Louise remained alone, sick at heart. What had she done? Had she brought upon this poor lad, in return for his worship of her, actual bodily injury even before the keener pain that was to follow? The dignified letter of dismissal and farewell she had been meditating all day became suddenly inadequate. She must ask his pardon and break to him very gently the hard sentence of renunciation and separation. Keen remorse took hold of her as she remembered his gentle ways with the sick and suffering, his strength and wisdom, when fighting against disease and death. Oh that she had never come across his path, or that she had had a mother or friend to warn her of the dangerous precipice to which she was unconsciously leading him. What could she do now? She could not write to him, not knowing into what hands the letter might fall. She could not leave him to hear by chance next day of her departure. It was growing dark, and there was no time to lose. She would go to his house, and at all events leave a message for him. It was hardly a mile away, and she was not likely to meet anyone on the road. The low terraced hills looked bleak and dreary, a watery sky above them. The pale sunset gleams were reflected in the pools of water on the roadside, not yet absorbed into the light limestone soil. The straggling one-sided street forming the entrance to Cloon looked more squalid than usual, the houses more wretched under their grass-grown thatch, the gleam and ring from the smithy the only touch of light and sound that relieved their gloom. Louise Eden walked up the little path to the Doctor's house, and, knocking at the door, asked the old woman who appeared for news of her master. "Indeed, he's the one way always," was the reply; "no better and no worse since they brought him and laid him on the bed. You'd pity him to see him lying there, me fine boy." "Will you give him a message from me?" asked Louise. "Will you say I have come to ask how he is, and to say good-bye, as I am going back to England?" "He'll be sorry for that, indeed," said the old woman. "Sure, you'd best go up and see him yourself." "Oh, no," said Louise, shrinking back, "unless--his life is not in danger, I hope?" "Danger, is it," echoed old Mamie, indignantly, though not without a momentary glance of uneasiness. "Why would he be in danger? Sure he wasn't so much hurted as that. He bled hardly at all only for a little cut on the head, and sure he has all he wants, and a nurse coming from Dublin and one of the nuns sitting with him now. It'd be a bad job if he was in danger, only twenty-four year old, and having such a nice way of living, and, indeed, he has the prayers of the poor. Go up the stairs and see him--here's his reverence coming, and might want me," she continued, as a car stopped at the gate.