him before everythin' in the world?"

Clodagh turned swiftly and met the small, anxious eyes.

"So much before everything, that if I were to lose him now I should
lose"--she paused for an instant, then added--"myself."

Hannah's eyes narrowed in the intensity of her concern.

"An' he do be carin' for you, Miss Clodagh?"

Clodagh learnt forward; and the warm light from the sunset touched and
transfigured her face.

"Yes--he cares," she said very slowly.

CHAPTER XVIII

Late on the afternoon that followed her arrival, Clodagh--with Larry in
attendance--climbed up the uneven path that led from the Orristown
boat-cove to the house. A considerable change had taken place in the
weather since the previous evening. The sky no longer hung low and
motionless above the horizon line; the sea no longer shone white and
polished as a mirror. A gale had sprung up, breaking the clouds and
whipping the sea into small green waves; and more than once, as the
cousins clambered up the rugged track, Asshlin paused to look back at
his small boat, lying with furled sail and shipped oars on the shingle.

"I hope I've beached her high enough," he said. "There will be a big
sea to-night."

Clodagh laughed. The prospect of a storm stirred her. She felt
boundlessly happy, boundlessly confident in this free, open life.

The night before, after Larry had left her, and the first tinge of
twilight had fallen across the old house, there had been a moment in
which the ghosts of memory had threatened to assail her--to come
trooping up the gaunt staircase, and through the great, bare rooms. But
her will had conquered; she had dispelled the phantoms, and had slept
dreamlessly in the big four-post bed.

In the morning she had awakened, as James Milbanke had awakened long
ago, to a world of light and joy. But with this difference, that to him
the world had been a thing to speculate upon and study, while to her it
was a thing familiar--understood--possessed. While she partook of
breakfast and while she visited the stables, she kept Hannah by her
side, learning from her the vicissitudes of the many humble lives
around Orristown that had been known to her since childhood; then,
before the tales had been half recounted, Larry had arrived in his
boat; and the two cousins, like children playing at a long-loved game,
had gone down together to the boat-cove to where the little craft
flashed its white sail like a seagull in the sun, and danced wi