rturbable as before. Yet deep down in her heart the
wound bled, ached, and throbbed--and that almost unbearably. For she
could not move a step without being reminded of the times that were
past--if she needed reminding. No way could she turn her eyes without
being so reminded. Every object, every feature in the surroundings was
fraught with such associations.

Then she would force herself to look things in the face--to take to
herself a kind of reckless, _bizarre_ comfort. She had youth, and the
glow of healthful beauty throbbed warm and strong within her. The world
was great. Life was all before her. And she had pride. She could face
the whole world with such an armoury.

There was one thing which, so far as the outside world was concerned,
rendered her position easier. There had been no regular engagement.
Nothing formal or binding had so much as been hinted at between them.
They had been content to live on, penetrating deeper and deeper into the
golden mazes of love; no thought for the end, no thought of a barred
gate across their way, beyond which should lie a smooth, dead-level
road, unending in its placid monotony. Nothing therefore had been
"broken off," nothing claiming explanations, and, more hateful than all,
laying her open to condolences.

But the fact that there had been nothing definite between them had its
drawbacks. She could not shut herself up; and at times, when visiting
among their acquaintances, she would be forced to listen to remarks
which cleft her heart, but which she must bear and show no sign; to
strictures on the absent one which made her blood surge and boil with
suppressed wrath. One such occasion befell about a month after his
departure, the time and place being an afternoon call, and the offender
Mrs Shaston, who, she suspected, was talking not without design,
expatiating to a roomful of people upon what a snake in the grass had
been so providentially hunted out of their midst. The hot, passionate
blood coursed madly in Mona's veins, and her eyes began to flash.
Suddenly they met those of Father O'Driscoll, who, with his hands
crossed on the head of his stick, was seated on the other side of the
room as though not hearing what went on. Suddenly the old man leaned
across towards the speaker.

"Is it Mr Musgrave ye're talking about, Mrs Shaston?" he said in his
gentle Irish tone.

"Yes. He was once a great friend of yours, Father O'Driscoll, if I
remember rightly," and