that she had never come across his path, or that she had
had a mother or friend to warn her of the dangerous precipice to which
she was unconsciously leading him. What could she do now? She could not
write to him, not knowing into what hands the letter might fall. She
could not leave him to hear by chance next day of her departure. It was
growing dark, and there was no time to lose. She would go to his house,
and at all events leave a message for him. It was hardly a mile away,
and she was not likely to meet anyone on the road.

The low terraced hills looked bleak and dreary, a watery sky above them.
The pale sunset gleams were reflected in the pools of water on the
roadside, not yet absorbed into the light limestone soil. The straggling
one-sided street forming the entrance to Cloon looked more squalid than
usual, the houses more wretched under their grass-grown thatch, the
gleam and ring from the smithy the only touch of light and sound that
relieved their gloom.

Louise Eden walked up the little path to the Doctor's house, and,
knocking at the door, asked the old woman who appeared for news of her
master.

"Indeed, he's the one way always," was the reply; "no better and no
worse since they brought him and laid him on the bed. You'd pity him to
see him lying there, me fine boy."

"Will you give him a message from me?" asked Louise. "Will you say I
have come to ask how he is, and to say good-bye, as I am going back to
England?"

"He'll be sorry for that, indeed," said the old woman. "Sure, you'd best
go up and see him yourself."

"Oh, no," said Louise, shrinking back, "unless--his life is not in
danger, I hope?"

"Danger, is it," echoed old Mamie, indignantly, though not without a
momentary glance of uneasiness. "Why would he be in danger? Sure he
wasn't so much hurted as that. He bled hardly at all only for a little
cut on the head, and sure he has all he wants, and a nurse coming from
Dublin and one of the nuns sitting with him now. It'd be a bad job if he
was in danger, only twenty-four year old, and having such a nice way of
living, and, indeed, he has the prayers of the poor. Go up the stairs
and see him--here's his reverence coming, and might want me," she
continued, as a car stopped at the gate.

Reluctantly, yet not knowing how to draw back, and unwilling to meet
the priest, whom she knew slightly, Louise went up the narrow staircase.
She knocked at a door standing ajar, and hearing a low "come in,"