hen he heard her knocking on Mary's door.

"Can I come in, Mary?" she asked in a clear voice.

He could hear the door opening ... and then he heard it being closed
again.

He stood at the foot of the stairs, listening, but there was no need of
him. He turned away, and as he did so, Widger came into the hall. The
old man stood for a moment or two without speaking. Then he made a
suppliant movement with his trembling hands.

"It b'ain't true!..." he mumbled thickly.

"Yes, Widger," Henry answered, "it is."

The old man turned away. "I knowed 'un ever since 'e were a baby," he
said, and his lips were quivering. "Praper li'l chap 'e were, too!

"It b'ain't right," he went on, looking helplessly about him. Then his
voice took a firmer, more definite note, "Where's missus to?" he asked.

"She's upstairs, Widger," Henry answered. "I don't think I'd say
anything to her at present, if I were you!"

"Very well, sir!"

He moved away. The vitality seemed to have gone out of him, and suddenly
he had become old ... senile ... shuffling.

"They'm wisht times, sir!" he said, as he left the hall.

4

Henry wrote to Roger, telling him of Ninian's death, and when he had
finished the letter, he went out to post it. He could not sit still in
the house ... he felt that he must move about until he was worn and
exhausted. Mrs. Graham was still with Mary, but perhaps by the time he
returned, they would be able to come downstairs again. The pride with
which Mrs. Graham had supported herself in her grief seemed to him
almost god-like. Once, in the South of Ireland, he had seen a peasant
woman bidding good-bye to her husband. As the train steamed out of the
station, she howled like a wounded animal, spinning round like a
teetotum, and waving her hands and arms wildly. Her hair had tumbled
down her back, and her eyes seemed to be melting, so freely did she weep
... and then when the train had disappeared round a bend of the track,
she dried her eyes and went home. Her grief, that had seemed utterly
inconsolable, had been no more than a summer shower.... He had had
difficulty in preventing himself from laughing, and he could not
restrain a feeling of contempt for her. "They write plays about that
kind of silly howling at the Abbey Theatre, and call it 'the Celtic
twilight.' No dignity, no decency!..."

He had heard sentimental Englishmen prating about "the tragic soul" of
Ireland because they had listened to hired women _keening_