he National
League heard of their little tricks, and now the farm is boycotted, and
Murphy is dying in the ditch for the good of his _counthry_.'

'I thought boycotting was ended, that the League had lost all power.'

'It has and it hasn't. Sometimes a man takes a farm and keeps it in
defiance of his neighbours; sometimes they hunt him out of it. It is
hard to come to a conclusion, for when in one district you hear of rents
being paid and boycotted farms letting freely, in another, only a few
miles away, the landlords are giving reductions, and there are farms
lying waste that no one dare look at. In my opinion the fire is only
smouldering, and when the Coercion Act expires the old organization will
rise up as strong and as triumphant as before. This is a time of respite
for both parties.'

The conversation then came to a sudden pause. Alice felt it would be out
of place for her to speak her sympathies for the Nationalistic cause,
and she knew it would be unfair to lead the doctor to express his. So at
the end of a long silence, during which each divined the other's
thoughts, she said:

'I suppose you see a great deal of the poor and the miseries they
endure?'

'I have had good opportunities of studying them. Before I came here I
spent ten years in the poorest district in Donegal. I am sure there
wasn't a gentleman's house within fifteen miles of me.'

'And didn't you feel very lonely?'

'Yes, I did, but one gets so used to solitude that to return to the
world, after having lived long in the atmosphere of one's own thoughts,
is painful. The repugnance that grows on those who live alone to hearing
their fellow-creatures express their ideas is very remarkable. It must
be felt to be understood; and I have often wondered how it was that I
never met it in a novel.'

'It would be very difficult to write. Do you ever read fiction?'

'Yes, and enjoy it. In my little home amid the northern bogs, I used to
look forward when I had finished writing, to reading a story.'

'What were you writing?'

'A book.'

'A book!' exclaimed Alice, looking suddenly pleased and astonished.

'Yes, but not a work of fiction--I am afraid I am too prosaic an
individual for that--a medical work.'

'And have you finished your book?'

'Yes, it is finished, and I am glad to say it is in the hands of a
London publisher. We have not yet agreed about the price, but I hope and
believe that, directly and indirectly, it will lead to putting m