y.

"Parbleu!" he muttered, "si beau joueur merite bien de gagner!"

CHAPTER XII.

Sometimes, lying on the cliffs of Kerry or Clare, on a cloudless autumn
day, when not a breath of wind is stirring, you may see rank after rank
of heavy purple billows rolling sullenly in from the offing: these are
messengers coming to tell us of battles fought a thousand leagues to the
westward, in which they, too, have borne their part. Before the mail
comes in we are prepared to hear of a storm that has worked its wicked
will for nights and days, thundering among the granite boulders of
Labrador, or tearing through the fog-banks of Newfoundland. This is
perhaps the most commonplace of all ancient comparisons; but where will
you find so apt a parallel for the vagaries of the human heart as the
phases of the deep, false, beautiful sea?

On the morning after Madame de Verzenay's party, Cecil rose in a very
troubled frame of mind. She had no feeling of irritation left against
Royston Keene; but she was uneasy, and uncomfortable, and loth to meet
him. What she had felt and what she had heard had moved her too deeply
for her to resume at once her wonted composure. So it was that she
accepted very readily an invitation from Mrs. Fullarton to accompany
herself and children on a mild botanizing excursion among the hills.
These small _fetes_ went a long way with that hard-working and
meritorious woman; what with anticipation and retrospect, each lasted
her about two months. Miss Tresilyan was prevented from starting with
the rest of the party; but the chaplain himself was to escort her to the
place of rendezvous, his little daughter Katie being retained to be
invested with the temporary and "local" rank of chaperone--a formality
which, in these days of scanty faith, even married divines are not
allowed to dispense with. The quartette was completed by the
mule-driver--one of those remarkable boys who converse invariably in a
tongue which the beasts of burden seem to understand and sympathize
with, but which, to any other creature whatsoever, is absolutely
destitute of meaning. They had some way to go; so Cecil had taken up
Katie before her on her mule; the pastor walked by her side, glozing
(for the road was not very steep) on all sorts of subjects, gravely and
smoothly, as was his wont. They had crossed the first line of hills, and
were descending into the valley beyond, when, turning a sharp corner
where a projecting rock almost bar