"It's clear that you are not an Irishman!" he declared. "I've been away for over ten years. I can just breathe this air, wander about on the beach here, walk on that moorland, watch the sea, poke about amongst my old ruins, send for the priest and talk to him, get my tenants together and hear what they have to say--I can do these things, Crawshay, and breathe the atmosphere of it all down into my lungs and be content. It's just Ireland--that's all.--You hurry back to your own bloated, over-rich, smoke-disfigured, town-ruined country, and spend your money on restaurants and theatres if you want to. You're welcome." Sir Denis' words sounded convincing enough, but his companion only smiled as he brought his car out of a dilapidated coach-house, from amidst the ruins of a score of carriages. "All the same," he observed, as he leaned over and shook hands with his host, "I should never be surprised to come across you in that smoke-disfigured den of infamy! Look me up when you come, won't you?" "Certainly," Sir Denis promised. "And--my regards to Nora!" Richard Beverley, after his first embrace, held his sister's hands for a moment and looked into her face. "Why, Katharine," he exclaimed, "London's not agreeing with you! You look pale." She laughed carelessly. "It was the heat last month," she told him. "I shall be all right now. How well you're looking!" "I'm fine," he admitted. "It's a great life, Katharine. I'm kind of worried about you, though." "There is nothing whatever the matter with me," she assured him, "except that I want some work. In a few days' time now I shall have it. I have eighty nurses on the way from the hospital, with doctors and dressers and a complete St. Agnes's outfit. They sailed yesterday, and I shall go across to Havre to meet them." "Good for you!" Richard exclaimed. "Say, Katharine, what about lunch?" "You must be starving," she declared. "We'll go down and have it. I feel better already, Dick. I think I must have been lonely." They went arm in arm down-stairs and lunched cheerfully. Towards the end of the meal, he asked the question which had been on his lips more than once. "Heard anything of Jocelyn Thew?" "Not a word." Richard sighed thoughtfully. "What a waste!" he exclaimed. "A man like that ought to be doing great things. Katharine, you ought to have seen their faces when they searched me and found I was only carrying out a packet of old love letters, and it dawned upon them that he'd got away with the goods! I wonder if they ever caught him." "Shouldn't we have heard of it?" she asked. "Not necessarily. If he'd been caught under certain circumstances, he might have been shot on sight and we should never have heard a word. Not that that's likely, of course," he went on, suddenly realising her pallor. "What a clumsy ass I am, Katharine! We should have heard of it one way or another.--Do you see who's sitting over there in a corner?" Katharine looked across the room and shook her head.