fied, by the magnitude of
their task. And in the middle of the uproar, late in the afternoon, a
new sound joined in the chorus of the storm, the coarse and ugly
summons of a motor-horn. Old Evans spied at the car through the hall
window, and contrived to signal a command to go round to the back of
the house.

"If I let dhraw the bolts," he said to Barty Mangan at the kitchen
entrance, "the door would fall flat on me!"

"I wouldn't be surprised at all," Barty replied. "Hardly I could force
the car into the storm."

Christian was sitting on the floor by the fireplace in the hall, in
the last of the daylight, examining and burning the contents of a
drawer full of miscellaneous papers, as the visitor made his
unexpected entrance from the back, and Barty, recognising his own
improbability and unsuitability on such a day and at such a time, fell
to confused apologies that were as incoherent, and seemed as unlikely
ever to end, as the buzzing of an imprisoned bee on the window-pane.
The fact at length, however, emerged, that there was a map of the
Mount Music estate hanging in the library, and that the Major having
promised to lend it to Dr. Mangan, had forgotten to do so.

"Some question of boundaries--a little grazing form m' fawther
has--" Barty said, nervously.

The map was found, was rolled, and wrapped up, and yet Barty sat on.
He talked incessantly, feverishly. He talked so fast, in his low
voice, that, in the clamour of the storm, Christian could only
distinguish an occasional word. She had a nightmare feeling as if a
train were roaring through an endless tunnel, and that she and Barty
were the sole passengers, and would never see daylight or know quiet
again. His long, lean body was hooped into a very low and deep
armchair, his thin hands clasped his knees; his immense dark eyes,
fixed on Christian's face, gave her the impression that what he was
saying was without relation to what he was thinking. In the direful
gloom of the hall, with the rain and wind threshing on the
half-shuttered windows, and the inconstant light of the burning logs
the sole illuminant, his pale face, with the wing of black hair on his
forehead, looked like the face of a strayed occupant of another sphere
who had resumed such an aspect as he had worn in his coffin.

"Ireland's a queer old place just now, Miss Christian," Barty hurried
on. "Everything's changing hands, and everyone's changing sides. You
don't know what'll happen next!"