ome!"

By some extraordinary sagacity the animal whimpered, and pressed closer
to her skirt.

With an almost fierce impulse she stooped, kissed him once; then,
holding him back, slipped through the door and closed it.

He gave a frantic bark of misery, but she did not pause, she did not
even look back. Walking rapidly, she passed across the hall and out
into the open.

Turning to the right, she skirted the stable-yard and the orchard, and,
hurrying past the spot where years ago Milbanke had asked her to be his
wife, took the path to the Orristown cliffs.

Her thoughts trooped up like living things as she stumbled forward
along the uneven track. She was conscious of no fear, only of a
desolating loneliness--an enormous sense of futility, of finality. Last
night she had looked into the eyes of Fate, propounding the question of
how she was to carry on her life, and to-day she had read the answer in
the face of the portrait.

She hurried on unseeingly, covering the same track that her father had
covered on the night he had ridden out and met death on the dark
headland.

From time to time she stopped and looked at the sea--looked at the long
curve of shining beach with its margin of dark wreckage--looked at the
clustering cottages of Carrigmore, and marvelled in a dumb way at the
tragedy that could underlie so calm a scene.

She had none of the nervous panic that had assailed her the night
before. She was conscious of nothing but a black despair--a despair
such as Denis Asshlin had been wont to drown in drink and cards. She
had lived her life; she had had her chance; and the end was failure.
She had tangled the thread of her existence; and the one hand that
could have unravelled the tangle was closed against her.

One thought alone she rigorously refused to harbour--the thought of
Nance. Nance would have her husband--Nance would have her home, she
assured herself. Nance would forget. In vain the remembrance of her
faithful loyalty rose to make the assurance doubtful. As she had closed
the door upon Mick, so she closed her heart to the knowledge.

There were certain hours in every life, she told herself, when the soul
judged the body--judged and forgave, or judged and condemned! Her shaken
mind drove her feet faster along the rugged track--faster--faster, as
though Nemesis pursued her. Terrible visions rose from the sea, creeping
over the cliff's edge--visions of Larry, stiff and dead, as she had seen
her father,