The pain and question in her voice broke through his wounded self-esteem.

"Clodagh has made a fool of me, Nance," he said harshly. "She has never been straight with me--never from the very first."

"And do you know why?"

"No; I can't pretend that I know why."

His tone was very bitter.

"Because she cares too much. She idealises too much."

Gore made a sound that might have been meant for a laugh.

"I think it is I who have idealised."

Nance straightened her small figure.

"Then you have always treated her wrongly. What Clo needs is not to be idealised, but to be taken care of; not to be praised or blamed, but to be taken care of." Her brown fingers were tightly clasped, as they rested on the cab doors. "All her life she has wanted to be taken care of--and all her life she has been thrown back upon herself. When I was little, I had her; but when she was little, she had no one. Our mother died when I was born."

Something in the simple pathos of this statement stirred Gore's ever-present sense of the sacredness of home ties.

"I never knew that," he said very quietly.

"Yes, our mother died when I was born; and Clo grew up in our father's care. Did she ever tell you about our father?"

"No. At least----"

"Then I shall. I've told Pierce. People ought to know. It helps them to understand.

"Our father was a spendthrift--a gambler--a man without any principles.

If somebody stronger than himself had taken him in hand when he was young, things might have been different. But he began by ruling everybody who came in contact with him, until at last n.o.body dared to rule him.

"Can you imagine how a man like that would bring up a daughter--you who had a mother to help you in every year of your life?"

Her blue eyes darkened with intensity.

"Our home in Ireland is a big lonely house on the sea-coast. Imagine growing up in a house like that, without care or money or friends--for father drove all his friends away. Imagine Clo's life! Her only learning was what she got with our cousin from the schoolmaster of the nearest village; her only amus.e.m.e.nts were sailing and riding and fishing. She never had the love or friendship of a woman of her own cla.s.s; she never knew what it was to be without the dread of debt or disgrace; and then, at eighteen, she married the first man who came into her life--not because she liked him--not because she wanted to marry, or knew what marrying was--but because he had saved our father's honour by paying his debt!"

She paused to take breath; but before Gore could speak, she went on again:

"Do you know what I always wonder, Walter, when I think of Clodagh?"

Gore made a low murmur.

"I wonder, considering everything, that she hasn't done really wrong things, instead of just terribly foolish ones! It doesn't seem strange to me that she should have behaved like a child, when she first felt what it was to be free and flattered and admired. Listen, Walter! There have been too many clouds between you and Clodagh. Neither of you has understood. You have been too proud; and she has been too much afraid.

But I am not afraid!"

And in the prosaic London cab, with her eyes fixed resolutely on the heavy copper-coloured sky that hung above the housetops, Nance performed her second act of love. While Gore sat silent, she poured forth the whole mistaken tale of Clodagh's life, from the days in Venice to the hour of her departure for Ireland. She omitted nothing; she extenuated nothing. With a strange instinct towards choice of the right weapons, she fought for her sister's future. Everything was told--Lady Frances Hope's poisoning of Clodagh's mind against Gore himself--the scene with Serracauld in the card-room--all the temptations, all the follies, confessed in the darkness of the nights at Tuffnell, and in Clodagh's own bedroom on the night she visited Deerehurst. It was the moment for speech; and she spoke. Her own shyness, her own natural reticence, were swept aside by the great need of one who was infinitely dear. The scene at Carlton House Terrace she described without flinching; for candour and innocence move boldly where lesser virtues fail and falter. She told the story with a simple truth that was more dignified than any hesitancy.

When at last she had finished, Gore sat for a s.p.a.ce, very silent and with bent head; then abruptly, as if inspired by a sudden resolution, he put up his hand to the trap in the roof.

"The nearest telegraph office!" he called, as the cabman looked down.

The man whipped up his horse. But Nance turned sharply.

"What are you going to do?"

"To wire to Clodagh."

"To Clodagh?"

"Yes."

"But Clodagh doesn't know? Walter, you haven't told Clodagh! Walter!"

Gore bent his head. "I wrote to her the night I saw Frances Hope," he said. "She had my letter this morning."

"This morning?" It was impossible to fathom the pain and alarm in Nance's voice. "What did you write?"

"Very little. Just that I knew about Deerehurst--that I thought it better we should not marry."

"And she got that letter this morning? She has been hours and hours alone, believing that you don't love her--that she is left utterly by herself? Oh!"

"Nance, don't! I'm sufficiently ashamed."

Nance put her hands over her eyes.

"I'm not thinking of you!" she said cruelly.

"I know. But remember, there's the wire. We can still wire. I shall tell her that you and I are coming for her to Ireland--that she will never be alone again."

Nance's hand dropped.

"But you don't understand!" she cried. "No telegram can reach her to-night. It will only get to Carrigmore to-morrow morning--and from there to Orristown. If we were to give everything we have in the world--if we were to die for it--we could not save her from the blackness, the loneliness and horror of to-night!"

CHAPTER XX

Early on the morning that followed the storm, Clodagh stepped from the hall door of Orristown. As she stood on the gravelled pathway in the clear, strong daylight, she looked like one who has fought some terrible battle in the watches of the night, and who has been worsted in the encounter. She was pale and fragile, with a frightened query in her eyes, as though she had propounded some enormous question, to which Fate had as yet made no answer. For a time she stood in a helpless att.i.tude, looking toward the green hill, crowned with spa.r.s.ely foliaged trees, that fronted the house; then, seeming to take some vague resolution, she walked slowly forward towards the avenue, pausing where the gravelled pathway joined the fields.

There was a curious look upon the land and sea that morning, as though both were lying exhausted by the tumult of the night. All around beneath the avenue trees lay twigs and short splintered branches, to which the limp leaves, whipped to untimely death by the vehemence of the storm, still hung. Across the bay, as far as Carrigmore, the sea lay like a sleeping tiger that has prowled and harried through the dark hours of night, and now lies at rest. A wonderful pearly blue was upon the waters--long, rippling lines spread from headland to headland, like faintly pencilled shadows; but ma.s.sed in a dark fringe along the curve of yellow strand was a ridge of packed seaweed, that held within its meshes a thousand evidences of the strife that had been, in twists of straw, pieces of broken cork, and long black chunks of driftwood.

She stood for an indefinite s.p.a.ce, looking at this significant dark line standing out against the smoothness of the sand, until, half unconsciously, her attention was attracted by a sound that made itself audible from the direction of the gate, growing in volume as it advanced--the swish, swish of bare feet on soft ground. She turned from the vision of the sleeping sea, to behold a small peasant child in torn dress and dirty ap.r.o.n speeding up the drive.