course of events to the point where, two months before, the discovery of a dozen gold platters and as many drinking vessels, embedded in a bog in the County Tyrone, had turned the eyes of the archæological world upon Ireland; and he, with other students of antiquity, had been bitten with the desire to see the unique and priceless objects for himself.

The journey to Tyrone had been a pleasant experience; and it was there, under the mild exaltation of the genuine find, that it had suddenly been suggested to his mind that certain ancient ruins, including a remarkable specimen of the Irish round tower, were to be found on the south-east coast not three miles from the property of his old college friend.

Whether it was the archaeological instinct to resurrect the past, or the merely human wish to re-live his own small portion of it, that had prompted him to write to Asshlin must remain an open question. It is sufficient that the letter was written and dispatched and that the answer came in hot haste.

It had reached him in the form of a telegram running as follows: "Come at once, and stay for a year. Stagnating to death in this isolation. Asshlin." An hour later another, and a more voluminous message, had followed, in which—as if by an after-thought—he had been given the necessary directions as to the means of reaching Orristown.

It was at the point where his musings reached Asshlin's telegrams that he awakened from his reverie and looked about him. For the first time a personal interest in the country through which he was passing stirred him. He realised that the salt sting of the sea had again begun to mingle with the night mist, and judged thereby that the road had again emerged upon the coast. He noticed that the hedges had become sparser; that wherever a tree loomed out of the dusk it bore the mark of the sea gales in a certain grotesqueness of shape.

This was the isolation of which Asshlin had spoken!

With an impulse extremely uncommon to him, he turned in his seat and addressed the silent old coachman beside him.

"Has your master altered much in thirty years?" he asked.

There was silence for a while. Old Burke, with the deliberation of his class, liked to weigh his words before giving them utterance.

"Is it Mister Dinis changed?" he repeated at last. Then almost immediately he corrected himself. "Sure, 'tis Mister Asshlin I ought to be sayin', sir. But the ould name slips out. Though the poor master is gone these twenty-nine year—the Lord have mercy on him!—I can niver git it into me head that 'tis to Mister Dinis we ought to be lookin'."

More than once during his brief stay in Ireland, Milbanke had been confronted with this annihilation of time in the Irish mind, and Burke's statement aroused no surprise.

"Has he changed?" he asked again in his dry, precise voice.

Burke was silent while the mare pulled hard on the reins. And having regained his mastery over her, he looked down on his companion.

"Is it changed?" he said. "Sure, why wouldn't he be changed? With the father gone—an' the wife gone—an' the children growin' up. Sure 'tis changed we all are, an' goin' down the hill fast—God help us!"

Milbanke glanced up sharply.

"Children?" he said. "Children?"

Burke turned in his seat.

"Sure 'tisn't to have the ould stock die out you'd be wantin'?" he said. "You'd travel the round of the county before you'd see the like of Mister Dinis's children—though 'tis girls they are."

"Girls?" Milbanke's mind was disturbed by the thought of children. Denis Asshlin with children! The idea was incongruous.

"Two of 'em!" said Burke laconically.

"Dear me!—dear me! And yet I suppose it's only natural. How old are they?"

Burke flicked the mare lightly, and the trap lurched forward.

"Miss Clodagh is turned fifteen," he said, "and the youngster is goin' on ten. 'Twas ten year back, come next December, that she was born. Sure I remimber it well. An' six weeks after, Mister Dinis was followin' her poor mother to the churchyard beyant in Carrigmore. The Lord keep us all! 'Twas she was the nice, quiet creature, and Miss Nance is the livin' stamp of her. But God bless us, 'tis Miss Clodagh that's her father's child." He added this last remark with a force that at the time conveyed nothing, though it was destined to recur later to Milbanke's mind.

"But your master?" the stranger repeated. The momentary diversion of the children had ceased to hold him. Again the vision of Asshlin—Asshlin the impetuous hero of past days—had risen intangible, mirage-like and yet compelling from his native stretch of rugged country.

But Burke made no reply. All his energies were directed to the guiding of the mare down a steep incline. For a space Milbanke was conscious of a dangerously accelerated pace; then the white piers of a large gate sped past them, and he was aware of the black shadow of overhanging trees.

Something unusual, something faintly prophetic and only vaguely comprehended, touched his prosaic nature at that moment. He was entering on a new phase of life. Without conscious preparation he was to see the world from a new point of view. With a fresh spur of anxious curiosity, he turned again to Burke.

"But your master?" he asked. "Has he changed much? Will I see a great alteration?"

For an added space the old man remained mute, while he piloted the trap up the sweep of avenue, with that irresistible desire for a fine finish that animates every Irish driver. Then, as they spun round the final curve, as the great square house loomed out of the mist, he replied without slackening his vigilance.

"Is it changed?" he repeated half to himself. "Sure, if the Almighty doesn't change a man in thirty year, it stands to rason that the divil must."

CHAPTER II

To English ears the reply was curious. Yet with all its vagueness, all its racial inclination towards high colour, it held the germ of truth that frequently lies in such utterances. With native acuteness it threw out a suggestion, without betraying a confidence.

An instant after it was spoken, there was a final flourish of the whip, a scrape of wheels on the wet gravel, a straining and creaking of damp leather, and the trap drew up before the big white house. Milbanke caught a fleeting suggestion of a shabby door with pillars on which rested a square balcony of rusty iron, a number of unlighted windows, a general air of grandeur and decay curiously blended. Then the hall door opened, and a voice, whose first note roused a hundred memories, rolled out across the darkness.

"Is that you, James? Come in!—come in! Keep the mare in hand, Burke. Steady, now, James! Let me hold the rug and give you a hand down. She's a little rogue, and might be making a bolt for her stable. Well, you're as welcome as the flowers in May! Come in!—come in!"

It was over in a flash—the arrival, the tempestuous greeting, the hard grip of Asshlin's hand; and the two men were facing each other in the candle-lit hall.

"Well, you're welcome, James!" Asshlin repeated. "You're welcome! Let me have a look at you. I declare it's younger you are!"

He laid his hand heavily on the other's shoulder, and uttered this obvious untruth with all the warmth and conviction that Irish imagination and Irish hospitality could suggest.

"But you're perished after the long drive! Burke!" he called through the open door. "Burke, when you're done with the mare come round and carry up Mr. Milbanke's baggage. Now, James!" He wheeled round again, catching up a silver candlestick from the hall table. "Now, if you come upstairs, I'll show you where we're going to billet you."

With long, hasty steps he crossed the hall, his tall figure casting gaunt shadows on the bare and lofty wall.

"We're a trifle unsophisticated here," he went on with a loud, hard laugh. "But at least we'll give you enough to eat and a bed to lie on. After all, a decent dinner and a warm welcome are the bone and