rly. Mrs. Orton Beg nodded.
The word went round. Beth held the hall, and was still rising from
point to point, carrying the audience with her to a pitch of
excitement which finally culminated in a great burst of applause.

Beth, taken aback, stopped short, surprised and bewildered by the
racket; looked about her, faltered a few more words, and then sat down
abruptly.

The applause was renewed and prolonged.

"What does it mean?" Beth asked Ideala in an agony. "Did I say
something absurd?"

"My dear child," Ideala answered, laughing, "they are not jeering, but
cheering!"

"Is that cheering?" Beth exclaimed in an awe-stricken tone, overcome
to find she had produced such an effect. "I feared they meant to be
derisive."

"I didn't know you were a speaker," Mrs. Orton Beg whispered.

"I am not," Beth answered apologetically. "I never spoke before, nor
heard any one else speak till to-night. Only I have thought and
thought about these things, and I could not keep it back, what I had
to say."

"That is the stuff an orator is made of," some strange lady muttered
approvingly.

CHAPTER XLV

When Beth returned to Slane, Dan received her so joyously she wondered
what particularly successful piece of turpitude he had been busy
about. He was always effusive to her when evil things went well with
him. At first she had supposed that this effusiveness was the outcome
of affection for her; but when she began to know him, she perceived
that it was only the expression of some personal gratification. He had
been quite demonstrative in his attentions to her during the time that
Bertha Petterick stayed in the house.

"By the way, there is a letter for you," he said, when they were at
lunch.

"Is there?" Beth answered. "Who from?"

"How the devil am I to know?" he rejoined, glancing up at the
mantelpiece. "I can't tell who your correspondents are by instinct."

Beth's eye followed his to the mantelpiece, where she saw a large
square envelope propped up against an ornament in a conspicuous
position, and recognised the unmistakable, big, clear, firm hand of
Bertha Petterick, and the thick kind of paper she always used.

Beth had been thinking about Bertha on the way home. She knew that, if
Bertha had been as wrong in body as in mind and moral nature, she
would have had compassion on her; and she had determined to tolerate
her as it was, to do what she could for her maimed soul, just as she
would have ministered to h