Part 23

"Next year," said Darby. Through the dreariness of futurity came a glow bright as that of the unexpected gallop. He had come to the moment when he had to chain sorrow, lest it should surprise him by running away. Life with Gheena would have been too hard a thing in its inequality.

"Next year, when Gheena is married, who will want to keep up the scratch pack?" he said slowly.

They could look down on the budding woods of Darby's old home--a sea of tender green, with the smoke from the chimneys filming blurrily in the clear air. They could see the glitter and ripple of sea, and far out the grey-green roll of unsheltered waters.

The old country, the old grey-skied land, had cast its glamour upon the girl. She wanted to live there among the childish, thriftless, and yet industrious people, who carried young hearts to their graves--where order and law did not count, and what ought to be done to-day could always be done to-morrow. And to her, Darby, limping, crippled, was man apart, perfect when he rode, seemingly part of his horses, the hunter of the hounds; every note in his voice, every look in his kind eyes, were dear to Psyche.

She must go back to trim order, to neat servants who toasted muffins admirably, but could not "slap" up cakes at five minutes' notice; to breakfast at eight-thirty and lunch at one; to sewing parties and small talk; to frigid douches of cold water thrown at that dreadful country, Ireland--a rebels' land, a land of law-breakers; to hear that hunting was not right in war times.

With her whole heart crying for the lap of the sea, for the tangle of the humping hills, the brown of the bogs, she must go.

"If I were here," she whispered, "I should want to----" She muttered something of her rebellious objection to returning to Kent.

Darby saw the glint of tears under the thick lashes.

"If you could stay to hunt hounds with me, little Sprite!"

"Oh, if I could!"

Darby looked again. He had heard and seen several things which amazed him. He knew suddenly how he would miss the small pale face out hunting, the shining eyes which he saw whenever he looked over his shoulder; the admiration in them which he had never dreamt of seeing in any girl's again.

"Sprite, Sprite, you could not want to stay with Darby Dillon, who will limp through his life?"

Sorrow rolled up as mists caught by the sun. He knew now why he had felt Gheena's loss so lightly.

"Since you peered over my shoulder," he said unsteadily, "and tallied the squirrel, I think then..."

"Ever since you blew at the hounds," said Psyche. "If you would keep me here always, Darby!"

Andy, unseen, rode the Rat into view and remarked: "There's for ye now, an' the fox earthed," and rode out of view again thoughtfully.

"The sorra a dog will go home this day," he said to Barty; "so we'll be bilin' agin to-night, an' me name is not Andy."

But Andy said nothing of what he had seen. He was a gentleman.

Even as Andy said, the pack returned to kennels, Darby riding among them through the hot sunshine; the old house looked lonely to him no longer. Already his crippled limb seemed to grow stronger, and as they rode he planned.

The Castle Freyne motor was at the door, Dearest George remarking peevishly that he had come over to look for Miss Delorme, who really must not disappear before breakfast-time, the result being leathery bacon, as he no longer used the copper heaters.

Gheena came swinging round from the stables with Stafford, Crabbit at their heels. The two matched well, even if Basil Stafford still looked pale, and knew now that the old hurt reopened by the wound would not heal for six months.

"Gheena," said George Freyne, "talks now of being married next month. It seems to me heartless, Darby. And your Aunt, Mona, wishes you to return to Kent. She is suffering from nerves. She has written to me."

Miss Delorme said briefly that she was not going.

"But if Dearest George advises it----" said Mrs. Freyne vaguely.

Gheena ran up to them. "Dearest is dreadfully upset," she said. "It's Lancelot and Miss O'Toole. She is going to marry him. It isn't nonsense, Dearest, she will."

From Dearest George's next remark he seemed to think all matrimony nonsense, especially between unsuitable young people.

"And Miss Delorme's aunt insists," he repeated; "she is guardian or something joint. She insists, she says so."

"I shall not go," said Psyche.

George Freyne started the car gloomily.

"Because I am going to stay here with Darby," said Psyche softly--"always."

THE END

_Printed at The Chapel River Press, Kingston, Surrey._