rth, and the terror of it being intensified and aggravated by the
pitiable surrounding circumstances, she was beside herself. She clung
to me, choked with a flood of tears, and palpitating in an unbearable
tumult of emotion.

This case, so pathetically ordinary that most of us are debased by
acquaintance with similar, to this girl was fresh, and striking her in
all its inexcusable barbarity without any extenuating gloze, made her
furious with pained and righteous indignation.

I led her about by devious ways that her heart might cool ere we
reached Clay's.

The cloudless, breezeless night, though not yet severely cold, was
crisp with the purity of frost and sweet with the exquisite scent of
flowering loquats. The only sounds breaking its stillness were the
trains passing across the long viaduct approaching the bridge, and the
rumble of the vehicles as they ground their homeward way along the
stony road, their lights flashing as they passed, and snatches of the
occupants' conversation reaching us where we walked on a path beside
the main thoroughfare. The heavens were a spangled glory, and the dark
sleeping lands gave forth a fresh, pleasant odour. Man provided the
only discordant note; but for the jarring of his misdoings there would
have been perfect peace.

Oh, the hot young heart that raged by my side! I too had forded the
cruel torrent of facts that was torturing her mind; I knew; I
understood. By-and-by she would arrive at my phase and have somewhat
of my calmness, but to tell her so would merely have been the
preaching so deservedly and naturally abhorred by the young, and
except for holding her hand in a tight clasp, I was apparently
unresponsive.

As she grew quieter I steered for home, and eventually we arrived at
the door of the kitchen and found there Jake, Andrew, and the
Rooney-Molyneux--a small man with a large beard and the type of
aristocratic face furnished with a long protruding nose and a narrow
retreating forehead. Carry, up aloft like the angels, could be heard
practising on my piano, and the soiled utensils scattered on the table
illustrated that the gentlemen had had refreshments.

It being Dawn's week in the kitchen, she set about collecting the cups
in the wash-up dish, and presently some maudlin expression of
sentiment on the part of the Rooney-Molyneux reopened the vials of her
indignation.

"I'm naturally anxious that it may be a son," he drivelled, "as there
are so few male represe