d to others had happened to you. But I
cannot think of these things now; I am happy in thinking that you are
safe.'

The evening post was lost, but if he were to walk to Bohola he would
catch the morning mail, and his letter would be in her hands the day
after to-morrow. It was just three miles to Bohola, and the walk there,
he thought, would calm the extraordinary spiritual elation that news of
Nora had kindled in his brain. The darkness of the night and the almost
round moon high in the southern horizon suited his mood. Once he was
startled by a faint sigh coming from a horse looking over a hedge, and
the hedgerows were full of mysterious little cracklings. Something white
ran across the road. 'The white belly of a stoat,' he thought; and he
walked on, wondering what its quest might be.

The road led him through a heavy wood, and when he came out at the other
end he stopped to gaze at the stars, for already a grayness seemed to
have come into the night. The road dipped and turned, twisting through
gray fields full of furze-bushes, leading to a great hill, on the other
side of which was Bohola. When he entered the village he wondered at the
stillness of its street. 'The dawn is like white ashes,' he said, as he
dropped his letters into the box; and he was glad to get away from the
shadowy houses into the country road. The daisies and the dandelions
were still tightly shut, and in the hedgerow a half-awakened chaffinch
hopped from twig to twig, too sleepy to chirrup. A streak of green
appeared in the east, and the death-like stillness was broken by
cock-crows. He could hear them far away in the country and close by, and
when he entered his village a little bantam walked up the road shrilling
and clapping his wings, advancing to the fight. The priest admired his
courage, and allowed him to peck at his knees. Close by Tom Mulhare's
dorking was crowing hoarsely, 'A hoarse bass,' said the priest, and at
the end of the village he heard a bird crowing an octave higher, and
from the direction he guessed it must be Catherine Murphy's bird.
Another cock, and then another. He listened, judging their voices to
range over nearly three octaves.

The morning was so pure, the air so delicious, and its touch so
exquisite on the cheek, that he could not bear even to think of a close
bedroom and the heat of a feather bed. He went into his garden, and
walking up and down he appreciated the beauty of every flower, none
seeming to him