At meal times Jack was nearly always gloomy and preoccupied, or if he was gay his merriment was evidently forced. Between meals he went for long, lonely tramps, and constantly those two perpendicular lines wrinkled his forehead. Strangest of all, he seemed to avoid The Ghan House, and Paddy was no longer his constant companion. “Could we ask him, do you think, sister?” little Miss Mary suggested timidly. But Miss Jane shook her head mournfully. They were feeling rather as the hen who has reared ducklings when they first take to water. This docile, careless-hearted, affectionate boy they had reared, had suddenly become a man, and in one stride passed beyond their tender, watchful care. Illness and weakness alone could ever bring him back as he had been. His troubles, his warfare, his striving, he would henceforth wrestle with alone. Moreover, there was Eileen’s white face and deeply shadowed eyes also. Nothing was said—what was there to say? Only anxious, watchful nights and yearning pain for another mother, whose fledgling was feeling the first cold blast of Life’s sorrow. Mrs Adair’s abundant hair, that had been turning grey of late, seemed to go white suddenly in those weeks that followed the dance. She had borne so much; from a very early age Life had held the cup of pain to her lips, and she had tried to drink and ask no questions. But now, it seemed to her that she had met the hardest blow of all. Eileen was all the world to her. Long ago, when life was full of sadness in spite of her good husband and beautiful home—for the sake of the man whose blood had stained the ground on that far-off Afghan frontier, Eileen’s baby face had come as her first real comforter, and been life and joy and sweetness to her ever since. Perhaps it was a vague, inward consciousness of this that made the father’s heart turn with equal devotion to his high-spirited, boisterous second daughter; while never swerving for a moment from his devotion to her mother. But now Eileen’s cheeks grew white, and her beautiful eyes developed an expression of quiet suffering that went to her mother’s heart as little else could have done, and made Paddy rage inwardly. Until Lawrence had gone away again, and the old routine recommenced, she had not known how much she had thought of him during his three years’ absence. All that time she had cared for him secretly, though she had hardly admitted it to herself. Then when he came, and again sought her before all others, and gave her of the best of his charm, it was only as the match needed for the whole to burst into flame. Vanishing once more, in silence and suddenness, he had left her with all her dreams and hopes and happiness scattered broadcast at her feet. There were moments when she could not understand, when even her mountains and sky and sea could do nothing to soothe the whirlpool of conflicting emotions in her heart.