r finger-tips upon the window-sill and bent
slightly forward. Then, very suddenly, she drew back into the room, her
face flushing.

Lord Deerehurst, mounted upon a high black horse, had passed the window
at the moment that she had looked out; and raising his head, had seen
and bowed to her.

The incident was slight; but at certain moments the Celtic nature is
extraordinarily--even mysteriously--open to suggestion. Clodagh could
not have defined her thought; but the thought was there, a vague,
half-fearful, wholly instinctive thought that suddenly prompted her to
shield herself, to ward off the nearer approach to this world that she
had leant from her window to study impersonally; and from which she had
received so peculiarly personal a response.

She continued to stand for a moment longer in an attitude of doubt;
then, swiftly, almost abruptly, she turned round to the bureau and,
kneeling down before it, reopened her cheque-book with tremulous hands
and wrote out a cheque for one thousand pounds, payable to herself.

CHAPTER VI

The habit of self-deception had become as a cloak in which Clodagh
wrapped herself. She desired happiness: therefore she told herself that
she was happy; she instinctively wished to live honourably: therefore,
through her own persuasion, she believed her actions to be honourable.
And under this insidiously sheltering garment, her appropriation of her
sister's money was securely hidden away. To her own thinking--once the
first misgiving had been buried--there was no real wrong, no real
dishonour, in the taking of the thousand pounds. She needed it
temporarily, and would, in due time, repay it with interest. The fact
that she did not think it necessary to inform Nance of what she had
done, certainly weakens the case for her defence; but had she come to
be judged from some impersonal source, it is quite possible she would
have made as subtle and specious a justification of her conduct as that
which she offered to herself. In this light, the act stood recorded in
her own conscience. She needed the money; she took the money; and
having taken it, she set about banishing the recollection of it from
her mind.

For three days after she had signed the cheque, she retired into
semi-privacy. She was at home to no one; and although she continued to
ride each morning and drive each afternoon in the park, she did so with
so cold a demeanour that none of her friends had dared to accost her!
For