onate regard. The man who had been the means of
bringing him there, Maurice O'Donnell, was his Jonathan, nay more than
his Jonathan, for to him young Rooney had given all his hero-worship.
He was, indeed, of the heroic stuff, older, graver, wiser than his
friend.

James Rooney spoke to no one of his love or his hopes. For he had
hopes. Ellen, kind to every one, singled him out for special kindness.
He had seen in her deep eyes something shy and tender for him. For
some time he was too humble to be sure he had read her gaze aright,
but at last he believed in a flood of wild rapture that she had chosen
him.

He did not speak, he was too happy in dallying with his joy, and he
waited on from day to day. One evening he was watching her singing,
with all his heart in his eyes. Among people less held by a great
sincerity than these people were at the time, his secret would have
been an open amusement. But the father and mother heard with eyes dim
with tears; the young sisters about the fire flushed and paled with
the emotion of the song; the hearts of the listeners hung on the
singer's lips, and their eyes were far away.

Suddenly James Rooney looked round the circle with the feeling of a
man who awakes from sleep. His friend was opposite to him, also gazing
at the singer; the revelation in his face turned the younger man cold
with the shock. When the song was done he said 'good-night' quietly,
and went home. It was earlier than usual, and he left his friend
behind him; for this one night he was glad not to have his company;
he wanted a quiet interval in which to think what was to be done.

Now, when he realised that Maurice O'Donnell loved her, he cursed his
own folly that he had dared to think of winning her. What girl with
eyes in her head would take him, gray and square-jawed, before the
gallant-looking fellow who was the ideal patriot. And Ellen--Ellen, of
all women living, was best able to appreciate O'Donnell's qualities.
That night he sat all the night with his head bowed on his hands
thinking his sick thoughts amid the ruin of his castles. When he stood
up shivering in the gray dawn, he had closed that page of his life. He
felt as if already the girl had chosen between them, and that he was
found wanting.

That was not the end of it, however. If he had been left to himself he
might have carried out his high, heroic resolve to go no more to the
house which had become Paradise to him. But his friend followed him,