But I was in some part to solve the mystery that evening, for this time Mrs. Slaney had arranged to leave the hall door on the latch. Our visitor must have come in unheard and gone upstairs. Mrs. Slaney, strangely enough, was spending the evening in our rooms, and had brought down, as far as I remember, a tray with coffee things on. When she proposed retiring, I carried this up for her, and going ahead into the sitting-room, found there, in a corner by the fire as if he had been warming his hands at it, and still with his overcoat on, the mysterious visitor. He looked round like an animal caught in a trap, and then he said good night in answer to my good night. I was only a moment putting the tray down and going. I tell this story because this man’s advent was to be my downfall later on. I did not then know who he was; but his identity leaked out in time. He bore the most picturesque name in Ireland--Darrel Figgis--and he wore the most romantic beard. He looked like some mediæval personage stepped out of a picture. He was a novelist, a poet, a dramatic critic, and other things. Not very long before he had been nearly hanged at a drumhead court-martial held by some irresponsible, and it was whispered among the philistines that he went about the country afterwards selling pieces of the true rope. He was not one of the recognised Sinn Fein leaders; but he had been fairly prominent in the cause, doing propaganda work, and he had been imprisoned. There was only one such beard as his in Dublin--his own--and it was said he refused to part with it, even when he went on the run, although by so doing he added materially to the chances of capture. He visited us three or four nights, and then departed as unostentatiously as he came. So every day brought its new event, and the weeks stalked by in grim procession. Early in November, the execution of Kevin Barry caused another of those demonstrations, which revealed the national temper. On the bleak morning a vast crowd gathered in the yard of Mountjoy Prison and recited the Rosary, standing and kneeling together some time before the execution, and continuing in prayer until the hour of execution was passed, when they quietly withdrew. Since his capture in the skirmish outside the King Street bakery, Kevin Barry, who was a medical student, eighteen years old, had joined the number of national heroes. He was young, he was a soldier of the Republic, it was repeated everywhere that he had been tortured by the British military authorities, and in spite of his treatment he had refused to speak. The nation set itself with a will to the making of this new hero. “Splendid!” declared Mrs. Slaney, returning from her baby club. “You should have been there this afternoon to hear those mites singing of Kevin Barry. We all helped to teach them, and they picked up music and words at once. Where, but in Ireland, would you find such quick children?”