. There was an old favorite print that portrayed
her, a slim wistful figure resting a pale hand on a mute harp, a great
elk-hound at her feet on guard, and back of her the rising sun shone on
the antique round tower.... A pretty picture, but was it enough? He
tried to envisage her close, concentrated.... There the dog, there the
harp, there the slim form.... But the face.... It seemed to elude him.
And suddenly it flashed at him with abrupt dark beauty ... the face of
the woman of Tusa hErin....

Section 9

The long Ulster twilight had set in, the twilight of bats, gray-blue,
utterly peaceful ... the little chiming of the sea.... Even the wind was
still.... All things drowsed, like a dog before the fire, relaxed but
not asleep.... Beneath her feet the turf was firm ... beneath that the
hush-een-husho of the purple Moyle.... Soon there would be a moon and
her servants would saddle Shane's horse for him and he would ride home
in the Antrim moonlight, eighteen miles of grim road with the friendly
moon above him, and the singing Moyle on his left hand, and on his
right the purple glens.... And the shadows ... the delicate tracery of
the ash-tree, and the tall rowans, and the massive blue shadows of the
cliffs ... a golden and silver land.... A very sweet silence had fallen
between them, as if music had ceased and become restful color.... They
watched the quiet swan....

"I am a little afraid to leave Tusa hErin," she said suddenly and
softly, as though thinking aloud.... "I am like a nun who has been in a
convent.... She is lost in the open world.... Will I ever again find a
place like Tusa hErin?"

"Granya, are you selling Tusa hErin?"

"I have sold it, Shane."

"I am sorry," was all he could say. A little silence, and he could feel
her smiling through the dusk.

"You never ask any questions, Shane?"

"It never occurs to me to ask them, Granya. If any one wants to tell me
a thing, I know they will, and if they don't why should I intrude?"

"I should like to tell you why I sold Tusa hErin. But I cannot. It is my
own secret."

He nodded in the dusk: "I understand."

She turned to him slowly. Her sweet dark head was like some fragrant
shrub.... Her low soft voice had so much life to it....

"I wonder if you know what a friend you are, Shane? If you understand
how peaceful it is to have you here? You are such a sweet fact, Shane,
like the moon."

"I am a friend, Granya...."

"You are, yes.... And you know