Hannah continued to search his face.

"An' sure what harm is that?" she said. "Wasn't me own poor man as ould as me grandfather?--an' no woman ever buried a finer husband--G.o.d rest him!"

Milbanke's lack of humorous imagination stood him in good stead.

"But she's a child," he stammered--"a child----"

For answer, Hannah leant out of the window until her face was close to his.

"Listen here to me!" she said softly. "Child or no child, you thought about marryin' her before ever I said it. But you'd never riz the courage to do it. You're not like the a.s.shlins, that would tear down the walls of h.e.l.l if they wanted to be gettin' at the divil; you'd like somebody to take him be the hand and draw him out nice and aisy for you----

"There she is up in that lonesome house, frettin' her heart an' cryin'

her eyes out. Why can't you go up an' take her, before somebody else does?"

As she came to the last words her rough voice dropped. Her loyalty to her dead master, her anxiety to see his child in a place of safety poured from her in crude eloquence. To her primitive mind Milbanke appeared as the ideal husband--a man of dependable years, of wealth, of good social position; and all her affections, all her energies yearned to make the marriage. She could not have framed the fear that possessed her; but her instinct, her acute native intuition warned her unanswerably that the daughter of Denis a.s.shlin would need protection, and would need it before long. With an impulsive gesture she stretched out her hand, and, touching Milbanke's shoulder, pushed him gently forward into the yard.

"Go on, sir!" she urged softly. "Go on up an' take her, before somebody else does!"

CHAPTER VI

It may be surmised without fear of misconception that never during the smooth course of his uneventful existence had Milbanke been so rudely shaken into self-comprehension as by Hannah's unlooked-for onslaught.

Left to the placid guidance of unaided instinct, it is almost certain that he would have left Orristown whenever the hour of departure arrived, innocently unconscious that any parting pangs could be attributed to a personal cause. It is possible that, with the pa.s.sage of time, he might have acknowledged that somewhere in the inner recesses of his mind there was a shrine where one face, more changeful and alluring than any other he had known, reigned in solitary state; but beyond that tardy acknowledgment he would not have dared to venture. Later still, perhaps, if circ.u.mstances had compelled him to resign his guardianship over Clodagh in favour of some possible husband, it is within the bounds of reason to conjecture that understanding of his feelings might have come to him when, having said good-bye to the young girl just crossing the threshold of life, he returned to his home, newly and bitterly alive to his age and loneliness. But now, in the light of present events, all such suppositions had become valueless. As if by some powerful outside pressure, his eyes had been opened, and he stood dazed and elated before the new road that opened upon his vision.

His brain felt light and unsteady, his limbs were imbued with a sensation of unaccustomed buoyancy as he turned, impelled by Hannah's words, and moved across the yard towards the arched gateway. A half-admitted, intoxicating sense of imminent action possessed him; and as he walked forward it seemed that he scarcely felt the ground beneath his feet.

Almost without volition, he pa.s.sed from the stone-paved courtyard into the sweep of gravelled pathway that fronted the house. For the first time in his existence he was conscious of being borne forward on the tide of his emotions; and the knowledge had an exhilarating, unbalanced daring that suggested youth.

As though he feared the evaporation of his mood, he made no pause on gaining the pathway, but went straight forward towards the house with a haste and impetuosity very foreign to his formal nature. On his second entry into the hall, he paid no heed to the chill desolation of the place, but crossing the intervening s.p.a.ce, began immediately to mount the stairs.

Scarcely had he reached the highest step, however, than he halted incontinently. For, as though in direct response to the thoughts that were filling his mind, a door on the corridor opened, and Clodagh appeared.

Seeing him, she too paused; and in the moment of mutual hesitation he had opportunity to study her.

In her new black dress, she looked slighter and more immature than he had expected; and the pathetic effect of her appearance was enhanced by the paleness of her face and the heavy, purple shadows that sleeplessness and tears had traced below her eyes. As the impression obtruded itself upon him, his own nervous excitement dropped from him suddenly.

"My poor child!" he said involuntarily.

At the words and the tone, she turned to him impulsively.

"Oh! Mr. Milbanke----" she began.

Then her loneliness, her sense of bereavement and desolation, inundated her mind. With a short sob, she moved abruptly away, and turning her face to the wall, broke into a pa.s.sion of tears.

The action was the action of a child; and without hesitation Milbanke responded to it. Stepping across the corridor, he put his arm about her shoulder and drew her gently towards the stairs.

"Come!" he said soothingly--"come! The house is quite quiet, and you are badly in want of a little daylight and fresh air. Come! Let me take you out."

Clodagh sobbed on; but she suffered herself to be led down the stairs and across the hall towards the open door. There, however, she paused, newly arrested by her grief.

"Oh, Mr. Milbanke," she cried, "I can't believe it! I can't believe that we'll never see him again. Poor father! Oh, poor father!"

But Milbanke was equal to the situation.

"You must be brave," he said kindly. "You must remember that he would like you to be brave."

The words were an inspiration; with marvellous efficacy they checked the torrent of Clodagh's tears. For a moment she stood looking at him in a dazed, uncertain way; then she lifted her head in a pathetic attempt at decisive action.

"You are right," she said unevenly. "He _would_ like to know that I was brave."

The declaration seemed to cost her an immense effort; for instantly it was made, she turned away from Milbanke, freeing herself from his detaining arm. And as though fearing to trust herself to any further onrush of emotion, she stepped through the open door and walked quickly forward to where the gravelled drive merged into the long and narrow glen in which the Orristown woods met the sea.

Down the wide track leading to this glen she walked, with head rigidly erect and with resolutely set lips, while Milbanke followed. Now that the immediate need for his protection had been removed, his mind involuntarily reverted to his earlier and more tumultuous thoughts.

With a strange, half-timid excitement, he acknowledged the personal element in his surroundings, and exulted with a certain tremulous joy in the keen air that blew inland from the sea; in the pleasant earthy smell of the moss that clothed the rough stones of the boundary wall skirting the path; in the promise of spring, suggested by the hardy green of the wild violet plants cl.u.s.tering at the roots of the beech trees. And with his eyes fixed upon Clodagh's slim black figure, he walked forward in a vaguely intoxicating dream.

For the full course of the path she went on steadily; but reaching the glen, she paused; and there, as if by a pre-arrangement of destiny, Milbanke overtook her.

With a quiet, unostentatious movement he stepped to her side, and stood looking upon the scene that spread before them.

The view was not imposing, but it was beautiful with the brooding, solemn beauty that emanates from Ireland. Upon one hand, the sea stretched away green, invincible, and cold as it so often looks in early spring; upon the other, the woods lay a ma.s.s of leafless, interlacing boughs that formed a clean, brown silhouette against the grey sky; while directly in front, the first undulation of the rugged Orristown cliffs stood up, an impregnable rampart against the outer world.

For a long silent moment Clodagh surveyed the picture; then with one of the impulsive, unstudied gestures that were so characteristic of her, she looked round; and for the first time since they had left the house, her eyes rested on Milbanke's face.

"You are very kind to me," she said suddenly. "Why are you so kind?"

The words, spoken with complete ingenuousness, came at a singularly appropriate moment. To Milbanke, nervously conscious of his own emotions, they seemed inspired. With a quick, unsteady gesture he wheeled round, and putting out his hand, caught hers.

"It--it is easy to be kind to some people," he said, almost inarticulately.

Clodagh looked at him in some surprise; but it did not occur to her to withdraw her hand. She stood perfectly calm and unembarra.s.sed; and presently, as he made no attempt at further speech, her glance wandered back to the cool stretch of green water.

"Yes," she said slowly, "I suppose it is easy to be nice to some people; but not to selfish people like me."

At her words, Milbanke's hand tightened abruptly.

"You must not say that," he murmured. "I have never seen any faults in your character. And even--even if I had"--his voice quickened confusedly--"even if I had seen them, you would still be the--the child of my oldest friend."

He spoke disjointedly and agitatedly; but at his words, Clodagh turned to him afresh with a grateful, impulsive movement.

"Ah, then I understand!" she said warmly. "You are very kind--you are very good----"

At her movement and her tone, a mental giddiness seized upon Milbanke.

A flush rose to his temples.

"Clodagh," he said suddenly, "let me be kind to you always! Let--let me marry you--and be kind to you always!"