show you that," she interrupted. "It was there I used to
post my letters to you during the anxious times." And so Feversham let
slip his opportunity of speech.

"The house is behind the trees to the right," she continued.

"The letter-box is very convenient," said Feversham.

"Yes," said Ethne, and she drove on and stopped again where the park
wall had crumbled.

"That's where I used to climb over to post the letters. There's a tree
on the other side of the wall as convenient as the letter-box. I used to
run down the half-mile of avenue at night."

"There might have been thieves," exclaimed Feversham.

"There were thorns," said Ethne, and turning through the gates she drove
up to the porch of the long, irregular grey house. "Well, we have still
a day before the dance."

"I suppose the whole country-side is coming," said Feversham.

"It daren't do anything else," said Ethne, with a laugh. "My father
would send the police to fetch them if they stayed away, just as he
fetched your friend Mr. Durrance here. By the way, Mr. Durrance has
sent me a present--a Guarnerius violin."

The door opened, and a thin, lank old man, with a fierce peaked face
like a bird of prey, came out upon the steps. His face softened,
however, into friendliness when he saw Feversham, and a smile played
upon his lips. A stranger might have thought that he winked. But his
left eyelid continually drooped over the eye.

"How do you do?" he said. "Glad to see you. Must make yourself at home.
If you want any whiskey, stamp twice on the floor with your foot. The
servants understand," and with that he went straightway back into the
house.

* * * * *

The biographer of Dermod Eustace would need to bring a wary mind to his
work. For though the old master of Lennon House has not lain twenty
years in his grave, he is already swollen into a legendary character.
Anecdotes have grown upon his memory like barnacles, and any man in
those parts with a knack of invention has only to foist his stories upon
Dermod to ensure a ready credence. There are, however, definite facts.
He practised an ancient and tyrannous hospitality, keeping open house
upon the road to Letterkenny, and forcing bed and board even upon
strangers, as Durrance had once discovered. He was a man of another
century, who looked out with a glowering, angry eye upon a topsy-turvy
world, and would not be reconciled to it except after much alcohol. He
was a so