alk to Dulcie about her mother, whom he had
known very well in Ireland.

Luncheon ended, and the cool north veranda became the popular
rendezvous for the afternoon, and later for tea. People from
Northbrook drove, rode, or motored up for a cheering cup, and a word
or two of gossip. But Skeel did not come.

By half-past five the north veranda was thronged with a gaily
chattering and very numerous throng from neighbouring estates. The
lively gossip was of war, of the coming elections, of German
activities, of the Gerhardts' promised moonlight spectacle and dance,
of Murtagh Skeel and the romantic interest he had aroused among
Northbrook folk.

So many people were arriving or leaving and such a delightful and
general informality reigned that Dulcie, momentarily disengaged from a
vapid but persistent dialogue with a chuckle-headed but persistent
youth, ventured to slip into the house, and through it to the garden
in the faint hope that perhaps Murtagh Skeel might have avoided the
tea-crush and had gone directly there.

But the rose arbour was empty; only the bubble of the little wall
fountain and a robin's evening melody broke the scented stillness of
the late afternoon.

Her mind was full of Murtagh Skeel, her heart of Garry Barres, as she
stood there in that blossoming solitude, listening to the robin and
the fountain, while her eyes wandered across flower-bed, pool, and
clipped greensward, and beyond the garden wall to the hill where three
pines stood silver-green against the sky.

Little by little the thought of Murtagh Skeel faded from her mind;
fuller and fuller grew her heart with confused emotions new to
her--emotions too perplexing, too deep, too powerful, perhaps, for her
to understand--or to know how to resist or to endure. For the first
vague sweetness of her thoughts had grown keen to the verge of
pain--an exquisite spiritual tension which hurt her, bewildered her
with the deep emotions it stirred.

To love, had been a phrase to her; a lover, a name. For beyond
that childish, passionate adoration which Barres had evoked in
her, and which to her meant friendship, nothing more subtly mature,
more vital, had threatened her unawakened adolescence with any
clearer comprehension of him or any deeper apprehension of herself.

And even now it was not knowledge that pierced her, lighting little
confusing flashes in her mind and heart. For her heart was still a
child's heart; and her mind, stimulated and rapid