d was alive, and what kind of welcome he
would receive. But he waked in a moment to the knowledge that he was
sitting upon his horse in the empty road and in the quiet of an August
morning. There were larks singing in the pale blue above his head; a
landrail sent up its harsh cry from the meadow on the left; the crow of
a cock rose clear from the valley. He looked about him, and rode briskly
on down the incline in front of him and up the ascent beyond. He rode
again with his company of ghosts--phantoms of people with whom upon this
road he had walked and ridden and laughed, ghosts of old thoughts and
recollected words. He came to a thick grove of trees, a broken fence, a
gateway with no gate. Inattentive to these evidences of desertion, he
turned in at the gate and rode along a weedy and neglected drive. At the
end of it he came to an open space before a ruined house. The aspect of
the tumbling walls and unroofed rooms roused him at last completely from
his absorption. He dismounted, and, tying his horse to the branch of a
tree, ran quickly into the house and called aloud. No voice answered
him. He ran from deserted room to deserted room. He descended into the
garden, but no one came to meet him; and he understood now from the
uncut grass upon the lawn, the tangled disorder of the flowerbeds, that
no one would come. He mounted his horse again, and rode back at a sharp
trot. In Ramelton he stopped at the inn, gave his horse to the ostler,
and ordered lunch for himself. He said to the landlady who waited upon
him:--

"So Lennon House has been burned down? When was that?"

"Five years ago," the landlady returned, "just five years ago this
summer." And she proceeded, without further invitation, to give a
voluminous account of the conflagration and the cause of it, the ruin of
the Eustace family, the inebriety of Bastable, and the death of Dermod
Eustace at Glenalla. "But we hope to see the house rebuilt. It's likely
to be, we hear, when Miss Eustace is married," she said, in a voice
which suggested that she was full of interesting information upon the
subject of Miss Eustace's marriage. Her guest, however, did not respond
to the invitation.

"And where does Miss Eustace live now?"

"At Glenalla," she replied. "Halfway on the road to Rathmullen there's a
track leads up to your left. It's a poor mountain village is Glenalla,
and no place for Miss Eustace, at all, at all. Perhaps you will be
wanting to see her?"

"Yes. I