Johnnie, and Fanny, and myself, and I shall never forget the expression in His eyes. My aunt Jane was another. If she had not been killed in an accident she would have died of a broken heart, grieving over some fellow on Doon Island. It's no use, Katherine, we Brodricks are made like this; you must accept it."

She held him close to her, and kissed the top of his head.

"I do accept it," she said, "but it makes me afraid, all the same."

He leant back, his head against her knee, and stared into the fire.

"I often wonder," he said thoughtfully, "whether poor Johnnie's despair was not due to a love affair gone wrong. Oh, not that Donovan woman, that was merely a sordid interlude, but something deeper. But who the devil could he have been fond of? I never heard him mention anyone."

Katherine did not answer. She went on stroking his hair.

"If only he could have married and settled down, it would have been the saving of him," continued Henry.

"That ghastly end could have been avoided. Perhaps if you had met him first you might have married him instead of me."

He turned, half smiling, half sadly, to look at his wife. Her eyes were filled with tears, and she was staring into the fire.

"Sweetheart, what is it?" he said. "I've hurt you, I've made you unhappy? Selfish, careless brute that I am. I ought to remember you are not well. And here I've been, tiring you with family history. My poor darling, your face is white and miserable, what have I done?"

"Nothing," she said, "it's nothing, I promise you. Just a sudden foolishness."

"It's been a long day," he said. "You should have rested this afternoon, instead of walking with us through the woods.

I thought it was too far for you at the time. And then lifting Molly about here, after tea. She is too heavy for you now. Does the other little one make a heaviness?"

"The other little one is quiet."

"I shall carry you to bed, then," he said. "Come, put your arms round my neck, and hold me close.

Where is your book? That one, by the window there?

Reach down for it, then. Mr. Dickens again. What would you do without him? I shall read a chapter aloud to you, and then you must close your eyes and go to sleep, and have all the rest you can. Don't worry about the lamps.

I will come down and put them out when I have seen you safely in bed."

He carried her along the passage to the room that had been Barbara's. He left her alone, and went back again to the drawing-room to blow out the lamps.

How unlike Katherine to have tears; she who never gave way, who was so calm, so quiet. She must be very tired. There could be no other explanation. It was not possible that she should have anything on her mind. But when he had read her the chapter of the novel, and had laid it aside, he leant over her and taking her in his arms, he said, searching her eyes, and feeling for his words, "Tell me, darling, tell me the truth-are you happy with me?"

The Town Hall at Bronsea was packed to suffocation. There were fellows straight from the docks, still in their working clothes, with caps on the backs of their heads and pipes in their mouths, men from the smelting works and factories, and their women-folk too, with shawls about their heads, all of them talking in the high, sing-song voice peculiar to Bronsea.

Most of the working people intended to vote for the opposing candidate, Mr. Sartor, the Liberal, and had only come to the meeting to indulge in the free fun of baiting the speaker, but there were a certain number amongst them who sported the blue ribbon for all that.

Clerks from the shipping-office who had met Henry Brodrick personally, seamen who had handled his cargoes back and forth across the water from Doonhaven to Bronsea, men from the smelting-works who had seen him and spoken with him. and the sprinkling of shop-keepers, small tradesmen, doctors, bank-managers and others, who considered it "genteel" to vote Conservative, because it put them in a superior class to the working men and women of Bronsea.

The noise was tremendous, with the clatter of tongues, whistles, and laughter, and then someone from the rear of the hall started up a hymn, and was at once joined by the large mass of people present; the chattering mob changed instantly into a massed choir, solemn and majestic.

Henry, eager and excited, his blue rosette in his buttonhole, his frock-coat immaculate and closely fitting his tall, broad figure, watched them impatiently, anxious to begin. Not that he could do much in such a gathering. They had come to mock him, rather than applaud or listen with any serious intent. There were the members of his family Who had come so loyally to support him. Herbert, now vicar at Lletharrog, and his cheerful, dumpy little wife.

Who, when they were children, would ever have supposed that Herbert, the baby of the family, with his lively ways and twinkling brown eyes, would become a parson? There was Edward, on special leave for the occasion, his curly hair standing straight on end as it always did, bending across to talk to Fanny and Bill Eyre, who had travelled the water for the event.

Fanny with the inevitable little crushed expression on her fact that she had worn as long as he could remember, which must have come from being the one girl amongst four brothers, for honest Bill Eyre was easy enough in all conscience. Heavens, what a muster of parsons-because of course besides Herbert and Bill there was the faithful Tom Callaghan, being very attentive surely to the pretty young woman at his side, some friend of Fanny's. Perhaps Tom was smitten at last, and would take upon himself the bonds of matrimony. Aunt Eliza, over from Saunby, bolt upright and very full of herself, with a lorgnette dangling from her bosom which she kept putting up to her eyes, observing the populace with an expression of extreme disgust, as if she found the proximity of the working people of Bronsea really rather trying, and something which Miss Brodrick, of Brodrick House, Saunby, was not accustomed to in the general way. And lastly Fanny-Rosa, his mother, who had come all the way from Nice; not, she said, in order to see her son get up on a platform and talk with his tongue in his cheek, but because she had not a stitch to wear and must buy clothes. Paris was too expensive, and in France the people were so grasping, they expected ready money for every order given, whereas in England people never bothered about such things; she could buy and owe for years, and if bills did come in it was easy enough to pretend the letter had been lost in transit.

Henry had let her prattle on in this fashion, when he met her in London and brought her down to Lletharrog to stay with Herbert, but he was perplexed by this careless talk of owing money from his mother, who, as he knew well, had a very liberal income and had been provided for in his grandfather's will in extremely generous fashion.

As for clothes, he never thought his mother cared what she wore. She was always a mixture of finery and slovenliness-witness her appearance this evening. A wrap of really exquisite velvet with a high sable collar put over a shabby black gown, the skirt of which trailed on the ground and had the hem undone and besmeared with dirt. Her top half was magnificent. The vivid hair was white now-this had come since Johnnie's death-and the slanting green eyes matched the emerald ear-rings; she might have been a queen. But the lower half, with that trailing hem, belonged to any slatternly woman from the market-place in Doonhaven. There they were, his family; and the best beloved of all was absent, because of course she could not possibly undertake the journey in her present state, the baby expected any day now. He knew her thoughts were with him, he could imagine her hand in his and her dear eyes upon him, and her voice saying, "My Henry must say to the people what he believes to be true, and not try to be amusing all the time."

The trouble was that he found it so much easier to be amusing than to be truthful, and anyway if he once began to take politics seriously it would be the end of everything. Here was the Chairman, ringing a bell for silence, and here was he himself, standing beside the Chairman, with heaven knew how many hostile eyes gazing up at him. But what did it matter, when all was said and done? This was just another way to pass an evening.

He was greeted with cat-calls, boos, and whistles, to which he listened with a smiling face and with his hands in his pockets, and then, drawing out a large stop-watch, he clicked it and proceeded to examine the dial with close interest, at which there was a great burst of laughter from the crowd, which became quiet.

"I must congratulate you," said Henry, "on being shorter-winded than other mobs I have had to deal with."

There was another wave of laughter, and Henry, putting up his hand to catch a scarlet rosette that one of the Liberal enthusiasts had thrown at his head, placed it on the other lapel of his frock-coat.

"No doubt the gallant fellow who threw this knows exactly what are the political opinions of Mr. Sartor, the Liberal candidate," said Henry. "If he does, he is vastly my superior. I understand Mr. Sartor has voted once one way, twice the other way, and three times the first way. He told you all the other day that when he was young he Was a Tory. He said he imbibed Toryism with his mother's milk-which is interesting insomuch as it shows that he was nursed at home… He also told you that the Tories were descendants of the Scribes and Pharisees, by which I gather he meant that the Tory party existed while the Ancient Britons were running around in their war-paint, throwing stones at Julius Caesar from the cliffs of Dover. If our historical friend would look back a little farther, I fancy he would find no difficulty in connecting the Tories with the idolatrous priests of Baal; I am not sure but that the Architect of the Tower of Babel might have been a Tory; nay, it is possible that the Tempter, who in an unlucky hour got possession of the ear of the much-deceived, much-failing, hapless Eve, may have been a Tory. Well, that being so, we have done with the Tories, who, it appears, are pretty well bowled out."

Herbert, his arms folded, smiled as he watched his brother. How this took him back to their boyhood and the Debating Society at Eton, Henry standing with his hands in his pockets and his head a little on one side, just as he was doing now, enjoying himself hugely and tickling his schoolboy audience under the ribs. But soon he was wading into thornier subjects, interrupted, now and again, by voices at the back of the hall.

"You ask me to define a Liberal?" Henry called. "All right, I will; someone who is liberal with other people's money. As a matter of fact, there are no such things as Liberals now. There are only Constitutionalists and Revolutionists."

This caused a storm, of course, and Fanny, glancing uneasily over her shoulder, wondered how difficult it would be to reach the door if trouble broke out.

"Hoot twice as loud as that: I shall be delighted to hear you," Henry was saying. "There is nothing like excitement and difference of opinion to add zest to life. Why, if we had no differences of opinion we should all be in love with the same woman."

Another shout of laughter greeted this sally, and Tom Callaghan, pulling his beard, shook his head sagely and caught Bill Eyre's eye. This was all very good fun, no doubt, but not the way to win an election. Henry must have seen the glance, however, because before three minutes had passed he was deeply involved in the great question of the day.

"I am convinced," he said, "that institutions which have become venerable with time, and which are fixed firmly in the hearts and minds of the people, should not be ignored. The fact is that ignorance of what is really involved lies at the root of all these evils. The British Constitution is based on two pillars, the Church and the State. Those who would separate the Church from the State, and cause it to seek an asylum amongst the sects, would destroy the very essence of the constitution. Change merely for the sake of change is never desirable. Change and decay are invariably linked together."

How true, thought Aunt Eliza, change and decay; it put her in mind of her father and those last long, dreary years of his during his retirement at Lletharrog, alone with that dreadful housekeeper who had got hold of him. Eliza was sure he had left her more money in his will than was fair, and it was monstrous the way in which the silver tea-service had disappeared. It should have been hers by right as the only surviving daughter; change and decay, how clever Henry was! '

"The improvement of the working classes must be founded upon religion," said Henry.

Tom Callaghan sat up in his seat. Ah, this was some of Katherine's doctrine. Henry would never have thought of it for himself.

"Education based upon any other foundation will be of no avail; but education based upon religion will raise the lower classes to their proper position in society. I hope and expect," Henry continued, "to see a great revival in the Church before long, if the clergy don't mistake the forms and ceremonies of an objective religion for the inner forms of Christianity."

Herbert blinked. Was this a sly hit at him?

He had gone through an Anglican phase at Oxford, but that was over long ago. How very odd to hear old Henry talking in such a solemn way. Did he really mean what he was saying, or was it just to try the temper of his audience?

"We-the Conservative party-have enfranchised the masses," Henry was saying, "and it is now our duty, it is the duty of every man, to spread the blessings of education amongst the enfranchised masses.

I am a firm advocate of compulsory education.

No man, in my opinion, has a right to bring up his children as he would his pig or his beast."

How amusing, thought his mother Fanny-Rosa, to see Henry so serious and talking such nonsense. It seemed only yesterday that he was running up the staircase at Clonmere stark naked, his hands clapped on his small behind, while she ran after him with a slipper, which she had no intention of using. Such a lovely afternoon! The children had taken all their clothes off and played on the grass in front of the castle.

Barbara had looked down from her room and had been so shocked, and begged her to get them indoors before their grandfather returned. No doubt Henry and the others had all been brought up like pigs; it had been so much easier to let them run wild… And suddenly she saw Johnnie, with the Indian feathers in his black hair, peering at her from the rhododendron bushes, his bow and arrow lifted, and John saying to her, in his low, quiet voice, "I can't beat him, whatever he does. We made him, you and I; he belongs too much to both of us." But all that was finished, none of that must ever be thought about, it was dead and gone, and so were they; this was reality, sitting now in this crowded, uncomfortable hall, listening to Henry.

"You know that I come from across the water," Henry said. "Well, it is no disgrace to belong to the land of Burke, of Palmerston, of Wellington, but I may say I am the third generation of my family to be adopted by your countrymen. My grandfather and my father lived here, and I lived here as a child, where my brother lives today. The bones of my grandfather lie in this country. Perhaps one day I may do the same."

And then it was all over, and there was clapping and hissing and singing and shouting, and the Chairman holding his hand for silence and proposing a vote of thanks, and the whole party breaking up and making for the door, with no eggshells thrown and no wild applause either.

The family all drove to the Queen's Arms for dinner, and Henry was congratulated and smitten on the back by dozens of people he did not know and dozens more he did, and everyone told him he had the seat for certain.

"So very reminiscent of my brother Harry, your uncle," said Eliza. "I can recollect him making points in just the same way. And your father lounging in a chair, with a puppy on his knee, taking not the slightest notice. I was so glad you insisted that there must always be a ruling class. Really, the people I come across sometimes in Saunby are quite dreadful.

No one would have called upon them in the old days."

"You ought to live in Nice," said Fanny-Rosa. "Nothing under a Count there, they're as common as ditch-water. I liked your speech, Henry, though I don't know why you want to close public-houses on Sunday; it will only make men drink harder on Saturday night. As for your remarks about the R. cdds across the water, you might have added the old saying that "St. Patrick was a gentleman, and born of dacent people." Are we going to get anything to eat in this hotel?"

"You must excuse my mother," laughed Henry to Tom Callaghan. "Living in France has made her a gourmet, and she expects omelettes and salads every quarter of an hour. Waiter, will you please serve dinner as soon as possible?"

"I've never in my life been surrounded by so many parsons," said Fanny-Rosa, "except the time that the Bishop of Slane came to Castle Andriff to spend the night, and brought with him a chaplain and a couple of curates. My sister Tilly and I were brats of children at the time, and we stole into their rooms when they were all at dinner and threw their night-shirts out of the window, and their reverences slept as nature made them… Don't look so shocked, Bill. You are a married man and must have slept without your night-shirt before now."

"You know, Mrs. Brodrick," said Tom Callaghan, "Henry is much more like you than anybody realises. I've been told so often that he is the spit of his uncle Henry, and a chip off his grandfather's block, but I know now who gave him his quick tongue."

"Oh, we Flowers always had the gift of the gab," said Fanny-Rosa; "it enables us to slide through many difficulties.

No, Herbert there is most like me of all my children, and he was so afraid at what he might become that he sought sanctuary behind a dog-collar. As for Henry, people are right to compare him with his grandfather and his uncle. He has the shrewdness of the one, coupled with the charm of the other. Which will gain the upper hand remains to be seen. '

The brothers winked at one another. Their mother was in rollicking form. Katherine was wrong for once in her judgment, thought Henry, as Fanny-Rosa raised her glass and pledged his future as a Cabinet Minister. She was probably happier than she had ever been in her life, and Johnnie was entirely forgotten. What a stunning picture she made too, with that crown of white hair, and the green eyes, and the emeralds, as long as you did not look under the table and see the dragging hem. What age was she now?

Fifty-three or comfour; he was not certain. The party was a great success anyway, and even Aunt Eliza became quite flushed and excited, and forgot to be disapproving. Fanny lost her inevitable anxious look, the parsons behaved like schoolboys on a spree, and Tom Callaghan's great booming laugh echoed through the room. If only Katherine had been there, thought Henry, the cup of happiness would have been complete…

Polling took place the next day, and the result was to be known by six o'clock, and given out from the steps of the Town Hall. Henry passed the day in a fever of impatience. Now that the speech-making was over, and the canvassing, and the driving about through the streets of Bronsea in a carriage bedecked with blue ribbon, there was a great sense of anti-climax. It was hard to wait about all day for the result. Somehow he felt unable to take luncheon with the rest of the family, and he went out and fed alone in a pub at the end of the town, where he hoped no one would recognise him. He then walked the streets of Bronsea, observing that nearly everyone he met appeared to be sporting in his buttonhole a red ribbon, the Liberal favour, and he counted only a dozen blue rosettes during the afternoon. Possibly his supporters had voted early, he told himself, or anyway they were not the type to walk the streets.

How ridiculous was the whole affair, and what a fool he felt to be so nervous! He found himself outside the shipping-office of Owen Williams, the firm which handled all the copper business for him in Bronsea, and had done so since his grandfather's time. He stepped in to have a word with the younger Williams, a man somewhat older than himself, about the prospects for the coming summer. Here at last was someone with a blue rosette. It was quite a relief to his mind, and Williams assured him that when he had gone to vote soon after ten o'clock the street had been blocked with carriages, the owners of whom had all worn the right colour.

"It will be splendid to have someone like you to represent the borough," he said. "I promise myself a treat, and that's to come up to Parliament and hear you make your maiden speech."

"But I'm not there yet," warned Henry.

"All over bar the shouting," said the other.

For a little while they discussed the mines at Doonhaven, shipping, and the copper trade in general, and just as Henry was about to take his leave Mr. Williams said casually, by way of conversation, that Henry was the second member of his family to pay him a visit that day.

"Why," said Henry in surprise, "how is that?"

"Oh, your mother dropped in during the course of the morning," said Mr. Williams, "looking wonderfully well, I thought. She wanted an extension of the loan, you know, and I said it would be quite all right, of course."

"Loan?" repeated Henry.

"Yes, we advanced her five hundred pounds last quarter, at your request, if you remember, sending the cheque out to her in France, and she wished for a further sum of the same amount. We deduct it, naturally, from your account with us at the end of the year.

That was the arrangement made with her, according to your instructions, she said."

Henry was bewildered. He had given no such instructions, and knew nothing whatever of a loan to his mother. She must have done this behind his back, without any authority… The younger Williams was looking at him curiously. Henry pulled himself together with an effort.

"Oh, yes," he said, "I do remember now.

My mother and I came to some such arrangement. Well, I must be getting along. Glad to have seen you."

"Good-bye, Mr. Brodrick, and good luck."

Henry walked back to the hotel, his mind in a turmoil. Good God, his mother to go like that and lie to the fellow Williams, instead of coming straight to him and asking for a gift. He could not understand it. Why, in heaven's name, did she need the money, and what the. devil did she spend it on? He would have to find her and question her: it was impossible to keep this sort of thing to himself. If only Katherine were here, she would know how to deal with it.

Fanny and Bill were sitting in the lounge of the hotel, with Miss Goodwin, Fanny's friend, and Tom Callaghan in attendance as usual. Herbert was out somewhere. If Miss Goodwin had not been there Henry might have asked advice from Bill and Tom, but he could not discuss anything so painful and intimate before a stranger.

"Where's mother?" he said diffidently.

"In her room, I think," said Fanny. "Where have you been? We were all quite worried. You look so tired."

"Nerves," said Tom. "Poor old Henry has had everything in life go smoothly up to now, and he's not certain what today will bring forth."

Henry did not answer. He was in no mood now for mockery. He went upstairs to the first floor of the hotel and along the corridor to his mother's room, and knocked at the door. Although she had only occupied it for three nights, the bedroom was already a shambles. There were shoes strewn about the floor, clothes on all the chairs, and the inevitable litter of hairpins, gloves, velvet ribbons, and handkerchiefs on the dressing-table. Fanny-Rosa was sitting on the bed, on which she had placed her trunk, and was putting something away under a folded gown.

"The conquering hero," she smiled, as her son entered. "Have you got a pain in your tummy, my poor boy? Your father was the same before one of the greyhound meetings. All strung up and pretending he did not care a damn whether he won or lost."

"I haven't come to talk about the election," said Henry, sitting beside her on the bed. "I don't mind what happens, one way or the other. I've come to talk about you."

Fanny-Rosa raised her eyebrows, and leaving the bed, she strolled over to the dressing-table and began to do her hair.

"I went into Owen Williams' just now, before coming here," said Henry, "and he told me you had seen him this morning, and borrowed five hundred pounds from the firm, giving him my authority for doing so. Also that you wrote for the same sum only last quarter. Mother dear, what is it all about?"

"My dear boy, you look just like a schoolmaster," laughed his mother. "You ought to be a supporter of Mr.

Gladstone, instead of his opponent. Yes, that younger Mr. Williams was most obliging. I am very grateful to him."

"But I don't understand," said Henry. "Why on earth did you not come to me for the money, instead of going behind my back and giving my authority for something I had not promised?"

"I thought it easier that way," said Fanny-Rosa, yawning. "Such a nuisance for you to be bothered."

"It's far more bother to learn that you are borrowing money from a shipping firm in such an odd way," said her son. "Don't you see, dear, it is not regular at all. In fact, not to mince matters, it's completely dishonest."

"I never understand these things," said Fanny-Rosa carelessly. "Any sort of money transaction always appears to me to be dishonest. I have no head for figures."

Henry watched her as she ran a comb through her cloud of white hair. She seemed to have no shame, she was as irresponsible as a child.

"Do you find it difficult to live on the income grandfather left you?" he said incredulously. "I understood that life in the south of France was so much cheaper."

"Oh, my dear, life is never cheap anywhere," said Fanny-Rosa, "What with little dinners, and going about, and one thing and another, I am always short."

She was being persistently vague on purpose, thought Henry; she was not going to commit herself.

"You have about twelve hundred a year from my grandfather," said Henry firmly, "and the rent of your villa, in English money, is about fifty pounds a year. Say your servants-there's a cook and a little girl, isn't there? — and your food cost you a hundred; clothes, the small amount of entertaining you can do, a further fifty; that's only two hundred pounds gone, mother, and a clear thousand in hand. What have you done with it all, that you have been obliged to borrow a thousand pounds from Owen Williams?"

"It goes, I tell you," said Fanny-Rosa.

"Don't ask me how or why.

I have not the slightest idea. Henry, dear boy, do put off that school, master expression, it is so unbecoming, and when you greet your constituents directly you must be your usual smiling, charming self. You are sitting on my ear-rings, darling; throw them across to me, will you?"

She pleaded softly, looking at him out of the corner of her eyes, and shrugging his shoulders, he rose from the bed, the ear-rings in his hand, and fastened them gently in her ears.

"You have hands like your father," she said: "now I know why your Katherine loves you… May you always be happy together."

He stared at her face in the looking-glass. Was that a very small tear in the corner of her eye, and she smiling all the while?

"Mother," he said impulsively, "why don't you give up this life in the south of Prance, and come and live with us at Clonmere? Katherine would love to have you, and you know you belong there, to your own country."

Fanny-Rosa shook her head.

"Don't be absurd," she said lightly. "My present existence suits me to the ground. Everyone and everything so amusing. Anyway, it's a great mistake for a mother to live with her son. I tried it once, and I failed. Which of these bonnets shall I wear this evening?"

"Never mind about the bonnets. Mother, will you change your mind and come and live with us? You could have your own rooms, do exactly as you please, and no one would interfere with you."

"No, darling."

"Will you tell me then what you are doing with your money?"

"Oh, Henry, don't harp so… Look, it's half-past five; we ought to be at the Town Hall. Run down and tell the others to get ready.

I love your Tom Callaghan; so much more understanding than the usual run of parsons. You have always been lucky in your friends. Johnnie never made any…

"Kiss me, my funny dear serious son, and don't worry about me any more. I won't bother Mr. Owen Williams again, I promise you. This coming season will make up for last, I know it will."

"Why, what do you mean?" smiled Henry. "You talk like a shopkeeper, as though you expected to make some money."

She flashed him a vivid smile, and patted the side of her hair.

"Let's go and find the others," she said, "and don't forget to put a flower in your buttonhole. Praise God I have such good-looking children."

It was useless, thought Henry, as he followed her downstairs, to try to get anything out of her. She just put up barriers all the time. She smiled, and looked softly at you, and made some irrelevant remark, but what went on within that head of hers you would never know. And he wondered whether his father, who had loved her so well, had found her the same, and whether, even when they were closest, she had eluded him….

The family were waiting for them downstairs in the lounge, and cabs were ordered immediately to take them to the Town Hall.

The streets were congested, though, with everyone bent on the same errand as themselves, and the horses were obliged to proceed at walking pace, or they would have run down the people.

Henry directed the driver to take them round to the entrance at the back of the building, for to climb up the steps in front of the crowds assembled in the square was to court immediate recognition.

Even now they could hear the hum of excitement and the babble of voices, for all the world, said Fanny-Rosa, like a mob before an execution, and as the cabs turned into the little street behind the Town Hall they could see line upon line of excited faces, looking upwards to the balcony, laughing, shouting, with caps waving, and handkerchiefs flying.

"We must be even later than I thought," said Henry swiftly, "it looks to me as though the result is being given out."

He handed his mother and his sister from the cab, and leaving them to follow in the care of his brothers, Tom Callaghan, and his brother-in-law, he ran up the narrow staircase at the back of the Hall that led to the large board room on the upper floor. His heart was beating, and for the first time in his life his hands were trembling. He entered the room, which was filled with people and the excited buzz of voices. Outside the crowds were cheering their heads off. And there, in front of him, standing on the balcony, hat in hand, bowing to right and left, was Mr. Sartor, the Liberal candidate.

Something snapped for an instant in Henry's mind, and a momentary wave of bitter disappointment filled his heart.

"Oh, damn…" he thought to himself, "damn and blast…?

And then he smiled, he walked forward with his hand extended. and Mr. Sartor, the new member for Bronsea, turned and saw him, and beckoned him on to the balcony beside him. The Liberal had won by a majority of eight thousand votes.

"And so that's that," said Henry, when the applause had died away and the crowds had dispersed to make merry in the public-houses. "And I may as well confess now to my family that I never for one moment thought I would succeed. It's been an experience, and very great fun; now let us go back and have an excellent dinner, and forget all about it."

"Spoken like a sportsman," said Tom Callaghan, taking his arm. "I don't mind saying I'm disappointed. I should have dearly loved to have gone to Westminster and seen you talking the heads off all the fellows there. But never mind, it was not to be, and we shall have you home in Doonhaven."

"Better luck next time, old fellow," said Edward.

"Ah, there'll be no next time," said Henry; "this was my first and last venture into politics. I don't mind making a fool of myself once, but twice is too often."

He chatted lightly and gaily to cover his sense of defeat. His family must not think he minded, nor did he mind, he kept insisting to himself. The worst thing in the world was to be a bad loser. No, it was just a silly pin-prick to his pride, that was all.

Henry Brodrick hitherto had got away with everything.

"I simply can't understand how anyone voted for that Mr. Sartor," said Fanny-Rosa; "such a terribly unattractive man. Bad teeth, which I can't forgive. And absolutely no breeding whatsoever."

"The people of Bronsea don't mind that, Mrs.

Brodrick," said Tom Callaghan. "They felt he knew more about them than Henry did, and that's how he won the seat."

"Oh, it's easy to persuade a man who lives on bread and porridge that he is a suffering man," replied Fanny-Rosa, "but whether you can do him any good by telling him so is another matter."

"Politics is a gamble, nothing more nor less," said Henry, "and if you lose you cut your losses and forget the business, which is what I propose to do."

"Which shows your very good sense of balance," said Tom. "Your inveterate gambler never knows when he is beaten, and goes on until the thing becomes 3 disease and be can't stop. It's a form of mental escape, like drink, and runs in the blood-stream.

But I don't know why we are so serious all of a sudden. Henry, old friend, even if you have lost the election, you conducted the affair like a gentleman, and I, for one, am proud of you."

"We are all proud of him," said his mother, patting his cheek, "and he looked so handsome too, standing on the balcony beside that dreadful little man. I am quite certain everyone must have wished they had voted the other way round."

And so the Brodricks returned to the hotel, all of them suffering from anti-climax but determined not to show it, and as they entered the lounge a page-boy came forward and handed Henry a telegram on a salver.

"Some facetious fellow sending you a condolence," said Fanny-Rosa. "Don't open it, it will only annoy you."

But Henry had already torn open the envelope, and was reading the message. He glanced up, his eyes shining, and waved the paper in front of his family.

"To hell with politics," he said. "Who cares a damn for 'em? I've got a son, and that's the only thing that matters."

They crowded round him, looking over his shoulder.

The message was brief, but very much to the point.

"Don't be disappointed if the election goes against you. Your son was born today, and we both want you home. He is exactly like you, and I have called him Hal. My love and thoughts are with you.

Katherine."

"Haven't I always said," smiled Henry, "that she is the only woman in the world? Call that waiter, Tom. I may have been defeated today at Bronsea, but by God, we're going to drink champagne tonight."

There was a measured serenity about those days; they had a natural rhythm to them, a slow movement, and events succeeded one another as the seasons did, with no sudden disturbance breaking the calm sequence.

Life was something certain and secure, and Henry, breakfasting on a winter's morning, would know that the following winter would be the same, that the accustomed routine would be taken up and followed, and so on through the spring, the summer, and the autumn, the months would give him what he desired, his plans would come to maturity and be fulfilled. The winter and spring would be spent at Clonmere, and then, at the end of April, Henry and Katherine and the children would cross the water, and spend the season in London. It was delightful, he used to think, after the long, slow, peaceful winter at Clonmere, suddenly to hear traffic again, the hum of London, to be made aware of the existence of millions of people, to stroll across the Park on a May morning, chatting on the way with those of his friends whom he might meet, and then down to his Club in St. James's, to read the papers, talk again, and while away the time until he was due to meet Katherine for luncheon with friends in Berkeley Square, or Grosvenor Street, or wherever it was, And the luncheon would be amusing, fifteen or twenty people very often, most of whom he would know, and if he did not it was always enjoyable to meet new faces.

Then, in the afternoon, the usual outing of the season, whatever it should be. Pictures, or a concert, or a race-meeting, or to Ranelagh, but back always, if it could be managed, to the house by five o'clock, because Katherine wished to spend this time with the children, and fretted if she did not. Besides, it was good for her to rest before dining out again in the evening. He liked the hour between six and seven, when, sitting in his chair before the open window in the drawing-room, the brightly painted window-box gay with flowers, he would browse over the events of the day. The joy, talking for the sheer delight of talking, thrashing a subject until it was in shreds. A sense of well-being would envelop him, and smiling, Henry would go upstairs to dress for dinner, and presently Katherine would call to him from her room, through the open door between them. The friends to whom they were bound would give them an excellent dinner, and afterwards there would be music, some lion or other invited for the purpose, and so home to bed round about midnight, well fed, contented, and tomorrow the whole thing beginning over again. Katherine would look very beautiful on these occasions, and he would feel so proud when they were announced, to see the heads turn in their direction, as Katherine led the way across the floor towards their host and hostess, her gown rustling slightly as she walked. The way she looked, he thought, the way she moved, the way she held her fan in her gloved hands, the smile, the angle of the head, put her in another class from every other woman; there would be no one in the room to touch her. And perhaps someone would come up to him with outstretched hand. "Good heavens, Henry, I haven't set eyes on you since Oxford days," and there would be the recognition, the momentary greeting, and then, "You have never met my wife. Katherine, this is a very old friend of mine."

"You know," his hostess would say at dinner, in her gay, mocking, fashionable way, "everybody says that you and your wife are the handsomest couple in London. People queue up to watch the Henry Brodricks drive to church on Sunday morning."

And lots more of this nonsense, every day, which Henry told himself he took with a pinch of salt, and yet it was pleasing to be admired, to know that he and Katherine were bracketed together in this manner.

Henry kept his vow and did not play with politics again, but he continued to be a keen Conservative, and when in the neighbourhood of Bronsea he was generally induced to make an appearance at some banquet or other, and entertain the company with his quick wit and lively stories. In '67 he was made high sheriff for the county, and this necessitated a rather long sojourn in Saunby, the family taking up their quarters at Brodrick House for a full six months with Aunt Eliza.

Little Hal, Aunt Eliza said, reminded her strongly of his grandfather, her brother John. He had the same soft eyes, the same mouth, the same shy way of stroking a dog or a cat when he did not want people to notice him, and he would play alone quite happily for hours, as John had done when he was a little boy.

"Added to which," said Aunt Eliza, "he has your own reserve, Katherine, so he won't make his mark in the world unless he can produce some of Henry's push and go. I must say, I do like a boy to have spirit."

"Hal will have spirit enough if it's directed in the right way," smiled Katherine. "He needs encouragement, and patience, and someone to build up his confidence. Talking and walking were an effort for him, when they were nothing to Molly. She will sail through life gaily, without any difficulty. Hal is just the opposite, he will need someone to hold his hand."

And Aunt Eliza had sniffed, and snapped her lorgnette back on her bosom.

"My father would not have had much truck with that sort of talk," she said. "Nobody ever held our hands as children, and I always pride myself that one of the reasons I have lived longer than any of my brothers or sisters is because I had plenty of sense, and was practical.

My youngest sister, Henry's aunt Jane, was very sentimental and weak, and I always used to say John had no backbone. There is a weak strain in the Brodricks, Katherine, and you will have to watch it."

It was good to take the boat at length and cross to Slane, and then drive down home to Doonhaven by way of Mundy and Andriff, and find themselves home at Clonmere. Henry, the first morning on waking up, wondered why they had ever bothered to go away.

He leant out of their bedroom window looking down to the creek, and the familiar prospect of the day before him filled him with pleasure.

Breakfast in the dining-room, and then going into the library and having the outdoor staff in to report.

Old Tim, who was getting rather stiff in the joints but went scarlet with indignation if it was suggested for one moment that he should seek honourable retirement, and Sullivan, the head gardener, nephew to the elderly Baird, now in his grave, Phillips the keeper, Mahoney the cow-man, faces that he had seen upon the place since boyhood. If there was time before luncheon, a walk round the grounds, up through the woods and across to the farm, and down through the park, and so home by the path beside the creek. In the afternoon up to the mines to see if things were satisfactory. Calling in on dear old Tom at Heathmount on his way home, and asking him and Harriet to Clonmere to dinner, to hear and exchange all the gossip that was going. A very good thing he had stood for Bronsea, even if he had been defeated, because it had been the means of bringing together Tom and his wife, the pretty, bright-eyed friend of Fanny's, and now they had a small daughter Jinny, who came to romp with his own brood at Clonmere. Then home to tea, a roaring fire in the drawing-room, and the children down afterwards, settling themselves about Katherine's knee. Molly, with dark hair flying, usually the most forward with suggestions as to what they should do and what book should be read, while Hal would plead for music, looking as solemn as an owl, until, for the sake of Kitty, the second daughter of the house and the last arrival, Katherine would break into one of the old jigs, lively and gay, and the three children would dance themselves giddy, and Hal, losing his shyness, become the wildest of the pack. Then Katherine would close the piano and go back again to her chair, and read to the children, very slowly, very carefully, with many explanations.

"The trouble is," Henry said to her one day, "you wear yourself out for those children. They never give you a moment's peace."

"The children never tire me," she told him, "I promise you they don't. If they did I should send them back to the nursery."

"I don't believe you," he said, rather sulkily.

"You have such a strong sense of duty that if Hal had some imaginary bother and you had a raging headache you would sit by him all day and never look after yourself. And then when I want attention in the evening you are too tired to talk to me."

"Dear one, aren't you being unjust for once? Have I ever been too tired for my Henry?"

He looked down at her, a boyish, disgruntled expression on his face, and then the frown went, he was himself again, and bending down, he smiled and kissed her hand.

"Forgive me," he said. "I love you so much."

And he left the room, ashamed of his outburst, and went to discuss with the keeper the shooting-party for the following Saturday, but nagging him, like a maggot in his mind, were the words old Uncle Willie Armstrong had said to him last week: "I hope that the lively young Kitty completes your family. If Katherine had another child I would not answer for the consequences."

"Forget it, though. Always forget the unpleasant things in life, the pin-pricks, the annoyances.

Wasn't that one of his mother's maxims? He would hear from her, now and again, scrappy, disjointed letters about nothing at all, and on the rare occasions when she had visited them it was always to borrow money… He did not ask her again why she wanted it, he simply wrote out a cheque and gave it to her without a word.

It was distasteful, a thing that had to be put away in a corner of his mind. It was the one secret he kept from Katherine. He dreaded that this carelessness of hers should become known to people, to the rest of the family, to their friends, and there should be some sort of scandal, as there had been over Johnnie.

Meanwhile. there were great festivities ahead.

"On the 3rd of March, 1870, the copper mines would be fifty years old, and Henry was determined to celebrate the occasion in style. There would be a sit-down dinner up at the mines for all the miners employed there, and their families, also for the seamen of the vessels that carried the copper across to Bronsea. Toasts would be given, speeches made, and all the paraphernalia that Henry dearly loved. Then, the following night at Clonmere, another dinner for the county, for all those who had been connected, in some way or other, with the original mining agreement. The Lumleys from Duncroom, the Flowers from Andriff, all cousins, of course, and known very well to him, and certain other neighbours who during the course of fifty years had received benefit from the mines on Hungry Hill.

Bill Eyre and Fanny would bring their son and daughter down from the parsonage in the north, and Herbert and his wife and boys across the water from Lletharrog. Edward, returned from abroad, would also join them, and possibly Aunt Eliza, if she could be induced to face the crossing during the stormiest period of the year. Of course, Tom and his wife would have a place of honour, and old Uncle Willie, who had brought Henry into the world. Molly and Hal and Kitty should sit up for the occasion and have dinner with them. Henry was full of plans, each one succeeding the other with lightning rapidity, until Katherine, laughing, said he made her head dizzy, and anyway she did not know where they were going to put up all the guests. Herbert's boys would have to sleep in the boat-house, and Edward and his bride in an attic Henry dismissed the matter airily, with a wave of his hand.

"Tom can put up some of them, and Uncle Willie one or two; we shall manage all right."

And then he smiled, and looked at her slyly. "But in a year's time," he added, "we shall have room for twice as many."

"Why, what do you mean?" she asked.

But he shook his head, he would not be drawn, and she wondered what new project was now in preparation, occupying his energetic mind.

The 1st of March came in, not like the proverbial lion but calmly, serenely, with a soft west wind blowing from Mundy Bay, rippling the creek, and the golden and purple crocuses bursting into flower on the bank below the castle. There were no clouds in the sky, and the sun shone fine and strongly upon Hungry Hill. And one by one, during the day, the Brodricks came to Clonmere. Herbert, from Lletharrog, with his wife Cathie and their two eldest boys, Robert and Bertie; Edward, with his bride Winifred; and later in the afternoon Fanny Eyre, her husband Bill, and their son and daughter William and Maria. Aunt Eliza arrived with the Lletharrog party, and in spite of her seventy-two years had stood the journey better than any of them. And how delightful it was, thought Henry, to have the whole family assembled here under his roof, brother shaking hands with brother, sister-in-law greeting sister-in-law, and young cousins standing warily on one foot watching other young cousins out of the corners of their eyes.

Everybody sat down to an enormous tea in the dining-room, with Aunt Eliza in the place of honour at the head of it, which pleased her mightily.

"So many times I have sat round this table," she told them, "with your grandfather where you are sitting now, Henry, and Barbara in this place. Your father John was always late for meals; it used to annoy your grandfather considerably, and I must say I dislike un-punctuality almost as much as he did-so very inconsiderate, and careless. Barbara never said very much to John about it, which was weak of her, and of course your aunt Jane could not bear to have him scolded. Poor Jane, she would have been sixty this year, if she had lived."

And Hal, a little uncomfortable in the magnificence of his new Eton jacket and broad white collar, to which he had been promoted in honour of the occasion and his approaching ten years, gazed up at the portrait of his great-aunt above the mantelpiece, and thought how glad he was that she had stayed young and pretty, and had not become old like Great-aunt Eliza, who used to come out of her room at Saunby and scold him if he made too much noise on the stairs. Even Great-aunt Jane, pretty as she was, would not bear comparison with mamma, whose portrait also hung in the dining-room, and Hal, glancing from the portrait to the original, caught his mother's eye and smiled. It made a small happiness that she should know he had been looking at her, as though they shared a secret. Someone kicked him under the table. It was Molly, and she was frowning at him. "Don't dream," her lips moved, and he realised with a start that he had paid no attention to the cousin on his right, Robert from Lletharrog, who was asking him, with all the superiority of thirteen years, what sort of fish were obtainable in the creek.

"Killigs and pollock," he said with great politeness. "Perhaps you would like to come with me in a boat tomorrow, if my father will allow it?"

"Oh, sea-fishing," said Robert scornfully; "that's poor sport after catching trout, as we do at home."

"There are brown trout in the lake on Hungry Hill," said Hal swiftly. "They say the fairies put them there, and at night they become little old men and work in the mines."

Thirteen-year-old Robert stared at his young cousin, and then turned away his head. Hal was soft, he decided; how very awkward. And he began to discuss cricket with stolid William Eyre.

The weather held fine for the festivities, and the people of Doon-haven stood at their cottage doors to watch the carriages go through the village up to the mines. The road itself was crowded with the younger and more inquisitive of the inhabitants, all agog at the notion of "the gentry" sitting down to supper side by side with the miners. The full moon shone upon Hungry Hill, and it might have been the light of day as the carriages swung round and came to rest before the great drying-sheds, which, swept and cleared, with three immense tables down the centre, had been turned into a banqueting hall for the occasion. Candles, in their brackets, had been placed at intervals along the walls, and long school forms, borrowed for the night, were to seat the diners. At the far end of the shed, pompous and important, stood the members of the catering firm from Slane, who were to serve the food and wait upon the guests. The miners and their families were all seated in their places when the Brodricks arrived, and as Henry and Katherine entered, the manager, Mr.

Griffiths, started three cheers for the owner and a general clapping of hands, which was quite unexpected to Henry, and he stood smiling at the entrance to the shed, with Katherine at his side.

"I will thank you for that welcome after supper," he told them when the clapping died away. "Meanwhile, let's get on to the most important business of the evening, and I hope you are all as hungry as I am."

Soup, and roast mutton and beef, followed by apple tart, with ale to drink, put every man in a good temper. The murmur of voices, which had been low and cautious to start with, rose to a roar, and Henry, winking at the manager, who sat on his right hand, observed that the only way to a fellow's heart was to fill his belly first. His speech, when he came to make it, was short, for no one, he told them, wanted to listen to anyone but themselves after nine o'clock at night, and as the next day was to be a full holiday for everyone, in honour of the occasion, the sooner they went home to enjoy it the better. He then announced an increase of pay to every miner, from that day forward, which was received with yells of approval and only one discordant note, from some fellow at the far end of the shed who was moved to shout out "And about time too." Henry, with memories of Bronsea and the heckling he had been faced with then, remained perfectly cool.

"I may say," he added, "that, speaking as one chiefly concerned with my own interests, the idea of this was not my own, but Mrs. Brodrick's. It is she you have to thank."

More applause for Katherine, who smiled, and blushed a little, and said nothing.

"Fifty years ago today," continued Henry, "my grandfather John Brodrick signed the original agreement with Mr. Robert Lumley of Duncroom, for a mine to be started on Hungry Hill. The original miners were mostly Cornishmen, a few of whom are with us today as pensioners, and whose sons have carried on their work and are settled amongst us. The rest of you, if not all from Doonhaven and the neighbourhood, belong to this country, and know that our granite hills do not yield easily to pick and shovel like the chalk cliffs of other, easier lands. From the beginning my grandfather had to import gunpowder to do his work, and blast the copper out of Hungry Hill, and although today machinery and explosive are modernised, we still have to deal with the same old stubborn granite. We still have the westerly gales that prevent shipment of the cargoes to Bronsea during the winter months, and, perhaps most important of all, we still have to contend with that strange fluctuating affair known as the copper trade itself, the ups and downs of which are beyond you, and very often beyond me too, and have their origin in the varying claims and discoveries of other countries. The copper mines of Hungry Hill have had their difficulties, like every other mining concern. My grandfather had to contend with riots and floods and many other vicissitudes in his time, which, I am glad to say, have not been my portion. The troubles today are rather different-the law of supply and demand, the labour shortage, the more favourable life, on paper if not in actuality, offered many of you in America, and the fact that the deeper we go in search of our copper the more reluctant are the old granite bones of Hungry Hill to give it to us. One day, perhaps not very far distant, we shall strike for the last time and know that the best of the copper has been brought to the surface, and that what remains is not worth the cost of raising it. Until that day, my friends, I wish you good luck and God-speed, with all the thanks in my heart for your loyalty, your energy and your courage."

And with these words Henry sat down, wondering, as the applause rang in his ears, whether his grandfather would have made the same sort of speech, or whether, in the manner of fifty years ago, he would have kept his listeners a full hour, and be damned to them if they showed signs of impatience. Griffiths, the manager, made reply for the miners, and then there were songs, and talking, and more songs; and finally, about eleven o'clock, when the air in the drying-shed was becoming thick and hazy with smoke and the company boisterous and rather over-full of ale, Henry, and Katherine, and the rest of the family slipped away, and summoned the carriages, with all the satisfaction of a good deed done.

"Well," declared Aunt Eliza, "I only hope those men are grateful for all Henry has done for them. But they are all the same; every kindness is taken for granted, and it was just the same in my father's time. Personally, I consider all these improvements only make them lazy. Great bits of machinery to bring the stuff up above ground, when I can remember every ounce of copper coming to the surface in a bucket."

"You ought to have been a director," laughed Henry; "hard as nails, and not a penny extra to the miners. Is it true my grandfather used to flog 'em in the early days?"

"It would have done them no harm if he had," she replied, "and I know he quelled the riot they had in '25 by blowing several of them up with gunpowder, and quite right too. There was never any trouble afterwards."

"It must have left a great deal of bitterness, all the same," said Katherine.

"Stuff and nonsense! They learnt their lesson.

My father always used to say that if you once showed weakness to these people they paid you back fourfold in treachery."

"Surely there is a middle way, between extreme hardness and foolish weakness?" said Katherine.

"What, for want of a better word, I should call understanding."

"Don't you believe it," said Henry. "The people don't want to be understood, it would spoil their sense of injustice. They revel in their wrongs.

My grandfather was perfectly right. Do you think I shall get any more work out of my Doonhaven miners now I have raised their wages? Not a bit of it. "Ah, Mr. Brodrick's gone easy," they'll say; "we'll take an extra half-hour for dinner, and smoke another pipe of "baccy."

"Did you raise the wages to get more out of them?" asked Katherine. "I thought you did it because we agreed they were too low, and the families were suffering."

Henry made a penitent face, and felt for her hand.

"Of course I did," he said, "but you know the proverb about killing two birds with one stone…

Here, what the devil is Tim up to?"

The carriage lurched suddenly, throwing Henry against his wife. There was a jerk, and a sliding of hoofs as the horses were pulled to a standstill. Tim was shouting to the animals, and the carriage rocked between the wheels. Henry flung open the door and stepped down into the road.

"It wasn't my fault, sir," said Tim, who, white in the face, was climbing down from his seat.

"He walked right out into the centre of the road, and was under the horses before I could stop him… He must have been drunk, of course."

He went forward to hold the horses, while Henry bent over the prone figure of the man who had stumbled in front of the carriage. The second carriage had stopped behind them, and Tom and Herbert, realising there had been an accident, came running down the road to assist them.

"What's wrong? Is anyone hurt?" asked Tom.

"Some idiot of a fellow came right out of the hedge and ran straight into us," said Henry. "Not Tim's fault at all. It's a mercy we were not all thrown into the ditch. Hand down the carriage lamp, Herbert, and let's see the damage."

Together he and Tom Callaghan dragged the unfortunate man from under the carriage, and laid him out on his back in the road.

"I'm afraid his back is broken," said Tom quietly. "Let me loosen the collar and turn the head to the light. Henry, I think Katherine and your aunt had best get into the other carriage and drive home to Clonmere. This isn't a sight for their eyes. Herbert, will you look after them?"

"What is it? Who is it?" said Katherine, stepping down from the carriage. "Poor fellow.

Let me help, Henry, please."

"No, dear one, I want you to go home. Do what I tell you," said Henry.

Katherine hesitated a moment, and then took Aunt Eliza's arm and turned back to the other carriage.

"Drive on," called Henry, waving his hand to the groom; "we shall follow directly."

Edward had now joined them, and Bill Eyre.

"What a wretched business," said Edward. "Is the man dead?"

"I'm afraid so," said Tom; "the wheel seems to have passed right over his head… We had better lift him into the carriage, and take him straight away to the surgery and rouse the doctor.

The young fellow, not old Armstrong. Not that he will be able to do anything, I don't recognise the fellow, he's no one I know in Doonhaven. About forty-five, I should say, reddish hair going grey. Give us the light again."

Once more they looked down into the face of the dead man. It was badly marked and disfigured, but even so there was something about the hair, the staring blue eyes, that awoke recognition in Henry and a flood of memories.

"Good God," he said slowly, "it's Jack Donovan."

The brothers stared at one another, and old Tim, coming close to them, bent down in his turn and examined the dead man.

"You're right, sir," he said. "It's him sure enough. I'd heard he was home from America, but I hadn't seen him myself. And what does he do but come home and get drunk and walk straight in under my horse's feet. '?

"Is this the man you told me about once?" asked Tom quietly.

"Yes," said Henry. "What a wretched unfortunate business! Why the devil did he have to come back?"

"No use wondering that," said Tom, "

"we have to get him down to the village. Who's his nearest relative? Hasn't he an aunt, Mrs.

Kelly? And I suppose that old rogue Denny Donovan, who used to keep a pub, is an uncle?"

"Yes, sir," said Tim, "Denny is his uncle, but the man's never sober, not much use rousing him. Denny's son, Pat Donovan, has a bit of a farm across the hill here; that's where Jack must have been staying."

"Time enough for all that in the morning," said Tom Callaghan "Let's get the poor fellow to the surgery."

What a damnable end to the evening, thought Henry, as the carriage with its miserable burden rattled down the hill into Doonhaven, And why, of all people, must it have been Jack Donovan, returned from America, who chose to end his life in such a fashion? If only he could have run into somebody else's carriage. Henry had not the slightest pity for the fellow, he was a scoundrel in every sense, and the world was well rid of him, but for anyone to be killed in this way, beneath his horses and his carriage, and especially after the celebration that had taken place that evening, was painful and disturbing, It was not his fault, it was not anyone's fault except Jack Donovan's himself, but that was not the point. The thing had happened. And it brought back the past and so much distress that was best forgotten. '

It was some time after midnight when Henry and his brothers returned to Clonmere. The body of Jack Donovan had been taken to the surgery and the doctor summoned. He must have died instantly, the doctor said, and certainly Tim could be absolved from all blame, for it was obvious that the dead man had been drinking. The doctor promised to go himself in the morning and break the news to Jack Donovan's cousin Pat, and Tom Callaghan also announced his intention of doing the same.

"There's no need for you to concern yourself in the matter, old fellow," he said to Henry. "I'm the Rector of this place, and I'm used to this sort of thing, even if the Donovans don't belong to my church. You have a big house-party on your hands, and it's your duty to look after them."

The castle was hushed and silent in the moonlight.

Only a pinprick of light from their bedroom warned Henry that Katherine was awake and waiting for him. He was afraid she would be very much grieved at what had happened. Damn Jack Donovan, he thought angrily, even if he was dead. His brothers went up to bed, but Henry remained below, wondering whether he should make up some story to Katherine or not. It would be useless, though; he had never lied to her. He stood by the front door gazing out across the creek to Hungry Hill.

It lay in shadow now, and the moon, shining high above Doon Island, seemed pale and cold. Fifty years ago his grandfather must have stood here, with his future before him and the agreement for the mines in his pocket. And fifty years hence, what? His own grandson, a son of Hal's perhaps, with this same moon looking down upon Clonmere, and the creek, and the scarred, blank face of Hungry Hill?

He turned and went indoors, and climbed the stairs softly to Katherine's room. She was sitting up in bed waiting for him, her long dark hair in two plaits like a child. She looked pale and anxious.

"I am sure the man is dead," she said at once. "I felt it, directly you told me to come home."

"Yes," he said, "he is dead."

He told her a little more about it: how they had gone to the surgery, and roused the doctor, and then, when she asked the man's name, he hesitated, having some intuition that the name would make her unhappy, as indeed it made him unhappy too.

"It was Jack Donovan," he said at last.

"It seems he had returned from America."

She said very little, and he went and undressed, and when he came back she had blown out the candles and was lying in darkness.

He held her close to him, and when he kissed her eyes he found they were wet with tears.

"Don't think about it," he said; "it was a wretched unfortunate thing to happen, but the doctor said he died instantly. He was a hopeless fellow, you know that, and would only have made trouble in the district if he had settled down here again. Please, dear one, don't think about it any more."

"It's not that," she said. "I'm not crying for Jack Donovan."

"What is it, then?" he said. "Won't you tell me?"

She said nothing for a moment, and then, putting her arms round him, she said: "I cried just now because I remembered Johnnie, and how lost and unhappy he was. I might have done so much more for him than I did."

"That's absurd," said Henry. "What more could you have possibly done?"

It was Jack Donovan, of course, who had brought back the old tragedy. Johnnie had been dead nearly twelve years, and Katherine had never mentioned him before. And here she was, lying in his arms, with the tears running down her cheeks. He was aware, for the first time in his life, of a queer pang of jealousy. It was disturbing, strange, that Katherine, his beloved wife, so calm always, so patient and reserved, should weep like a little child for his dead brother, after all these years.

"It's that damned accident," he said, "it's been a shock to you. I wish to God it could have been avoided… Katherine darling, you do love me, don't you? More than anyone else, more than the children, more than Hal?"

The great supper up at the mines, the cheering and the clapping, the celebrations of the day, and the sudden horror of the accident on the way home were all forgotten in his sudden longing for reassurance. If he doubted Katherine he doubted everything. There was no faith, no hope, no meaning in life at all.

"You do love me?" he said. "Don't you…

Don't you?"

Henry decided against taking a house for the season in London that year. For one thing, both doctors, the new man and old Uncle Willie, said that it would be too much for Katherine. And the other reason was that Henry wished to superintend the work upon the castle. For his secret, announced to the family during the celebrations in March, was no more than this, that he had been in consultation with a well-known architect, who, at his request, had drawn up plans for an entire new front to the castle.

"How my father and all the aunts ever crammed into the rooms cannot imagine," he said. "Aunt Eliza has told me that they never could invite people to stay in my grandfather's time"

He smiled down at his wife, unrolling the plan the architect had given him, as excited as a child with a new toy.

"Now admit, dearest," he said, "that this new wing, where you and I and our guests shall live, is really very imposing."

Katherine smiled, and took the plan in her hands.

"It's like a palace," she said. "What are we going to do with all those rooms?"

"Don't you think the idea of a grand entrance hall is rather fine?" he said eagerly. "I've always felt rather ashamed of our small hall, scarcely more than a passage, when I've been to Andriff and other places. What about this staircase? Magnificent, isn't it? Of course, I shall buy some really good pictures for the gallery. We'll go out to Florence and Rome next winter, and really spread ourselves.

Now this is what will please you most. Look, the boudoir, all for you, between our bedroom and the spare room on the corner. And the little balcony leading from it, over the big front door. Here is my dressing-room, facing the woods. But tell me that you like the boudoir? It was my idea entirely."

Katherine lifted her hand and touched his cheek.

"Of course I like it," she said. "It's quite true, I've always wanted a little room of my own, where I can write my letters and not be disturbed."

"And you will have such a view," he said excitedly, "the best view in the castle, right away across the creek to Hungry Hill. You see, dear one, if you are not feeling strong your breakfast can be brought to you in the boudoir, and you will only have to walk through from your bedroom. These new rooms will have the sun the whole day long. At the moment we lose it, in winter, almost directly after luncheon. I dare say that is why you often look so pale."

He rolled the parchment back and drew forth another, more technical, showing the construction of the new roof and the chimneys.

"This won't interest you so much," he said, "but I like the way he introduces the little turrets and towers. They are like the pictures of the chateaux on the Loire."

Katherine watched him from her sofa. He was so eager, so impulsive. This rebuilding of the castle would fill his thoughts for the coming months to the exclusion of everything else. She was glad of it, for that reason only. It would mean he would not have the time to worry about her…

"And how long is it all going to take?" she asked.

"Just under a year before everything is finished," he said. "It means workmen about the place for a long time, I'm afraid. You won't mind, will you? Or would you rather we went across and spent the summer with Aunt Eliza in Lletharrog? The doctors couldn't object to that."

"No," said Katherine, "no, I don't want to leave Clonmere again."

Then the children came in, and the plans had to be brought out once more.

"It will be like a real fairy-tale castle," said Molly, with all her father's enthusiasm. "Look, Kitty, you and I won't have to share a bedroom any more. We shall have mamma's present room as our schoolroom. And Miss Frost has father's dressing-room as a bedroom."

This struck them as highly amusing, and they went into peals of laughter.

"What room do I have?" asked Hal. "Can I have the room in the tower?"

"I was thinking of putting one of the servants there," said Henry, "but you are welcome to it, my lad, if you want it. I believe my father used to sleep there as a boy."

"I like it," said Hal; "it's the nicest room in the house. I shall do my painting up there. Why are we having a new day and night nursery? Now Kitty does lessons with Miss Frost she can eat with us in the schoolroom, can't she?"

Henry looked across at Katherine. Her head was bent over her needlework.

"You might have another little sister or brother one day," she said.

"Oh," said Hal.

He was not particularly interested; At any rate, at ten a nurse would have no power over him; that was one good thing. He was too old for any nursery. He leant with his chin in his hands, poring over the new plans. Yes, the old room in the tower would suit him very well. He would find a key and lock himself in, so that Miss Frost could not come and find him. He would make paintings, really large ones, and pin them on the wall, as artists did…

The workmen began on the foundations directly after Easter, and during the long, lovely summer of 1870 there was the ceaseless sound of hammering and knocking at Clonmere. Scaffolding hid the old house, and pillars, and girders. There were ladders everywhere, and heaps of stone and plaster. As the new block of the castle took shape it dwarfed the original building, which before had seemed square and stolid. The rooms lost the sun even sooner than before, because the new block jutted forward, taking all the sun that came.

"You can see," said Henry, "how much better we shall be in the new house. The rooms will be double the size, and so lofty. Already I feel cramped and restless in this old part of the house. I wish they would get on with the work faster."

The children were fascinated by the progress of the building. They chased one another in and out of the rooms that had as yet no ceilings, and only half a wall, while their governess Miss Frost searched for them in vain, only to discover Molly seated at the top of a high ladder, in imminent danger of breaking her neck, or Kitty, with face and hands covered in earth, crawling from the depths of the new cellars.

Hal would watch the mixing of the cement, and dabble his hands in the wet mass of clay. And day after day Henry would walk down in the middle of the morning with the architect, who would come to Clonmere perhaps for a fortnight at a time to see how things were going, and the two men would discuss the great chimney that was inclined to spoil the appearance of the new block from the front, or the distance between two windows, or the exact height of the future front door, Henry with his head on one side and his hands in his pockets, the architect scribbling figures on a piece of paper.

Suddenly there would be too many people for Hal, and he would run up through the woods to the old summer-house, where his mother would be resting. She did not walk about much these days, she was always resting. She must have felt that he was there, because she turned her head and smiled at him.

"I rather thought there was a little boy looking at me," she said.

He came forward, and sat down on the chair beside her.

"I've made you a painting," he said, feeling in his pocket. "It's of the creek, on a very rough day."

He presented a grubby piece of paper, watching her eyes for approval with great anxiety.

It was the usual child's drawing, trees and creek all out of proportion, and the waves a nightmare size, while rain, like ink, fell from a thundercloud.

There was something about it, though, that was not pure childish effort. One tree, bent in the wind, that had life, and the colour of the sky.

"Thank you," said Katherine. "I am very pleased with it."

"Is it good?" said Hal. "If it's not truly good I shall tear it up."

She looked at him, and took hold of his hand.

"It's quite good for your age," she said, "but you've chosen a difficult subject, one that even real artists would not find easy."

Hal bit his nails, and frowned at the picture.

"I like painting more than any other thing," he said, "but if I can't paint better than other people I'd rather not paint at all."

"That's a wrong way to think," said Katherine.

"That way of thinking makes a person narrow, and envious, and unhappy. There will always be people in the world who will do things better than you do them. All you have to think about is to do the best you can."

"It's not that I mind what people say," said Hal, "but I want to have the feeling inside me that what I do is good. If I think it's bad it makes me miserable."

Katherine put her arm round him, and held him close.

"Go on making your drawings," she said, "and make them because you are happy to make them, good or bad. And then come and show them to me, darling, and we will discuss them together."

So the summer passed, and autumn came again, and by the New Year, the architect promised, the new wing would be habitable. Already the roof and the walls were built, and the floors were laid. The partitions between the rooms were under construction. The great stairway led from the big hall to the gallery above, and Henry, with Katherine on his arm, would point out the places where they would hang their pictures. The children ran along the corridors, calling to one another, their voices echoing to the lofty ceiling.

"You are going to like it, aren't you?" said Henry anxiously. "The whole thing has been planned for you, you know that, don't you?"

Again and again he would take her through the rooms, pointing out the excellence of the fireplace in the drawing-room, the useful size of the new library, where they could house all the books he had never had room for before. Best of all he liked to show hex the boudoir, and the little balcony outside it.

"You can lie in your chair here in the summer," he said. "That is why I purposely ordered the long windows, so that the chair can be moved in and out. And in the winter you can sit here, by your fire. When I want you I shall come and stand below, and throw stones up at the window."

Katherine smiled, and, standing on the balcony, looked out across the creek to Hungry Hill.

"Yes," she said, "it's just what I have always wanted."

He put his arm round her, and they stood together, watching the workmen below.

"In the New Year, when you are up and about again," he said, "we will take three or four months abroad, in Italy and France, and we'll buy everything we fall in love with, furniture and pictures. I want a Botticelli Madonna for the head of the staircase, and there's another fellow, Filippo Lippi, who painted a Madonna exactly like you. It hung above an old altar in a church in Florence, do you remember, we saw it together, the year after Hal was born? We might have nothing but primitives in the gallery, and then, if you fancy them, you shall have your moderns in your boudoir."

"I'm afraid Henry is going to spend a vast amount of money."

"Henry wants his home to be as beautiful as his wife. I must have the best there is of everything, for my wife, for my house, for my children. Perfection or nothing. No middle course."

"Very dangerous," smiled Katherine, "and only leads to disillusion. Hal has the same idea, I'm afraid, and he will suffer many disappointments because of it."

In the middle of December Henry had to be away in Slane for four days, for the Assizes, and on the third day, on returning to his hotel from the court-house, he found Tom Callaghan waiting for him in the lounge.

"What's the Rector of Doonhaven doing in Slane?" he asked, with a laugh. "You've not come to be a witness in the case of assault, have you? Come and have some dinner."

"No, thanks, old fellow. I've come to bring you home."

"What's the matter?" He seized hold of Tom's arm. "Is it Katherine?"

"She had a bit of a chill yesterday morning," said Tom, "and rather foolishly got up, and walked in the garden with the children. By the evening it was worse, and Miss Frost called in the doctor. At any rate, he seems to think the baby is on the way, and asked me to come along and collect you. If you're ready, I suggest we go immediately."

His manner was calm and reassuring. Good old Tom, thought Henry; what a stand-by he was at all times! The best friend in the world. He had got the man at the hotel to collect his luggage; it was waiting strapped in the hall. He scribbled a note making his excuses to his fellow magistrates on the bench, and they left the city.

"The children have been spending the day at Heathmount," said Tom, "helping to make jam in the kitchen.

All in a delightful mess and very happy. We've arranged for them to spend the night, or two or three nights, if necessary."

"I don't suppose the business will be long, if you say it has already started," said Henry. "Kitty was not long coming into the world, as far as I can remember."

"It does not always follow, old boy," said Tom; "that was six or seven years ago, and Katherine hasn't been too fit since, has she?

Still, this young doctor seems a capable fellow.

Old Armstrong insists on being present too, by the way. More from affection for you all than anything else."

"Well, he brought all of us into the world," said Henry. "He probably knows a thing or two about it by this time."

It was nearly eleven o'clock when they arrived home at Clonmere. Uncle Willie Armstrong had heard the sound of the carriage, and was standing waiting for them on the steps.

"Glad to see you, Henry," he said, in his usual gruff, abrupt manner. "Young McKay is with Katherine now. Nothing much happened since you left, Rector. You had both better have a drink.

We can't any of us do anything to hurry this child into the world."

He led the way into the dining-room.

"I shall go up and see Katherine," said Henry, but old Armstrong took him by the shoulder.

"Much better not," he said; "she'd far rather see you when it's all over. They've laid some cold supper for you here. You'd better eat it."

Henry found himself surprisingly hungry. Cold beef and pickles. Apricot tart.

"Come on, Tom," he said, "my wife's having this baby, not yours. Don't look so solemn."

He began to tell them an amusing incident that had happened in court during the afternoon. They listened and smiled, not saying much. Old Doctor Armstrong puffed away at his pipe. Presently Doctor McKay came into the room.

"Well 8? said Henry. "How is she 8?

"Rather tired," said the doctor. "It's being something of an ordeal for her, but she is very patient. I wonder…" He glanced across at Armstrong. "I wonder if you would care to come upstairs with me?"

The old doctor rose from his chair without a word and followed him out of the room.

"You would think," said Henry, "that by this time someone would have invented an easier way for these things to happen.

Why can't the damn fellows do something? She can't surfer all this pain for hours on end." He began pacing up and down the room. "My mother had all five of us and never winked an eyelid," he said.

"She used to sit up and do embroidery five minutes afterwards, and give all the servants notice."

He stopped and listened a moment, and then went on walking again.

"Uncle Willie looks at me all the time with a resigned T told you so" expression in his eye," he said impatiently. "I remember his telling me only last year that Katherine should never have any more children… He had an idea she had got something twisted inside. Katherine never said anything.

She has seemed quite happy about it all. Women are so strange…? He hesitated on one foot, looking at the door, "Shall I go upstairs?" he said.

"I don't think I would, if I were you," said Tom gently.

"I can't go on standing here," said Henry. "I think I shall go through and walk round the new house."

He lifted a small lamp, and passed through the door in the dining-room that led into the new corridor between the two wings. There was a smell of paint and varnish. The workmen were busy this week on the panelling in the new dining-room. He held the lamp above his head and went through into the great hall. It looked very massive, very bare. The light shone down from the vast skylight in the roof. The place seemed ghostly, grey, and the wide staircase leading to the gallery yawned like a gulf.

"It will be all right," he thought, "when we have it furnished. A big fire in the open hearth, chairs, sofas, tables, and Katherine's piano in the corner here."

He wandered about the empty rooms, his footsteps making a hollow sound. Once he stumbled against a ladder and some pots of paint. There was a little heap of cement in a corner of the drawing-room. The room struck very cold, and air blew in, dank and chill. He turned and went up the great stairs to the gallery above. The children had been playing there. One of them had left a skipping-rope trailing from the top of the stairs. He wandered through his new dressing-room to the bedroom. The paint smell clung about him still.

He wished the room could have been finished in time for Katherine to have had her baby there. Then she could have been carried through to the boudoir and spent her days on the sofa, returning to the bedroom at night. He stood on the threshold of the boudoir. Even now, bare and empty, there was something snug about it, a foretaste of the future. Perhaps because they had planned so much of it together. He turned the handle of the long window, and stepped out on to the balcony. A little wind blew towards him from the sea. He could hear the tide ripple in the creek below. His lamp flickered and went out.

He had to grope his way back in the darkness, through the dark, silent rooms, along the gallery, down the great stairs to the hall. There were shadows everywhere, and the caps and overalls of the workmen, hanging just inside an open door, were like the dangling bodies of men. He tried to picture the new wing as it would be, finished and complete, the carpets on the stairs, the pictures on the walls, the fires burning, and for the first time the image forsook him, his imagination failed.

He tried to see Katherine sitting in the corner of the hall, pouring out tea, with the children beside her, the dogs lying on the floor, and himself coming in from shooting, with old Tom perhaps, and Herbert, and Edward, and Katherine glancing up smiling. And he could not see her. He could not see any of them. There was nothing but this vast, unfinished, empty hall.

"Henry," said a voice, "Henry…?

Tom came searching for him from the old house, peering through the darkness.

"Armstrong came down for you," he said, "he wants to speak to you."

Henry followed him, blinking in the sudden light.

The door between the two wings closed behind him with a clang. He could hear the sound of it echoing through the new wing that had been shut away.

"What's happened?" he said. "Is it over yet?"

Old Armstrong watched him from under shaggy brows.

He seemed old and tired.

"A daughter," he said, "not very strong, I'm afraid. She'll need a lot of looking after.

Katherine is very weak. You had better go up."

Henry glanced from one to the other, his friend, and the friend of his father.

"Yes," he said, "yes, I'll go to her."

He ran swiftly up the stairs and met the young Doctor McKay coming along the passage.

"Don't stay long," the doctor said, "she's very tired. I want her to sleep. '

Henry looked into his eyes.

"What do you mean?" he said. "Isn't everything going to be all right?"

The young doctor watched him steadily.

"Your wife is not strong, Mr. Brodrick," he said. "This has been a very great strain upon her.

If she sleeps, all may be well, but I cannot promise. I think it right that you should know this."

Henry did not answer. He went on looking at the doctor's eyes.

"Armstrong told you about the little girl?" the doctor said. "I'm afraid she's malformed, one foot not quite straight, and rather underweight, but otherwise all right. There's no reason why she should not be as healthy as the others in time. Now perhaps you will go in to Mrs. Brodrick?"

The familiar new-born baby cry rang in his ear, taking him back to those other times, to the birth of Molly at East Grove. How proud and anxious and excited he had been. And Kitty's in London. The nurse was in a corner, murmuring to the new little one. She brought the baby out of the cot and showed the child to him.

"Such a pity about the foot," she whispered. "We aren't going to say anything about it to Mrs.

Brodrick."

Henry heard her in a dream. He did not know what she was saying. He went over and knelt beside the bed, taking Katherine's hand and kissing the fingers.

She opened her eyes and touched his head. He did not say anything. He went on kissing the fingers. The nurse took the baby out of the room, and the fitful cry disappeared along the passage. Henry tried to pray, but no words came to his lips. There was nothing he could say, nothing he could ask. Her hands were so cold, he wanted to warm them. This seemed to him more important than anything else, that he should warm her hands. He kissed them again and again, and held them against his cheek, and then inside his vest, against his heart.

She smiled then.

"I can feel your heart," she said; "it's throbbing, like an engine in a ship."

"Are you warmer?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "I would like to leave my hand there always."

He went on kneeling there, and presently, about six in the morning, the workmen came walking along the drive below the castle, whistling and talking, the gravel scrunching under their boots. Somebody went and told them to go away.

It was Tom Callaghan who did everything. He took all responsibility upon his shoulders. He kept the children at Heathmount, out of Henry's way.

Then Herbert came over, and took them back with him to Lletharrog, the nurse and the baby as well as the older children and their governess. It was Tom who remembered about Ardmore, and he remembered too the hymns that Katherine had loved best, and her favourite flowers. Henry saw and heard nothing.

The only thing for which he gave orders himself was to stop all building on the house. He spoke to the men himself. He was quite calm, and knew what to say. He gave every one of them a sum of money, and shook hands with each, and thanked them. And they took away the bricks, and the cement, and the ladders, and all the paraphernalia of building, and did not return.

The architect went back to England, leaving the roll of plans with Henry. He put them away in his desk and locked it. He never looked at them again.

He went down to Heathmount and stayed with Tom, and then, after a few weeks, he became restless. It was no use, he said, every part of Doonhaven held a memory that gave him no peace. He would have to go away. He would let Clonmere, perhaps for a number of years.

"I don't think I should do that," said Tom gently. "You must remember the children. It's their home, and they are devoted to it Molly is twelve now, Hal ten, and Kitty seven. It's an age when children feel things. Let them keep their home.

Memories to children are precious, and not bitter. You must always remember that."

"They will have to come alone then," said Henry. "I can't live there. There's no meaning in anything.

Life is finished, that's all there is to it."

"I know, old fellow," said Tom. "But if you would try to accept it, surrender to it, you would find the pain easier to bear. It's only going to add to suffering if you build up resentment against it. And that is what you are doing now, dear boy, it is indeed."

"I build up resentment against nothing and no one," said Henry, "except myself. You see, Tom, I killed her. That is something that I can never forget, or forgive. I killed her."

"No, Henry, you must not think that. Katherine was not strong. I have talked about it all to McKay, and to Armstrong too. She had not been well for years, there were definite signs of internal disorder that could never have been cured."

"You are being kind to me, Tom, but it's no use.

This last baby should never have been born. I knew it. And I would not let myself think about it because I loved her so much… Very well. We won't talk about these things again. Anyway, we shan't have the chance. I'm going away."

"Yes, Henry, I think you should go away, for a little while. But don't forget this place is your home, and the home of your children. And we are always here when you want us."

"You're my greatest friend, Tom. Sometimes I think the only true friend I've ever had-was "Where will you go, old fellow? What will you do?"

"I don't know. I have no plans. I want to go somewhere where I shall not be reminded of her every second of the day."

Tom tried to reason with him, but Henry would not listen. No argument, no gentleness, no patience, nothing did any good. Already the harsh lines of sorrow began to show on his face. The warm, carefree smile, that when it came lit up his eyes and the whole of his expression, was a thing of the past. When Henry smiled now it had a twist in it that was bitterness concealed.

"Don't you see," said Tom, in a final attempt to break down the great wall of bitterness, "that every day you are taking yourself farther from Katherine, instead of drawing nearer to her? She will be with you all the time, if you will only forgive yourself and open your heart."

"Of course I see," said Henry, despair in his face, spreading out his hands in futility. "She has been dead now nearly two months; she belongs to the past, the past that can never be recovered. There is no other argument. I can't open my heart. I have none. She took it with her when she died."

"No, Henry."

"Yes, Tom Yes…"

Henry left Doonhaven in the middle of February, and went to London. He stayed there for a few weeks, and then travelled abroad He went to Italy and Greece. France was at war with Prussia, and he was unable to visit his mother. She preferred to stay in the south, she wrote, and risk the consequences, rather than return at the present time.

Conditions were difficult though; she wanted more money… He wrote her a large cheque. It did not seem to matter any more. Her extravagance failed to worry him. If she wanted to take the money and throw it down the nearest sewer she could do it, if it gave her any pleasure. Good luck to her for snatching what trivial happiness she could find.

He wished that he could be equally successful.

Italy and Greece proved a distraction. He met people he had not met before, and they helped, because they knew nothing of his life. He found that if he lunched or dined with comparative strangers and talked a lot it prevented him from thinking about Katherine.

He went back to London in May and bought a house in Lancaster Gate, and when he had settled down, and made some sort of routine for himself, lunching and dining out frequently, and seeing many friends, old and new, he sent for the children. It seemed to him that he could bear them again, and to have them about the house would make another distraction.

The bustle of their arrival made a strange excitement. The two cabs driving to the front-door, and Herbert, bless him, getting out with the usual twinkle in his eye and a broad smile on his face. There was Molly, grown in a few months beyond recognition, and Kitty, very leggy, with two front teeth missing, and Hal, rather white in the face and serious, looking up at him with large eyes. Miss Frost and a pile of luggage, the nurse and the baby Lizette. Molly threw her arms round his neck.

"Father darling, I am so glad to see you."

And Kitty and Hal also thrust themselves against him, eager and anxious. It made a warmth, a queer glow for which he was unprepared, and then everybody was talking at once, and wanting to see the rooms. The house, that had been silent and a little dreary, was enveloped. The children with their youth and vitality took possession. They ran upstairs to see the schoolroom, with all the curiosity of youth, their feet stamping overhead, and Herbert and Henry sat down in the drawing-room to tea.

"They're such dears," said Herbert, "all three of them, and the baby too. We are going to miss them sadly. But how are you? You're looking much better than I expected you would."

"I'm very well," said Henry; "London suits me, you know, always did."

He plunged into an account of his travels and the people he had met, and for the first time in his life Herbert saw in Henry a likeness to their mother. Like her he chatted of trivialities, being amusing for the sake of being amusing, exaggerating often, skimming over the surface of things because it was easier than finding the depths. Herbert wanted to know what was really in his brother's heart, if he suffered less-he had exchanged many letters with Tom Callaghan on the subject-but every time he tried to sound him Henry evaded the issue, and talked about something else.

Henry was building a defence about himself that would be hard to penetrate. Perhaps the children would draw him out of this, bring back the old Henry with his true charm, his unselfishness, his unaffected gaiety.

Herbert left after tea, so that Henry could be alone with the children, and they came down about six o'clock, washed and changed, carrying books under their arms as they had always done at Clonmere. It made a pain at once, that they should so instinctively remember their routine, and he began to question them about Lletharrog and all they had done-anything rather than that Molly should sit down, as she used to do, with Hal and Kitty on footstools, and open the book. They chatted for a while politely, like small visitors, and then Molly, leaning against his arm, said: "Would you read, father? Like mamma used to do. Then it will be just like being at home again."

And she settled herself on the arm of his chair, with easy confidence, while a smile of anticipation lit up the eager, white face of Hal. Henry took up the book and cleared his throat, hardly seeing the print, feeling inadequate, helpless, a sham before his children. The story was one that he remembered Katherine reading to them very often at Clonmere, and as he read, not taking in the words or the meaning, he wondered how it was that the very familiarity of the proceeding, the memory of the words, did not tear their hearts with pain, as it did his. The old ways, the old routine, which to him were now agony and unendurable, were something to which they clung for security. He wanted to lose the memory of that world; they wished to hold it.

He read for two or three pages, and then he could bear it no longer. It seemed to him a mockery of the time that was gone. The children might live in the world of what-used-to-be; they must live in it alone.

"I'm afraid I'm not very good at reading aloud," he said, "my throat gets sore. You'll have to do it instead, Molly."

"That won't be the same," said Hal quickly.

"Molly is only our sister. She can read to us in the schoolroom."

"Perhaps father would rather play a game," said Kitty.

"We have Happy Families. I know where it is, on the top of the toy-trunk."

She ran away upstairs to fetch the cards.

Hal busied himself carrying a table into the middle of the room.

"I wish we had a piano," said Molly.

"I've been learning while we stayed with Uncle Herbert. I shan't be able to practise here without one."

"I'll get you one," said Henry.

"When we go home, Molly can play on mamma's piano," said Hal. "It was so very soft.

Uncle Herbert's piano banged a bit. How long are we going to be in this house? Until the summer holidays?"

Henry got up from his chair, and moved restlessly towards the mantelpiece.

"We shall be here indefinitely," he said. "You must all learn to look upon this house as home, now you are getting older. You'll be going to school, Hal, next term. I'm not certain about the holidays.

Perhaps we might all go and stay with Aunt Eliza in Saunby."

The children stared at him aghast. Kitty, who had returned with the cards, stood on one leg, biting the end of her hair.

"Aren't we ever going home to Clonmere again?" she said.

Henry avoided their eyes. He did not know what to say.

"Yes, of course… sometime," he said, "but it's let at the moment; I thought perhaps they would have told you at Lletharrog. Some people called Boles, friends of Uncle Bill and Aunt Fanny, are living there."

The children went on looking at him without understanding.

"Other people?" said Hal. "Living in our home?

Using our things? They won't touch mamma's piano, will they?"

"No," said Henry, "no, I'm sure they won't."

"How long are they going to be there?" asked Molly.

Each one of them looked shaken and distressed. He had not realised that they were so fond of their home. He thought that children liked change, enjoyed variety. He began to feel irritated. They were staring at him as though he were in some way to blame.

"I don't know," he said, "it depends upon their plans."

He had not the courage to tell them that Clonmere had been let to the Boles for seven years.

"There are many advantages in London," he said, smiling, and talking rather swiftly. "You two girls will be able to go to dancing classes, and music lessons, and all that sort of thing. And meet other children. Hal must learn to find his level with other boys, before he goes to Eton. All your uncles agreed with me that London was much the best place for education. There will be plenty for you all to do. And I promise you that I'll give you whatever you want."

He felt as though he were pleading with them, that they were his judges. Why should he feel this? They were only children, Molly not yet thirteen. "I want to do what is best for all of you," he said. "I think, I'm certain in fact, that this is what mamma would have wished."

The children did not say anything. Kitty slowly shuffled the pack of Happy Families. Hal drew imaginary lines on the table. Molly reached for the pack of cards from Kitty, and handed them to Henry.

"Will you deal, father?" she said.

They drew their chairs to the table, and as he dealt out the cards he could feel the constraint amongst them.

The pleasure was gone and they were strangers, being polite to one another for courtesy's sake.

"I've hurt them," thought Henry. "I've broken their faith in some way. And there's no one to tell me what to say, what to do."

He could feel their eyes upon him as he pretended to examine his cards….

"They'll forget all about it," he told himself; "children accustom themselves to everything. That's the blessing of being a child."

And as the months passed Henry felt this to be true, because none of them even mentioned the idea of going home again. They were content, he decided, and because he wanted to believe this, he never questioned them, for fear that they should tell him they were unhappy, The months became one, two years, and except for occasional visits to Saunby and Lletharrog they did not leave the house in London.

The girls attended classes, Hal went to school, the little Lizette learnt to talk and to walk, limping on her poor club foot that could not be straightened. Henry, restless, uncertain, feeling that his children needed a deeper understanding than he could give them, evaded responsibility by giving them presents; while in his heart all the while there was a feeling that what he did and what he gave them brought them no closer to him.

When a letter came to him from his mother in the spring of '74, condoling with him on the death of Aunt Eliza at Saunby and asking for a rather larger cheque than usual, Henry determined, quite suddenly, to go out to Nice and stay with her.

He had not seen her for nearly seven years.

Perhaps, at last, he would be able to persuade her to return and live with them. The truth was that he was lonely, in mind and body and soul, and Molly at fifteen was still too young to be a true companion. The thought of his mother's gaiety, her wit and her charm, seemed all the more endearing after an absence of seven years. Surely she, more than anyone in the world, would understand this feeling of unbearable loneliness, that became worse, not easier, as the years passed?

He went to France the day after he had seen Hal safely off to his first half at Eton.

The air was brilliant in Nice and the sun shone.

He called a porter, and collecting his baggage, went in search of a fiacre to drive him to the villa.

No attempt on his mother's part to meet him at the station. She had probably forgotten the day of his arrival. It was pleasant driving along the wide promenade, watching the people. The driver turned away from the sea-front and drove up behind the town, threading his way through a network of little, narrow roads. Once or twice he had to ask his way. They came at last to the Rue des Lilas (in which there were no lilacs), and stopped in front of a small, shabby villa that badly needed a coat of paint. The gate was half off the hinges. When Henry opened it a bell jangled shrilly, and two dogs set up a chorus of barking from inside the house. No one came to the door, however. The driver put down the luggage on the step, and waited.

Henry went round to the back of the villa. The door was also closed, and the dogs went on barking from inside the house. Henry returned to the front.

"Nobody about," he told the driver.

He became aware that a woman was watching him from a window of the villa next door. He turned his back, and once more wrestled with the handle of the front door. It was the right house, for looking through the glass pane of the door he could see the sitting-room, and a photograph of Johnnie on the mantelpiece.

Then a voice called: "Try under the loose tile-you may find the key there."

The woman from next door was standing on her verandah. She was about forty-six, rather handsome, with steel-grey hair and strikingly blue eyes. She was obviously amused at the situation.

"Thank you," said Henry, taking off his hat.

"I don't appear to be expected."

He bent down, and found the key under the tile.

He held it up for the woman to see. She laughed, and shrugged her shoulders.

"I thought it would either be there or in the flower-bed," she said, "Mrs. Brodrick is usually a bit casual about her hiding-places."

Henry thanked her again, and paying off the driver, he took his luggage inside the villa. The dogs came out of the sitting-room, sniffing at his heels. The room smelt of them. It was stuffy, the windows were all shut. There was a saucer of food for them in one corner, and biscuit spilt upon the floor. Dead flowers were stuffed into cracked vases. The chairs and sofas were creased and stained where the dogs had been lying. On a table was a cup that had held coffee, the dregs were in it still. One of his mother's shoes lay beside it, and the other had been kicked under a chair. A wood fire in the grate had not been cleared.

Henry left the room and went into the dining-room. This was obviously never used. His mother had her meals on a tray in the sitting-room. The kitchen was full of crockery that had not been washed, and there were vegetables, uncooked, crammed into a coal bucket. He went upstairs and found his mother's bedroom. Her clothes were littered about the room, and the bed had not been made. There was a tray of breakfast things still lying on the end of the bed. Across the passage was a spare-room, intended no doubt for him. There were clean sheets and blankets folded on the bed, but the bed was not made up. He went downstairs and stood looking out on the neglected garden, feeling sick at heart, and filled with depression. Somehow he had not expected it to be like this. He had made a different picture in his mind. The Englishwoman was still on her verandah, watering some flowers in a pot.

Her house looked neat and clean, different altogether from this shabby, sordid villa of his mother's. The woman heard his step, and glanced over her shoulder.

"Found everything you want?" she called cheerfully.

Henry suddenly decided to take her into his confidence.

"Look here," he said, walking towards the verandah, "do you know my mother?"

The woman hesitated a moment, and peeled off her gardening gloves.

"We smile and say good-morning, and chat over the hedge," she admitted, "but I've never been inside the villa. Mrs. Brodrick is nearly always out, as a matter of fact. I suppose you are her son? You're so exactly like her."

She stared at him with frank curiosity, and smiled again.

"My name is Price," she said, holding down a hand over the hedge, "Adeline Price. You may have heard of my husband, General Price, in the Indian Army. He died three years ago, and I've been living down here. Listen. Can I do anything? Make you some tea or something? It's so very cheerless to arrive at an empty house."

"I wish," said Henry, "that you would just come in and have a look at this place. Yes, I am Henry Brodrick. My mother must know I'm coming, because I found my letter open on her desk."

Mrs. Price came down from her verandah and through the front gate.

"There is a maid who comes two or three times a week," she said. "I've seen her go to the back door. A slovenly creature. I wouldn't have her for a servant if you paid me. I suppose this is one of the days that she hasn't come."

They walked through into the villa. Henry watched her face. She was looking at everything with her critical blue eyes, from the dead flowers to the dirty coffee cup.

"H'm," she said, "bit of a pig-sty, isn't it? Reminds me of some of our married quarters out in India. Those women didn't need telling twice, I can tell you. They were more scared of me than they were of my husband. Let's have a look at the rest. You know, Mr. Brodrick, the place hasn't been touched for weeks. I've never seen anything so disgraceful, not even out in India, and that's saying plenty. Excuse me for being so downright, but is your mother awfully badly off? Can't she afford to pay a decent servant?"

The steel-blue eyes held his, and would not waver. Henry shrugged his shoulders.

"No," he said shortly, "my mother has everything she wants. I can't understand it. This is all very disturbing."

Mrs. Price led the way back into the sitting-room. She glanced at the photograph of Johnnie on the mantelpiece. She ran her finger on the frame, and showed it to Henry, black with dust.

"I suppose," she said, "that Mrs.

Brodrick is just one of those people who don't care.

I'm afraid I just can't understand the attitude.

Now listen to me. You're coming next door to have tea with me, and I shall send my little maid over here to give the place a thorough clean. No, don't interrupt, please. She'll be delighted to do it, and I shall be delighted to have a visitor to tea. Come along, and don't think any more about this. I'll make my excuses to Mrs. Brodrick when she comes in."

Henry followed her into the villa next door, protesting politely, saying that she must not dream of going to such trouble.

Mrs. Price waved his protests away. He was not to argue. He was to sit down and have his tea.

He laughed.

"I think you ought to have been a General yourself," he said.

"That's what everyone used to tell me," she said.

"Now, you relax in this arm-chair, and put your feet on the stool, and try some of my guava jelly.

My tea I can recommend, it's packed specially for me and sent from Darjeeling. I always boil the water myself. No servant can ever make tea."

It was very pleasing to sit back and be waited upon in this way, thought Henry, and she was right, the tea was excellent, and so was the guava jelly. The room was clean and tidy. There were papers and magazines from England lying on the table. What a contrast to the villa next door!

He began to talk, telling this Mrs. Price about himself, about his children. There was something so sane and encouraging about her brisk, cheerful manner. She was amusing too, her shrewd comments showed her to be no fool.

"Of course you're put upon, all the time," she said; "don't tell me. People always take advantage of a man on his own. And you give way.

Anything for a peaceful life, that's a man all over."

"I admit I don't lay down the law very often," he laughed, "and when I do Molly puts up an argument in self-defence. That's the family temperament though. The Brodricks enjoy discussions."

"I wouldn't let a girl of fifteen dictate to me," said Mrs. Price. "I've no doubt you've spoilt her, and the others too. A good thing the boy has gone to Eton. They'll soon knock the nonsense out of him there. Pity you go on keeping the governess for the girls. I always think it's a mistake to carry on too long with old retainers.

They take advantage so, and have absolutely no control over the children."

"Miss Frost has been with us for years," said Henry. "I think Molly and Kitty could not bear to part with her."

"Because they can do what they like with her, that's why. I believe you're a sentimentalist, and you hide it under that gay, cynical manner of yours."

She looked across at him and smiled. Those blue eyes were certainly very penetrating.

"I've talked too much about myself," he said, glancing at his watch, "and it's nearly seven o'clock.

No sign of my mother. What about dining with me in Nice, and telling me about yourself instead?"

Mrs. Price blushed, and seemed suddenly ten years younger. Henry was amused. She had probably not dined out since her husband died.

"Please do," he said. "It would give me such pleasure."

She went up to change, and came down in twenty minutes in a black dress and fur cape that made a fine background to her grey hair. She looked very well indeed. Henry had also changed, returning to his mother's villa to do so. The place had been swept and left spotless by Mrs. Price's maid, his room cleaned and the bed made up. He was filled with gratitude.

"Thank heaven she was looking out of that window," he thought. "But for her I believe I should have caught the next train home."

They walked to the corner of the avenue and hailed a fiacre, and drove down to dinner at one of the large hotels on the front.

"This is such a treat," she said. "I live so quietly these days. And in India there was so much entertaining. I've missed all that more than anything else."

"You ought to come to London," he said, "not bury yourself down here."

She rubbed finger and thumb together, and glanced at him expressively.

"A soldier's widow's pension isn't a large one, Mr. Brodrick," she said. "My income goes farther here than it would do in England…

Look at that minx over there. Why do French women put so much paint on their faces?"

"Because they are not naturally so handsome as you Englishwomen," said Henry gallantly. "Come on, I'm going to order you the best dinner that Nice can provide."

It was fun, he decided, to dine opposite this woman, who was undeniably attractive and amusing, and enjoyed her food and her wine, and made such an agreeable companion. The restaurant was filled with people, and a band played in one corner, light classical stuff he knew and liked. He had not enjoyed himself so much for years.

"This is a great deal better," he said, "than sitting down to an egg and some of those vegetables from the coal bucket at my mother's villa."

"Don't put me off my food," said Mrs.

Price, with a mock shudder. "My maid has already told me what she found in the larder, but I shall spare you."

After they had drunk their coffee, and listened a while to the music, Henry suggested a visit to the casino.

"We may as well be real dogs while we are about it," he said.

The night was warm and still. He hummed a bar from Rigoletto, and helped Mrs. Price into a fiacre.

"You know," he said, "when I stood in front of that villa this afternoon my spirits went down to zero. It really was a miserable moment."

"I know," she said; "you poor thing. I felt so sorry. And how are the spirits now?"

"Higher than they've been for months, for years," he said, "for which my very grateful thanks."

She blushed again, and laughed, turning the subject. There were many people in the casino, and they had to walk slowly amongst the crowd, pushing their way from room to room. The bright unshaded lights made a glare, and there was something monotonous in the flat voice of the croupier, the click of the little ball on the table for roulette. They watched some of the play, peering over the shoulders of the people in front of them. The atmosphere was stifling.

"Couldn't stick very much of this," said Henry to his companion. "What a waste of time, eh, day after day?"

"Appalling," she agreed. "I should have a splitting head in an hour."

They moved away into the next room. Two men coming out were laughing together.

"But she's always like that," one of them was saying: "has a flaming row with the croupier whenever she loses.

They say she's lived here for years."

"Do they ever throw her out?"

"I believe so, when she gets too excited."

As Henry and Mrs. Price drew near to the table they saw that many of the people were laughing, and several at the back were pushing those in front to get a clearer view. The croupier was arguing with someone, talking in broken English, and a woman was trying to shout him down, first in French and then in English.

"But, madame," the croupier was saying, "do you want me to call a gendarme? I cannot have these constant interruptions."

The woman was talking at the top of her voice.

"It's an outrage, the whole place ought to be broken up," she said. "The management are taking my money through trickery. I've caught you at it, time and time again. In my country they'd shoot you in the back for it, and a damned good riddance too. I'll show you up; I have influence at home, I know people in Parliament, my cousin is the Earl of Mundy…"

There was a shout of laughter as she threw her muff and her gloves at the croupier's head. A man in uniform came to her, and seized her arm.

"Let me go," she cried; "how dare you touch me?"

The shiny velvet cape, the cloud of white hair, the arrogant tilt of the head, all were familiar. As the commissionaire thrust Fanny-Rosa forward she stumbled, scattering her bag, her chips, her few coins on the ground in front of her.

"You clumsy fool," she shouted. "What the devil do you think you're doing?"

And she came face to face with her son.

For a moment they stood staring at one another. Then Henry turned to the commissionaire.

"This lady is my mother," he said. "I will be responsible for her."

The man let go of Fanny-Rosa's arm. The crowd around the table was whispering and staring. The croupier shrugged his shoulders, and set the ball in action again.

"Faites vos jeux." The game went on.

Henry bent down and picked up the bag and the coins from the floor, and gave them to his mother.

"It's all right," he said quietly, "don't worry. Mrs. Price and I are going to take you home."

She did not seem to realise what had happened.

"But I don't want to go home yet," she said, glancing from one to the other. "I haven't tried my luck at the other tables. It will be different if we go into another room."

"No," said Henry, "it's getting late. And I've had a long journey today. I want my bed."

He took his mother's arm and began walking towards the door. She kept looking back over her shoulder towards the table.

"I always detest that particular croupier," she said. "I'm sure he has a secret understanding with the management, and they have some means of controlling the ball. I wish you'd write to the papers about it, Henry. You're so clever, you would know what to say."

She never ceased talking all the way to the casino steps, abusing the management, telling Henry and Mrs. Price that she was certain the casino staff had been given their orders to prevent her winning.

They were so afraid that once her luck was in she would break the bank.

"It's nearly happened several times," she said, as they drove away in tile fiacre. "I've had the most amazing run of luck, simply couldn't make a mistake, and then suddenly the whole thing would go against me. Of course it's done deliberately.

They are terrified of anyone making a big win. But I'm determined to beat them. It's a matter of principle. Henry darling, how lovely to see you!

So stupid of me to forget the time of your train. I hope you found everything all right? I hadn't realised you knew Mrs. Price. We must all three go to the casino tomorrow and try our luck. Mrs. Price has a lucky face, I expect we shall make a fortune."

She rattled on, asking questions and never waiting for a reply.

Henry stared out of the window, holding his mother's hand.

Mrs. Price did not say anything. He knew now in bitterness and sorrow the story of the last ten years. He could see the life that had been hers, the pretended gaiety, the shabby flag of courage she had flaunted. And day by day, month by month, year by year, this thing taking its hold upon her, so that now she was possessed body and soul, mind and reason gone, nothing remaining but a queer patchwork of memories that served no purpose but to distract her more. Whose fault? Why had it happened? Who was to blame?

No answer came to him, and his heart was torn with pity and anguish. The fiacre drew up in front of the villa. Fanny-Rosa fumbled with the gate. The dogs set up their barking from inside the house.

"All right, sweets," called Fanny-Rosa, "mother is coming, and your brother Henry too."

She began to walk up the garden-path. Henry turned to Adeline Price.

"I'm so sorry," he began, "so terribly sorry…?

"Oh, please don't apologise," she said; "much more of a shock for you than for me. If there's anything I can do in the morning don't hesitate to come round. Personally, I feel the right thing to do would be to get her into a Home. She'd be well looked after, you know. What I mean to say is, she can't very well go on like this, can she?"

"No," said Henry, "no."

"Well, you'd better go to bed and get a good night's rest, and think it over in the morning.

Anyway, I enjoyed our dinner. Goodnight."

She turned away to her own villa. Henry walked slowly up the path. He found Fanny-Rosa kneeling on the floor, playing with the dogs.

"Did the silly boys miss their old mother then?" she was saying "But mother left a nicey dins for the boys, and the dins has been taken away. That damn fool of a servant, I suppose. And I always tell her not to tidy the sitting-room. Henry Iamb, you look worried. Is anything the matter?"

"No, darling, but I want you to go to bed."

"I'm going. I always have to kiss the boys goodnight, though. Did the servant make up your bed? I laid out the clean sheets, but I have a frightful feeling I forgot to air them."

"Yes, everything was all right."

She stood in the doorway of her room. Mrs.

Price's maid had swept and tidied here, as well as downstairs. The clothes were put away, the bed was turned back neatly. His mother did not seem to notice that anything had been done. She was staring in front of her, biting the end of her nail. Henry wondered if some flash of memory had come to disturb her wandering mind, she looked suddenly so lost and strange. He put his arms round her, and held her close.

"Mother darling," he said, "will you tell me what's the matter?"

She smiled up at him, and patted his cheek.

"Dear Henry," she said, "always so thoughtful about everyone. No, I was just thinking what an extraordinary thing it was that not once this evening did the nine come up. But not once. And I backed it every time."

He sat in Adeline Price's drawing-room, turning over the pages of a magazine from India. The pictures conveyed nothing and the words even less. He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. Surely she should be back by now?

The appointment was for three o'clock. He got up and began walking about the room. The maid came in and laid the tea. Fresh-cut bread and butter.

Water-cress. Home-made scones. A new pot of the guava jelly. And last of all the shining silver kettle. He heard a fiacre drive along the road. He glanced out of the window, and saw Adeline Price step out and pay the driver. The tip she gave him was not enough, apparently, for he began to grumble.

"It's all you're going to have, my good man," she said cheerfully. "Don't you try to work that sort of game on me. You've met your match."

She waved her hand to Henry, and hurried up the garden-path.

"They're all the same," she said; "they think we're made of money because we're English. Is tea in?"

"Yes," he said.

She came into the room, peeling off her gloves.

She was dressed in grey, simple and yet striking.

She looked very handsome.

"Well, it's all most satisfactory," she said; "the doctor was an extremely nice man, and understood the situation perfectly. Of course he's had dozens of these cases through his hands. There's no cure, he said. Especially in someone your mother's age. He agreed that you are doing absolutely the right thing."

She lit a match and put it to the wick. The kettle began to simmer. Adeline Price reached for a piece of bread-and-butter, frowning at the water-cress.

"Why did she bring that?" she said. "She knows I don't touch it. It's never safe in France. You mustn't have any either. These girls need watching all the time."

"Go on about the place. What was it like?" said Henry.

"Oh, very nice. A large garden, with flowers and trees. I saw some of the people sitting about. And I chose a most comfortable room for her, as you said no expense was to be spared. It was twenty francs more than the rest, but I suppose you don't mind that?"

"God, no."

"Of course they won't let her mess it up as she did her room in the villa," said Mrs.

Price. "They have to have certain rules, and that is one of them. You can't blame them. The place was so beautifully clean and tidy, you could eat your food off the floor. The nurses wear a nice green uniform, which gives a very bright effect. I was introduced to the one who is in charge of your mother's room. A sensible creature, with a nice expression."

"Did she seem to understand-why my mother was going?"

"Oh, yes. And one thing which is rather clever in a way is that she will be allowed to play roulette, if she wants to. They have a room for that sort of thing.

Only of course it will all be pretence, no money or anything. She won't know. These modern methods are very ingenious."

Henry got up from his chair, and wandered once more to the window.

"Don't you want your tea?" she said.

"How can one tell that she won't know?" he said.

"It's not as though she is completely insane. She will know that the thing is a blind. And that she's shut up there, in a glorified prison."

Mrs. Price was pouring out the tea.

"She'll be told the place is a hotel," she said, "a kind of annexe of the casino. It's quite all right. I arranged it all with the doctor. He is going to say that you were worried about her being all alone at the villa, and have arranged for her to go there instead.

He says she will settle down as happily as anything, after a few days."

Henry picked up a book restlessly, and threw it down again.

"If only I could be certain I'm doing the right thing," he said. "She seemed happy enough in that little villa, even if it was dirty and unattractive.

And I don't grudge her the money she lost at the casino. If it kept her happy, if it kept her from thinking…"

Adeline Price blew out the flame from underneath the kettle.

"Of course if that's your attitude, there's no sense in sending her there," she said; "but after what you have been through the last ten days I should have thought you would have learnt reason. Do you want them to throw her out of the casino, as they did five days ago? And then, she's not responsible for what she says. Those awful lies. She told you she was going to bed last Tuesday, and we found she had gone down there again.

Of course if you want her to end in the police-court that's your affair. Because that's how it will end, I don't mind telling you."

Henry flung himself down in the chair once more.

"You're right." he said, "I know you're right. And yet it hurts so terribly to do this thing. Oh God, my mother. She was so lovely, so amusing, such a darling. I can't begin to explain what I feel."

Adeline Price poured out his tea.

"Come on," she said, "have a cup of tea. Nothing like a cup of tea to make a person feel better, man or woman. I can assure you that your mother will be perfectly happy in this place. She'll make friends, and chatter about the past, and you can go home with the knowledge that she is in good hands and that everything possible is being done for her. Oh, they asked me if you wanted her to have a little wine in the evenings. Apparently that's an extra, and so is a fire in the bedroom on cold nights. I said I would let them know. They'll send you an account of course every month, or you can pay direct through your bank. That would save you a lot of bother."

She spread some of the guava jelly on to her bread-and-butter.

"You've taken so much trouble over all this," said Henry, watching her. "I tell you frankly, I don't know what I should have done without your help. The whole thing has been a nightmare."

Adeline Price smiled.

"Men are helpless creatures in a crisis," she said. "My husband was just the same. Unable to cope with an emergency. Directly I saw you struggling with the front door of the villa the day you arrived I could tell the sort of person you were.

I'm glad I happened to be looking out of my window. But it rather beats me how you've struggled along these last few years without anyone to look after you."

"I don't know," said Henry. "I suppose I drifted. All I know is that I felt damned lonely."

"I've been lonely too," she said, "but in a different sort of way. And anyway I always found plenty to do. I've never been one of those people to mope, thank goodness. I always think it shows such a lack of character." She collected the tea-things on the tray, and rang the bell for the maid. "Now I hope you don't think I've taken too much on my shoulders," she said, "but the doctor agreed with me that the sooner we got your mother moved into the Home the better. I quite realise it's a painful business for you to face, so I'm perfectly willing to take her there myself. I'm more or less a stranger, so there will be no emotional complication. So, if you agree, I'll go across to the villa now, help her with the few odds and ends she will want with her there, and take her along in a fiacre. I can explain about the hotel idea, the annexe of the casino, and you will see I shall have no fuss with her at all. I shall say you had to go out, but will go round and see if she's comfortable in the morning.

Don't you think that's the best way of arranging it all?"

She smiled at him again, capable, efficient, and he was aware of a sense of helplessness, of utter dependence upon her judgement.

"I don't know," he said in despair; "I seem to have lost grip. I can't make a decision without questioning it five seconds later."

"Don't worry," she said, "leave it to me. And I suggest you go along now and order dinner at the restaurant. I'll join you there after I've taken her to the Home. It will take your mind off this business."

She gave him his hat and his stick and pushed him out of the room.

"You're as bad as a child," she said; "I don't believe you trust me at all."

"I do trust you," he protested, "I have implicit faith in everything you do."

"Go on then," she said, "and don't look so crushed."

He walked along the road mechanically, and down the twisting streets and avenues to the sea-front. It was like a dream, the houses were phantom things, the people were shadows. Nice was a city that he did not know, alien and unfriendly. It seemed to him that this shock of his mother's weakness had shown to him, in ugliness and force, that his own life was also without foundation. There was no security any more. Nothing was sure or solid.

Even the children back in London lacked reality.

They were like little ghosts who had drifted with him through the years. Nothing had been real or living since he had left Clonmere and turned the key upon the past.

As he heard the flat sea break on the dull beach he thought of the swift tide in the creek at home, and the surf running upon Doon Island. He remembered the soft winds and the pale sun, and the white clouds above the top of Hungry Hill. He thought of the little churchyard at Ardmore, and the robin who sang in winter. And all that was finished and done with, he had no part in it, he did not belong there any more.

He went and sat in the lounge in one of the big hotels and waited for Adeline Price. He waited one hour, two hours, and she did not come.

Finally he could stand it no longer; he went outside and jumped into a fiacre, and ordered the driver to take him to the Home.

It was dark now, and he could not see much, except the endless avenues, and the trees. The sea kept breaking on the shore in the distance. The frogs set up their nightly croaking. The wind was cold.

The fiacre drove past a high wall and came to a great gate. It was shut. The driver rang the bell, and presently a concierge looked through the narrow grille.

"It's prison," thought Henry. "I don't care what they say, it's prison."

After a few minutes the concierge opened the gates. The fiacre drove up a long, winding avenue, closely shut by tall trees. They came at last to the building. Few lights showed. The curtains were drawn for the night. Another fiacre was waiting outside the front door. Henry recognised the driver. He was one of the men who kept his vehicle in the little square near his mother's villa. Henry got out and enquired if Mrs.

Price and Mrs. Brodrick had gone inside the building. The man said they had been there for over an hour. He said something about extra time, and he hoped he was going to be paid for it. Henry gave him ten francs at once, and the man pocketed them, muttering to himself. Henry went and rang the bell of the front-door. It was opened by a man in a white coat.

"My name is Brodrick," said Henry. "I'm the son of Mrs. Brodrick who arrived here this evening."

"Oh, yes, number 34," said the man, in good English. "If you'll come to the reception room, I'll make enquiries for you. Do you want to see your mother?"

"If you please," said Henry. "And there was a lady with her, Mrs. Price. Perhaps she could come down and speak to me?"

The man showed Henry into a large room on the right of the entrance. It was comfortably furnished- with chairs, and tables, and books. There was nobody in it. As he waited a loud bell clanged for dinner. Through the half-open door he could hear people file along the corridor to the dining-room. He caught a glimpse of a green uniform, and the white cap of a nurse. A little old man was walking with the aid of crutches.

"Come on, Mr. Vines, don't be all day about it," said someone sharply.

Other people were talking. Someone laughed in a high, silly way. The footsteps and the voices died away, and a door shut in the distance.

Henry went on waiting. Then a man in a grey frock-coat, with a monocle hanging down the front on a black cord, came through the door and held out his hand.

"I am Doctor Wells," he said. "I'm afraid my superior is dining in Nice, but I am in charge here for the evening. You are Mrs. Brodrick's son, I understand. We've had just a little difficulty, but nothing for you to worry about. Your friend Mrs. Price has been so sensible."

"What do you mean, difficulty?" said Henry.

"Mrs. Brodrick was a trifle bewildered on arrival. Very natural. They often are, you know. But your friend is with her, and the nurse on duty is an excellent woman. We thought it better she should have her supper upstairs the first evening, and then she will be able to go into the dining-room tomorrow. I think Mrs.

Price is coming down now."

He turned towards the door as Adeline Price came into the room. She seemed quite unruffled and composed, as though nothing had disturbed her.

"It's all right," she said, "she's quite quiet now. I've left her showing photographs to the nurse. And such a nice dinner has gone up to her on a tray. Well cooked, well served. I must say you look after them well, doctor."

Doctor Wells smiled, and toyed with his monocle.

"The little things are so important," he said.

Adeline Price was staring at Henry.

"Why did you come?" she said reproachfully. "I thought I told you to go and wait for me at the hotel?"

The doctor smiled.

"No doubt Mr. Brodrick was anxious," he said smoothly, "and perhaps as he is here it would be more satisfactory if he just popped his head round the door and said goodnight to his mother. He would know then that she was quite comfortable."

"Yes, I should like to do that," said Henry.

Adeline Price frowned.

"Is it wise?" she said. "Wouldn't it upset her?"

"I don't think so," said the doctor; "it might be just the right touch. Of course we shall give her a small sleeping draught, as it's her first evening and everything will seem a little strange."

"I'll wait for you in the fiacre," said Adeline Price abruptly. "No point in my going up there again."

She swung out of the room, a tall, confident figure in her grey coat and gown. Henry followed the doctor upstairs. The corridors were of shiny wood, scrubbed clean, and carpetless. The walls were green, like the uniforms of the nurses. A young nurse at the top of the stairs smiled at him.

She looked kindly, sympathetic. Henry clung to this like a straw.

"Are many of the nurses young?" he asked. "That one who passed, will she have much to do for my mother?"

"The matron would tell you that better than I could," said the doctor. "I can make enquiries for you, of course. Number 34. This is your mother's room."

He tapped on the door. It was opened by a stout, middle-aged nurse in glasses.

"What is it?" she said sharply. "Oh, it's you, doctor; I'm sorry. Will you come in?"

Doctor Wells murmured in her ear.

"Mr. Brodrick," he said, "just come to say goodnight to his mother. He won't stay more than a few minutes."

"All right," said the nurse, "but I want to get her washed and settled down for the night as soon as possible. We're short-handed this evening."

"It's only eight o'clock," said Henry. "My mother's been used to staying up until midnight or after."

The nurse began to speak, but the doctor cut her short. "It's only for tonight," he said. "Tomorrow she will be with the others, leading quite a normal life."

Henry went into the room. It was green like the corridor, but had a large window, and there were coloured mats upon the floor. The curtains were yellow, with green flowers upon them. The room was smaller than he had imagined. There was one easy chair in the corner. His mother was sitting up in bed, counting some money in her bag. She did not see him come in. She was scattering coins over the bedclothes, and talking to herself. Her hair hung in a cloud over her shoulders, silver white. Suddenly she saw him, and held out her arms.

"My darling," she said; "they told me you had gone away, that I couldn't see you."

He bent over the bed, and took her hand.

"I thought I would just come along and say goodnight," he said, She nodded her head, and then winked, pointing to the door.

"Such extraordinary people," she whispered. "I think they're all mad. The maid, I'm sure she's a nurse, insisted on taking my temperature. I suppose it's one of these new hydros I've heard about, but I never heard that the casino had anything to do with one before. Mrs. Price says I can go to the roulette rooms in the morning."

"Yes, dear."

"Is it all going to be very expensive? You know what a fool I am about money.".

"No, darling. I'm arranging for that."

"Dear boy, so good to me always. But I should have been quite all right at the villa, you know. There was no need for you to fuss." She tumbled her coins back into her bag. "Mrs. Price says they have a queer system here," she said. "They give you so many chips, and you don't have to give up your money in exchange.

Sounds crazy to me. What about the boys, Henry darling? Will somebody remember to feed the boys?"

"What boys?"

"The dogs, sweetheart. They'll miss me so, they won't understand why I don't come back. A week will seem a long time."

Henry did not say anything. He stood there, holding his mother's hand.

"Put Johnnie's photograph on the mantelpiece," she said suddenly, "so that it faces me. Yes, that's better. He always looked so sulky in uniform, and so lovable… Henry."

"Yes, mother."

"Take care of that boy of yours. I didn't take care of Johnnie." She was staring up at him, her green eyes wide and frightened. "I can't forget it, you know," she said; "that's why I go to the casino. One must do something. John was such a darling-your father, I mean. So gentle, so kind. He understood so much. I've been very lost without him, very lonely. You were all such little boys when he died.

Sometimes I think it would have been better if I'd married again." Then she smiled, she ran her fingers through her hair. "What an idiot I am!" she said, "raving on like an old lunatic. I tell you what, Henry. I'm damned if I'm going to let these people get my money, even if their system is a new one. I'll show them how to play roulette. They won't get the better of me here as they did at the casino."

The nurse came in, and stood by the bed.

"Now, Mrs. Brodrick," she said, "we've got to think about that big wash, haven't we?"

Fanny-Rosa winked at Henry.

"Such a fool!" she whispered; "treats one like a baby. What does it matter though, if it keeps her amused?"

Henry kissed the top of her head. He knew he would never see her again.

"Goodnight, darling, and sleep well," he said.

For a moment she clung to him, and then she laughed, and let him g.

"Life is so amusing," said Fanny-Rosa; "try not to look serious, Henry boy. Thinking never did anybody any good."

She followed him with her eyes as he went out of the room…

The doctor was still waiting outside the door.

"You see," he said, "she is quite comfortable, quite settled. There is nothing whatever for you to worry about.

And I understand Mrs. Price has made certain arrangements for her extra comforts."

"Thank you," said Henry, "thank you… yes."

He shook hands with the man, he took his hat and stick. He climbed into the waiting fiacre.

Adeline Price was sitting in the corner.

"I paid the other one," she said. "It seemed pointless to keep the two. Well, did she seem all right?"

"Yes," he said, "yes, I think so."

The driver whipped up his horse. They drove away down the long, dark avenue.

"You must be very tired," said Henry.

"Not a bit. I want my dinner, though. I expect you do too."

The fiacre turned out of the avenue into the road.

The heavy gate clanged behind them.

"I was wondering, while I sat waiting," said Adeline Price, "whether there is anything else I can do for you. What are your plans?"

Henry turned to her in the darkness.

"Plans?" he said wearily. "I have none.

What plans should I possibly have?"

The horse trotted down the cobbled stones. The driver cracked his whip. In the distance the sea broke upon the shore. He thought of the long train journey, the sea crossing, the house in Lancaster Gate, and Molly, and Kitty, and Hal, and the poor little lame Lizette. He felt very lonely, very tired.

"I suppose," he said slowly, "you wouldn't care to marry me, would you?"