e and dejected appearance created
some surprise, and her cheeks flushed with passion when her mother said
she didn't know what had come over May lately. Then obeying an impulse,
May rose to her feet, and leaving the tennis players she walked across
the pleasure grounds. Dungory Castle was surrounded by heavy woods and
overtopping clumps of trees. As the house was neared, these were filled
in with high laurel hedges and masses of rhododendron, and an opening in
the branches of some large beech-trees revealed a blue and beautiful
aspect of the Clare mountains.

'I wonder what May is angry about?' Cecilia said to Alice as they
watched the tennis playing from their window; 'suppose those horrid men
are annoying her.'

'I never saw her refuse to play tennis before,' Alice replied demurely.
And ten minutes after, some subtle desire of which she was not very
conscious led her through the shrubberies towards the place where she
already expected to find May. And dreaming of reconciliation, of a
renewal of friendship, Alice walked through the green summer of the
leaves, listening to the infinite twittering of the birds, and startled
by the wood-pigeons that from time to time rose boisterously out of the
high branches. On a garden bench, leaning forward, her hands rested on
her knees, May sat swinging her parasol from side to side, playing with
the fallen leaves. When she looked up, the sunlight fell full upon her
face, and Alice saw that she was crying. But affecting not to see the
tears, she said, speaking rapidly:

'Oh, May dear, I have been looking for you. The last time we--'

But interrupted here by a choking sob, she found herself forced to say:

'My dear May, what is the matter? Can I do anything for you?'

'Oh, no, no; only leave me; don't question me. I don't want anyone's
help.'

The ungraciousness of the words was lost in the accent of grief with
which they were spoken.

'I assure you I don't wish to be inquisitive,' Alice replied
sorrowfully, 'nor do I come to annoy you with good advice, but the last
time we met we didn't part good friends. . . . I was merely anxious to
assure you that I bore no ill-feeling, but, of course, if you--'

'Oh no, no,' cried May; reaching and catching at Alice's arm she pulled
her down into the seat beside her; 'I am awfully sorry for my rudeness
to you--to you who are so good--so good. Oh, Alice dear, you will
forgive me, will you not?' and sobbing very helplessly, she threw
he