Larry's face was dark; he was not used to opposition. His guardians and his spiritual directors had alike found that while he was easy to lead, he was a difficulty and a danger to drive. He was stirred to the depths now. The strain of receiving d.i.c.k's onslaught in silence, the shock of his collapse, and now the fire that Christian's nearness and dearness had lit in him, all broke his self-control. He held her to him.

"I will never let you go! Never--!" His lips were on hers again, life, with all its difficulties, was again forgotten, the rhyme of the Fairies' Well galloped in his hot brain:

"My heart in your hands, your heart in me."

The sound of the hall door opening, and the grinding roar of a motor engine running down, recalled them both to this troublesome world.

But in Christian's heart, whether from within or from without, a voice had spoken, telling the kisses, one by one, as though they were the petals of a flower. "This year, next year, sometime, never!" If the last word had been "sometime," or "never," she knew not; she knew only that if what before her was the way of renunciation, she would find it a hard way to walk in.

Dr. Mangan stood, a ma.s.sive presence, at the top of the stairs, and talked ma.s.sively to Lady Isabel of d.i.c.k's condition.

"Very critical--no worries--nourishment--would he have a nurse?"

To which Lady Isabel, a poor, shaken, pallid Lady Isabel, with no more backbone than the shape of blancmange, which, it must be said, she somewhat resembled, replied: "_Nothing_ would induce him!"

"Then I should like to have a little talk with Miss Christian," said the Big Doctor, beginning to walk downstairs, slowly, solemnly, solidly, like a trick-elephant at a circus.

Christian's quick ears had heard his voice on the stairs, and she met him in the hall. Larry stood irresolute at the door of the study. His eyes met those of the Doctor, and something during the interchange of glances suggested that his presence was not desired. He returned to the study and shut the door, and wished that he could have a word alone with the Doctor, just to put him up to what to say to Christian.

He could hear the heavy rumble of the Doctor's ba.s.s voice, and the soft alto murmur of Christian's replies. She had the Irish voice, pitched on a low note, an instrument more apt for pathos than for gaiety, which is, perhaps, what gives to its gaiety so special a charm.

Larry stood by the window with his hands in his pockets, trying to steady himself. Deep under his panic uncertainty as to the strength of his hold on Christian, was the anger that d.i.c.k's denunciation had roused in him, and momently, as his mind went back over the interview, remembrance of the insults became more unendurable. Abuse from the old to the young, and from a sick man to a sound one, cannot fail to rankle, since it cannot be flung back. Generosity may impose silence, but it cannot obliterate an insult or heal a wound.

Christian came into the room; he heard her come, but he would not look round. She slid her hand into his arm.

"Larry! Dear! Listen to me; there's no way out of it but patience! Dr.

Mangan says he _must_ be kept absolutely quiet, and have nothing to annoy him. He says he might die in an instant in one of those attacks. He's not himself now, Larry--so little makes him lose self-control--" She paused, but Larry did not speak. "You couldn't want me to sacrifice the little share of life left to him to our happiness; I know you couldn't! Larry, he's an old man; it can't be for very long--"

"I don't see that that follows," said Larry, implacably. "He had strength enough to blackguard me very thoroughly, and it hasn't done him any harm. It seems to me, _I'm_ the one to be sacrificed!"

"He spoke to Mother about us--about what you said to him. He began about it the instant he could speak. She--" Christian hesitated, "she could only quiet him by saying there was no engagement between us."

"Then she said what wasn't true!"

"Oh, it _must_ be true!" said Christian, desperately; "it's got to be true--"

"Very well," said Larry, moving away, so that her hand fell from his arm. "If it's got to be true I suppose there's no more to be said. I may as well go. After all, I daresay you're well quit of me. Your father says I'm a d.a.m.ned Papist and--"

"I won't listen to you!" broke in Christian. "What's the use of hurting me and hurting yourself like this? Larry, I'll wait for you for ever--you know that--time will make no difference. Don't make it harder for me than it must be!"

"You don't seem to think much about _me_" said Larry, with a still rage that was a new thing with him. He left her side, and walked steadily to the door; then he turned, and in a few quick steps came back to her. He put his hands on her shoulders; he was not much taller than she, and his eyes looked straight into hers.

"Then it's true, is it? You're off it? You've given me the chuck?"

He spoke roughly, and gripped her harder than he knew, and in the tension of her nerves, the roughness of the words and action cut her like the stroke of a whip. Almost as if he had struck her, a splash of colour came in her face.

Larry was blind to the torture in her eyes, but he saw the quick red, and knew he had hurt her high spirit, and was glad.

"If you like to put it in that way!" said Christian, her head up, her mood answering his, "apparently it is the only thing to be done!"

There came a tap at the door. Dr. Mangan's voice said: "I'm going back to Cluhir now. Haven't you to meet Father Greer at twelve o'clock, Larry? I could give you a lift if you like--"

From an early work on the Fauna of the Indian Forest the following extract may be quoted:

"The elephant's trunk then encircled the young man's body, and placing him gently upon its back, the huge creature ambled away with its prize to the depths of the jungle."

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

Little Mary Twomey, footing it into Cluhir on a misty Sat.u.r.day morning, with a basket of fowl under her brown and buff shawl, was not sorry when, from a side road on the line of march, a donkey-cart, driven by an acquaintance, drew forth at the instant of her pa.s.sing.

"G.o.d bless ye, John Brien," she said, when the suitable salutations and comments on the weather had been exchanged, with the rigorous courtesy observed by such as Mary Twomey and John Brien with one another, "this basket is very weighty on me--"

"Put it up on the b.u.t.t, ma'am," responded John Brien. "Put it up, for G.o.d's sake, and let you sit up with it. Sure the a.s.s is able for more than yourself!"

This referred, with polite facetiousness, to Mrs. Twomey's stature, and was taken by her in excellent part.

She uttered a brief screech. "Isn't it what they say they puts the best of goods in the small pa.s.sels?" she demanded; "but for all, I wouldn't wish it to be too small altogether! 'Look!' I says to that owld man I have, 'Look! When I'll be dead, let ye tell the car-pennther that he'll make the coffin a bit-een too long, the way the people'll think the womaneen inside in it wasn't altogether too small entirely!'"

"Arrah, don't talk of dyin' for a while, ma'am!" said John Brien, gallantly. "Aren't you an' me about the one age, and faith, when you're dyin' I'll be sending for the priest for meself!"

"Well, please G.o.d, the pair of us'll knock out a spell yet!" responded Mrs. Twomey, cheerfully; "for as little as I am, the fly itself wouldn't like to die!"

John Brien did not question this a.s.sertion. "The 'fluenzy is very raging these times," he remarked.

"'Tis a na.s.sty, dirty disease altogether, G.o.d help us!" said Mrs.

Twomey, with feeling.

"It is, and very numerous," replied John Brien. "There's people dying now that never died before."

This statement presented no difficulty to Mrs. Twomey, since she had no desire to exult over Mr. Brien as being what is often called a typical Irishman, and was able to accept its rather excessive emphasis in the sense in which it was intended.

"I'm told Major Lowry is sick enough," went on John Brien; "an impression like, on the heart, they tells me."

"He have enough to trouble him," said Mrs. Twomey, portentously; "and I wouldn't wish it to him. A fine man he was. Ye'd stand in the road to look at him! The highest gentleman of the day!"

"Well, that's true enough," said John Brien, cautiously. "There's some says the servants in the house didn't get their hire this two years."

"Dirty little liars!" said Mrs. Twomey, warmly. "Divil mend them, and their chat! There isn't one but has as many lies told as'd sicken an a.s.s! Wasn't I selling a score of eggs to the Docthor's wife a'

Sat.u.r.day, and she askin' me this an' that, and 'wasn't it said young Mr. Coppinger was to marry Miss Christhian Lowry'? Ah ha! She was dam'

sweet, but she didn't get--" Mrs. Twomey swiftly licked and exhibited a grey and wrinkled finger--"_that_ much from me!"

"Ha, very good, faith!" said John Brien; "them women wants to know too much!"

"And if they do itself," retorted Mrs. Twomey, instant in defence of her s.e.x, "isn't it to plase the min that's follyin' them for the news!