the meetings of ulick and rebecca had become less and less frequent. sometimes she would not see him for days at a stretch, and such periods would appear as desert spaces. she would be driven by them into the life of the valley, where no echo of comfort ever came to her. even the little children created an irritation with their bright faces continually reminding her of all the prayers they had said for her intentions.... it was curious that she never asked them to say a prayer for her intentions now. and their looks would seem to be beseeching her forever. and yet she could not—she could not ask them now.... each distinct phase of the day seemed to hold for her its own peculiar tortures. these seemed to have reached their climax and very moment of ecstasy on the days succeeding upon one another when monica mckeon came in at the recreation hour to take her luncheon in company with mrs. wyse.
monica would be certain to say with the most unfailing regularity and, in fact, with exactly the same intonation upon all occasions: "i wonder when that ulick shannon is going away?" to which mrs. wyse would reply in a tone which would seem to have comprehended all knowledge: "ah, sure, he'll never go far!" presently monica would begin to let fall from her slyly her usual string of phrases: "wouldn't you be inclined to say, now, that ulick shannon is good-looking?" talking of[pg 212] some other one, she would describe him as being "just like ulick shannon, don't you know!" and if they happened to be discussing the passage of some small event it would invariably circle around the breathless point of interest—"and who do you think was there only ulick shannon?" then from where she sat supping her tea out of a saucerless cup mrs. wyse would give out her full opinion of ulick shannon.
"he's the quare sort, just like his father. i don't think i've ever seen a son to take after his father so closely. and he was what you might call a quare character in his day. it was said that a girl as well as lost her good name if she was seen talking twice in succession to henry shannon, he was that bad. like father, like son is surely the case between henry and ulick shannon!"
this seemed at all times the strangest talk for rebecca to be hearing.... it often caused her to shiver even though spring was well on its way. and they would never let it out of their minds; they would never let it rest. they were always talking at her about ulick shannon, for they seemed to know.
but no one knew save herself. it was a grand secret. not even ulick knew. she hugged the dear possession of her knowledge to herself. there was the strangest excitement upon her to escape from school in the evenings so that she might enjoy her secret in loneliness.
even this joy had been dissipated by her certainty of meeting john brennan somewhere upon the road in the near vicinity of the school.... now, as she thought of it upon an evening a few days after she had spoken to mrs. williams in his favor, she fancied that his lonely[pg 213] admiration for her must have been growing in strength since his return.... there had always been a sense of sudden relief in his presence after the torture of the two women, a feeling of high emancipation like the rushing in of some clean wind.... only a few words had ever passed between them on those occasions, but now they were to her throbbing brain of blessed and sweet memory. and there had always been the same look upon his face, making her try to puzzle out in what possible way he could look upon her. could it be in the way she had looked upon him, with a full kindliness working into the most marvelous ways of sympathy? yet she missed him ever so much, now that he was to be no longer seen upon the road.
it was strange enough, too, as she thought of it, that although the reason of mrs. williams in taking a fancy to her was no more than the selfish one of showing her dislike for master donnellan, it should have borne good fruit after this fashion. yet a certain loneliness, a certain feeling of empty sadness was to be her reward because she had done a good thing.... no one at all now to take her mind away as she wandered from torture to torture in the afternoons.... on one of the first evenings of the changed condition of things mrs. mcgoldrick, noticing in her keen mind that rebecca was a minute or so earlier than usual, said, after the manner of one proud of being able to say it:
"is it a fact, miss kerr, that john brennan bees going as a kind of a charity teacher or something to the college at ballinamult?"
"well, if it's a fact, it is a fact," said rebecca in a tired, dull voice and without showing any interest [pg 214]whatsoever. but even this attitude did not baulk the sergeant's wife, for she hurried on:
"ah, god help his innocent wit, but sure he'll never be a priest, he'll never be a priest! 'tis a pity of his mother, but sure she could hardly expect it to be so, for she wasn't a good woman, they tell me, and she ought to know, you know, that she could hardly expect it to be so!"
rebecca saw at once that her landlady was in one of her fits of garrulousness, so she concluded in consequence that there would not be much pleasure in her dinner to-day. she passed it untasted and went upstairs wearily. there was a certain grim comfort in thinking that she had left mrs. mcgoldrick with her harangue unfinished and a great longing upon her to be talking.... she flung herself upon the bed in the still untidied room. she was weary with some great, immeasurable weariness this blessed evening.... her corset hurt her, and she sat up again to take it off. she caught sight of herself reflected in the mirror opposite.... how worn she looked! her brows, with their even curves, did not take from the desolation that had fallen upon her forehead, where it was grown harder as beneath the blows of some tyrannic thought. and it seemed as if the same thought had plowed all the lines which were beginning to appear there now.... it must be that she had long since entered into a mood of mourning for the things she had lost in the valley.
she fell to remembering the first evening she had come to it, and of how she had begun to play with her beauty on that very first evening. it had appeared then as the only toy in her possession in this place of dreary[pg 215] immensity. and now it seemed to have run through many and sudden vicissitudes. she had allowed ulick shannon to play with it too.... but his language had been so sweet when he had praised her in the silent woods.... and in the lonely cottage in donegal, where he had gone to see her after christmas, there had been abiding joy, while outside the night swept wild and dark upon the cold, gray sea.... here there came sudden qualms as to whether she had helped to ruin him by taking him away from preparation for his final exam. but there was such an urge of dear remembrance upon her that her mind sprang quickly back again to all the thoughts they had had between them then.... back into her mind too were thronging the exact words he had used upon that night they had spent together in the cottage.
and by the side of all this, was it not queer that he came so seldom to see her now although he lived distant from her by only a few fields? even when he came their partings were so abrupt, after a little period of strained conversation, when he always went with a slight excuse in his mouth to garradrimna. yet all the time she longed for his presence by her side with an even greater longing than that she had experienced in donegal.... it was also painfully notable how he gave shifty answers to her every question. and had she not a good right to be asking him questions now?... and surely he must guess by this time.
she threw her head back upon the pillow once more, and once more she was weeping. she thought, through the mist of her tears, of how she had so bitterly wept upon the first evening of her coming to this room. but[pg 216] on that evening also she had prayed, and she could not pray now. nor could she sleep. she remained there upon the bed, inert in every sense save for her empty stare up at the discolored ceiling. it was broken only by the queer smile she would take to herself ever and again.... at last she began to count upon her fingers. she was simply counting the number of times she had seen ulick since his return to his uncle's house.
"oh, dear, dear, and what have i done to him?" she muttered incessantly, biting her lips occasionally between her words as if in a very ecstasy of desire for the pain he was causing her.... there came moments, winged and clean like shining angels, to bring her comfort, when she wildly fancied it was the very loveliest thing to endure great pain for his sake.
but the powers of her mind for any wild gladness were being gradually annihilated by dark thoughts coming down to defeat her thoughts of beauty. she turned from contemplation of the ceiling and began to glance around the room in search of some distraction. in one corner she saw an old novelette thrown aside in its gaudy covers. the reading of rubbish was mrs. mcgoldrick's recreation when she was not sewing or nursing the baby.
she had called the girls after heroines of passionate love-stories, just as her husband, the sergeant, had seen that the boys were called after famous men in the world of the police. thus the girls bore names like euphemia mcgoldrick and clementina mcgoldrick, while the boys bore names like john ross mcgoldrick and neville chamberlain mcgoldrick. the girls, although they were ugly and ill-mannered, had already been invested with the golden lure of romance, and the boys were already[pg 217] policemen although they were still far distant from the age when they could put on a belt or a baton.
rebecca began to snatch at paragraphs here and there through the story, which was entitled the desecration of the hearth. there was one passage which seemed to hold an unaccountable fascination as her eyes lingered over it:
"then suddenly, and without a minute's warning, lord archibald molyneux dashed the poor, ruined girl from him, and soon she was struggling for life in the swirling stream.
"'ah-a-ha!' he said once more, hissing out his every word between his thin, cruel lips. 'that will may be put an end to your scandalous allegations against a scion of the noble house of molyneux.'
"'mercy! pity! oh, god! the child!' she wailed piteously as she felt herself being caught in the maelstrom of the current.
"but lord archibald molyneux merely twirled his dark, handsome mustache with his white hands, after the fashion that was peculiar to him, and waited until his unfortunate victim had disappeared completely beneath the surface of the water."
rebecca's eyes had closed over the passage, and she was dozing now, but only fitfully.... to occupy small instants would come the most terrifying dreams in long waves of horror which would seem to take great spaces of time for their final passage from her mind. then there would flow in a brief space of respite, but only as a prelude to the dread recurrence of her dreams again.[pg 218] and all jumbled together, bits of wild reality which were and were not parts of her experience would cause her to start up ever and anon.
there fell a knock upon the door, and a little girl came in with some tea-things on a tray. she called: "miss kerr, your tea!" and when rebecca woke up with a terrible start it appeared as if she had not slumbered at all.
"oh, is that yourself, euphemia? i declare to goodness the dusk is falling outside. i must have been sleeping."
"yes, miss!"
"you are late in coming this evening?"
"well, wait till i tell you, miss. i went into the village for some things for my mother, and what d'ye think but when i was coming home i thought i saw a strange man just outside the ditch opposite the door, and i was afraid for to pass, so i was."
"a strange man! is that a fact?"
"well, sure then i thought, miss, it might be ulick shannon, but i may tell you i got the surprise of my life when i found it was only john brennan, and he standing there alone by himself looking up at your window."
long before she had got through it, with many lisps and lapses, rebecca was wearied by the triteness of the little one's statement, so well copied was it from the model of her mother's gossipy communication of the simplest fact.
but what could john brennan be doing there so near her again? this was the thought that held rebecca as she went on with an attempt to take her tea.
