t Indies. Taking it for
granted that he would keep his promise of coming to Roscarna she was
distressed to think that the shooting season was over. She had always
remembered the long grey shape of the _Pennant_ that he had shewn her,
lying off Kingstown on the evening of their visit to Howth. From
Roscarna itself the sea was not visible, but from the knees of
Slieveannilaun, a mile or so behind the house, she knew that she could
overlook, not only the shining Corrib, which is an inland sea, but all
the scattered lakelets of Iar Connaught, the creeks, the islands, and
beyond, the open sea. Lying in the heather, hearing nothing but the
liquid whinny of the curlews that had lately forsaken the tidal waters
for the mountains, she would watch the foam that fringed the islands,
unconscious of the sea's sound and tumult, half expecting that a
miracle would happen and that someday she would see the three-funnelled
_Pennant_ steaming over the white sea into Galway Bay.

V

But the spring passed, and the summer wore on, and Gabrielle heard no
more of him. It was a summer of terrific heat; the flanks of the
mountains were parched and slippery even in that moist countryside, and
it would have taken more than a dream to make her climb Slievannilaun.
She lived the life that an animal leads in summer, cooling her limbs in
the lake, and only stirring abroad in the early morning or the dusk.
The weather told on Biddy, who lived in the kitchen where a fire burned
all the year round, on Considine, who walked up to Roscarna for
Gabrielle's lessons in the morning sun, and on Jocelyn, who seemed to
feel it more than either of them. Indeed, if they had noticed Jocelyn,
they would have had some cause for anxiety; but Jocelyn never talked
about his health, even to Biddy, though he himself perceived, with some
irritation, that he was growing old. Secretly he fought against it,
driving himself to youthful exertions with an artificial and desperate
energy that deceived them, but he slept badly at night, and could not
keep himself awake in the daytime. Even Gabrielle remarked that he was
losing his memory for names, and got snubbed for her trouble. She
found it was better to leave him alone, and put his irritability down
to the excessive heat.

In the blue evening, when flocks of starlings were already beginning to
sweep the sky above the reedbeds of the lake, and white owls fluttered
out like enormous moths, Gabrielle would walk