herself time to
take a hurried breakfast at one of the hotels, before driving to the
railway station. Now that she had set foot in Ireland, the racial love
of home had awakened in her, making the hours leaden until she found
herself at Orristown.

The great lifting of the spirit that Nance's letter had brought into
being, had not subsided since the moment she had arisen from her seat
in the train, filled with the knowledge that an insupportable burden
had been lifted from her. At Reading she had despatched an answering
telegram to her sister; and for nearly an hour afterwards, she had sat
in the corner of her carriage, covering sheet after sheet of note-paper
with hasty pencilling. Two letters were the result,--one to Nance, all
love, all spontaneous gratitude; the other to Gore, full of tenderness,
of promise, of almost vehement reassurance.

Thus the long and usually monotonous train journey ran itself out; and
in the confused darkness of the crowded landing-stage, she went on
board the boat at New Milford.

The crossing of the sea had ever been a delight to Clodagh. The love of
the sea--the almost mystical knowledge of it--was in her blood. And
that night for many hours she had paced the deck, rejoicing after a
fashion understood by few in each forward plunge of the vessel--in the
sense of exhilaration and action conveyed each time the prow dipped to
cut the waves and send the spray flying.

She was going home! There had seemed a curious, thrilling sensation in
the knowledge. She was going home! After many experiences, she was
returning to the spot where her life had first separated its thread
from the great tapestry of existence--the spot where happiness and
unhappiness had first presented themselves as differentiated
things--where the elemental facts of pain and pleasure had been first
demonstrated to her unformed mind. The memory of Orristown had
materialised, as she had walked to and fro under the summer sky
powdered with faint stars; and she had closed her eyes until the salt
sting of the sea had conjured up the square, white house, the green
fields, and the long, shelving rocks.

The picture had remained with her long after she retired to her cabin,
and had been still before her mind when the first low line of Irish
land had broken across her vision in the silvery morning. Then it had
been dispersed by more immediate things,--the arrival at Cork--the
breakfast--the drive across the town to the Muskeere tr