self utterly, she seemed
to have become a fluid, she yielded herself like a fluid; it was like
dying: for she seemed to pass out of herself to become absorbed in the
night. How the time past she knew not, and when her guests came to bid
her good-bye she hardly saw them, and listened to their leave-taking
with a little odd smile on her lips, and when everyone was gone she
bade her father good-night absent-mindedly, fearing, however, that he
would speak to her about Ned. But he only said good-night, and she went
up the wide staircase conscious that the summer night was within the
house and without it; that it lay upon the world, a burden sweet and
still, like happiness upon the heart.

She opened her window, and sat there hoping that something would come
out of the night and whisper in her ear the secret that tormented her.
The stars knew! If she could only read them! She felt she was feeling a
little more than she was capable of understanding. The ecstasy grew
deeper, and she waited for the revelation. But none came, and feeling a
little ashamed she got up to close the window, and it was then that the
revelation broke in her mind. She had met the man who was to lead the
Irish people! They wanted a new leader, a leader with a new idea; the
new leader must come from the outside, and he had come to them from
America, and her emotion was so great that she would have liked to have
awakened her father. She would have liked to have gone into the country
waking the people up in the cottages, telling them that the leader had
come. She stood entranced, remembering all he had said to her. He had
told her he had been moved to return to Ireland after the war in Cuba,
and she had not understood. The word married passed through her mind
before she could stay it. But she was necessary to this man, of this
she was sure; the Voice had told her. She was feeling more than she
could understand, and she lay down in her bed certain that she had
accomplished the first stage of her journey.

And just then Ned was leaning on the garden gate. The summer night was
sweet and still, and he wanted to think of this girl who had come so
suddenly into his life. The idea of marriage flitted across his mind as
it had flitted across hers, and he tried to remember the exact moment
in Cuba when the wish to see Ireland had come into his mind. To believe
in fate and predestination is an easy way out of life's labyrinth, and
if one does not believe in something