'D'yez know where she
gets her pride and the courage to dare me? She gets it from her
father, th' ould lord. Con Daly had never act nor part in her.'

A scream, the like of which the Island had never heard, broke from
Mauryeen's lips. It was such a cry as if body and soul were tearing
asunder. With that scream she flung her arms above her head. The
little group, closing round her awe-stricken, looked to see her fall
face downward to the ground. But with a wild movement of her arms, as
if she swept the whole world out of her path, she fled down the hill
towards the village. Ellen Daly had vanished. No one had seen her go.
And down in the dancing bay at their feet Randal Burke proudly shot
ahead of his opponent and won the race.

The girl meanwhile had fled on and on, with only the blind instinct to
hide her disgrace. The village was empty of all but the sick and the
bed-ridden. There was not an eye on Mauryeen Daly as she fled by the
open doors. With a mechanical instinct she turned in at the door of
her mother's house. The cool darkness of it after the glare outside
was grateful to her. She closed the door and barred it. Then she
turned into a room off the kitchen, her own little room, where there
was a picture of the Mother of Sorrows with seven swords through her
heart, and dropped on the floor before the picture with an
inarticulate moaning.

She lay there half unconscious, and only feeling her misery dumbly. On
the wall hung her blue cashmere dress, in which she was to have been
married a day or two later. On the chest of drawers was a box
containing the little wreath and veil her mother-in-law had presented
her with. But she saw none of these things, with her mouth and eyes
against the floor.

She came back to life presently, hearing her name called. The voice
had called many times before she heard it. Now it was imperative,
almost sharp in its eagerness. 'Open, acushla, open, or I burst the
door.' It was Randal's voice; and she answered it, advancing a step or
two, groping with outstretched hands, and a wild look of fear in her
dilated eyes. Then she heard the door straining and creaking, and a
man panting, striving outside. In a little while, almost before she
had time to stand clear of it, the door rattled on the floor, and her
lover leapt into the cabin.

She put out her hands to fence him off, swaying blindly towards the
wall. He sprang to her with a murmur of pity, and was just in time to
catch her as