re squatted at her feet on
the sill of the little balcony, doing, as usual, all the talking while
she lay deep in her armchair waving her fan, listening, responding
with a low-voiced laugh or word now and again.

Dulcie sang:

"_On the banks of the Shannon
When Mary was nigh._"

From that she changed to a haunting, poignant little song; and Barres
looked up from his desk under the lamp. Then he sealed and stamped the
three letters which he had written to his Foreland kinfolk, and,
holding them in one hand, took his hat from the table with the other,
as though preparing to rise. Dulcie half turned her head, her hands
still idling over the shadowy keys:

"Are you going out?"

"Just to the corner."

"Why don't you mail your letters down stairs?"

"I'll step around to the branch post office; they'll go quicker....
What was that air you were playing just now?"

"It is called 'Mea Culpa.'"

"Play it again."

She turned to the keys, recommenced the Celtic air, and sang in a
clear, childish voice:

"Wake, little maid!
Red dawns the morn,
The last stars fade,
The day is born;
Now the first lark wings high in air,
And sings the Virgin's praises there!

"I am afraid
To see the morn;
I lie dismayed
Beside the thorn.
Gazing at God with frightened eyes,
Where larks are singing in the skies.

II

"Why, mourn, dear maid,
Alone, forlorn,
White and afraid
Beside the thorn,
With weeping eyes and sobbing breath
And fair sweet face as pale as death?

"For love repayed
By Mary's scorn,
I weep, betrayed
By one unborn!
Where can a poor lass hide her head
Till day be done and she be dead!"

The voice and playing lingered among the golden shadows, hushed to a
whisper, ceased.

"Is it very old, that sad little song?" he asked at last.

"My mother wrote it.... There is the _Mea Culpa_, still, which ends
it. Shall I sing it?"

"Go on," he nodded.

So she sang the _Mea Culpa_:

III

"Winds in the whinns
Shall kene for me--
(_For Love is Love though men be men!_)
Till all my sins
Forgiven be--
(_Maxima culpa, Lord. Amen._)
And Mary's grace my fault shall purge,
While skylarks plead my cause above,
And breezy rivers sing my dirge,
Because I loved and died of Love.
(_I love, and die of Love!_)
Amen."

When the soft cadence of the last notes was stilled, Dulcie turned
once mor