ly, before she had time to feel
alarmed. Of course there was no cause for alarm. Patsy himself said
that Mustapha had come to be that kind that a lamb or a child could
play with him. It was absurd of Patsy not to be satisfied about
Shawn's riding the horse.

There were some things Patsy needed--a bandage for Tartar, some
cough-balls for Black Prince, which could be procured at the general
shop in Killesky.

She went into Sir Shawn's office to write the order. Patsy would come
for it presently.

After she had written it she went out by the open French window and
climbed the rising ground at the back of the house. Very often she
went up there of afternoons to look at the sunset. She had always
loved sunsets.

The afternoon had been grey, but at the top of the hill she was
rewarded for her climb. On one side the sloping valley was filled with
a dun-coloured mist. Over it leant the dun-coloured cloud which was a
part of the grey heavens. To the other side were the hills, coloured
the deep blue which is only seen in the West of Ireland. Behind them
were long washes of light, silver and pale gold. The dun cloud above
had caught the sapphire as though in a mirror. Round the Southern and
Western horizon ran the broad belt of light under the sapphire cloud,
while to North and East the dun sky met the dun-coloured mist.

She went back after a while, her sense of beauty satisfied. From that
hill one could hear anything, horse or vehicle, coming from a long way
off. The sound ascended and was not lost in the winding and twisting
roads. But she would not acknowledge disappointment to herself. She
had gone up to look at the evening sky and it had been beautiful with
one of the strange kaleidoscopic effects which makes those Western
skies for ever new and beautiful.

The tea had been brought in and the lamps lit when a visitor was
announced--Sir Felix Conyers. She was glad she had not heard the noise
of his arrival and mistaken it for Shawn's.

Sir Felix was an old soldier who had held an important command in
India. He was a rather fussy but very kind-hearted person whom Mary
O'Gara liked better than his handsome cold wife with her organized
system of charities.

"This is kind, Sir Felix," she said. "Shawn is not home yet. They met
at the Wood of the Hare this morning. The scent must have lain well.
We were a little anxious about the frost before the wind went to the
South-West."

Then she discovered