7 
 
 /Y-,
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 OF CALIF. LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES
 
 You are pleased ? ' " 
 
 [Page 268.]
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 BY 
 FRANK DANBY 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE HEART OF A CHILD, 
 " PIGS IN CLOVER," ETC. 
 
 
 / bad thought la bear thi ibildren laugh with thini own Hue eyes. 
 But my terrovt'i voice is silent wbire my life' 1 ! Itve lies. 
 
 Let the rtof fall 'n, let silence en the home ftr ever fall, 
 Where my lust son lay and beard nit bis lone mother's call. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 NEW YORK 
 
 1910
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 Published, October. 1910
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE weather was cold, the sky overcast, there had been 
 several short, sharp showers of rain, and the prospect 
 of a pleasant day's racing was not even problematic. 
 The stand at Sandown would be half empty, and the difficulty 
 of spotting winners, always great enough in the jumping season, 
 would be doubled by the heaviness of the going. 
 
 Lady Carrie Carthew had been talking about the weather 
 since nine o'clock, when her maid had called her. It was 
 still the subject of her conversation when, at eleven, she walked 
 to the window and decided it would be quite absurd to venture out. 
 She had had her morning appetizer of rum and milk, followed 
 by a cigarette, she had read her letters, torn up her bills, and 
 yawned over her papers. Four or five dresses had been taken 
 out of the wardrobe, and replaced, discarded definitely for the 
 occasion. She had intended all along to wear the new brown 
 cloth with her sables, and the wallflower toque. But what was 
 the good of dressing-up on a day like this ? From the window in 
 Charles Street she had a side glimpse into Berkeley Square, 
 and in Berkeley Square it was miserable enough, the moist 
 air clung like gray fog to the leafless trees, and dripped from 
 brown boughs on to the sodden grass. It would be worse still 
 in the country, slopping across the Park through the grass to the 
 ill-protected stand, spending the rest of the day with shoes and 
 stockings damp and feet cold, shivering while the horses pa- 
 raded, watching them through obscured field-glasses as they 
 jumped, or fell short, the colors indistinguishable, and the 
 result in doubt until the numbers went up. 
 
 1 
 
 2129451
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Lady Carrie loved a day's racing, and had, in fact, insisted 
 that Lord Ranmore should fetch her in the car and drive her 
 down. But the weather made it impossible. She gazed out of 
 the window, doubted, shivered, and was glad of her warm 
 feignoir. 
 
 "You can put away all those clothes, Marie; I shall stop at 
 home," she decided at last, abruptly. "Get me my writing- 
 case and the telephone book. Tell Mrs. Batson we shall be 
 four or five to lunch, and she must see there are plenty of hot 
 cakes for tea. I shall have bridge here; it is the only thing to 
 do in such weather." 
 
 She turned away from the window. The warm bedroom, 
 with all its comfortable disarray, appealed to her senses, and 
 now she sank luxuriously on to the sofa, happy in her decision. 
 
 That was the moment when the big car turned into the 
 Square, and, with its familiar toot-toot, and the soft splash of 
 its tires in the fluid mud, drew up before the house. 
 
 "Ranmore must give it up," she said to herself comfortably. 
 "It isn't as if he were going to ride Montserrat. The idiotic 
 clairvoyante put a stopper on that. I shall want Betty Brin- 
 more for a fourth, I suppose Betty is one of the party." 
 
 Any doubt on that score was quickly set at rest, for the car 
 had hardly stopped, the engine still making its unholy noise 
 before the door, when Betty Brinmore herself, having discarded 
 ceremony many years ago, and never found time to recapture 
 it, burst into the room without knocking. 
 
 "Not dressed yet! what a sluggard you are! But it's just 
 what I expected! You '11 have to hurry up all you know. Look 
 sharp, Marie, and put her ladyship into some waterproof 
 togs. ..." 
 
 "Don't be foolish, Bet! Of course I'm not going; it's too 
 wet. Ranmore isn't going to ride, the ground will be nothing 
 but a bog, there won't be a soul there. ..." 
 
 "Oh, don't talk! you've got to come. Ranmore 's outside 
 with the car. The horses will be there, won't they? I'm 
 going to see Montserrat win the Grand Military if it blows a 
 blizzard. A little rain won't hurt you, put on thick boots and 
 
 2
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 leggings. There will be some ripping good racing, I can tell 
 you, and it will be a near thing between Gabriel and Mont- 
 serrat, anyway. Do hurry! I want to have a good look at 
 them before lunch, and the first race is at one." 
 
 Betty Brinmore had a house near Ascot, where Carrie always 
 stayed for the week. She was also the possessor, through her 
 husband, of a hunting-box at Melton, a grouse-moor, and a 
 large amount of more-or-less exclusive racing information. 
 Carrie valued her friendship, and all that was to be had out of 
 it. Betty would hardly have called their intercourse friendship, 
 it was not a word that fitted Lady Carrie; but they were inti- 
 mate enemies. Their tastes and pursuits were similar, and 
 they hunted pastime in couples. Betty 's was the franker nature; 
 she was also good-natured. Carrie had persuaded her that 
 Lord Ranmore's attentions were serious. Well, she had 
 brought Ranmore, or Ranmore had brought her, to fetch 
 Carrie for Sandown; and Carrie would have to come. She 
 did not want to be alone with three or four men. Jim de la 
 Roche was in the car, and he was enough for her. Carrie must 
 help in entertaining the others. 
 
 Lady Carrie did not want to go to Sandown in the wet; she 
 wanted to stay at home and play bridge. But she could not 
 afford to throw away her chances; the insistence of Betty and 
 the call of that puffing, straining car outside were inexorable. 
 A day with Ranmore, too, ought not to be missed, she knew it 
 well enough. She protested, but her protests were perfunctory. 
 She was despoiled of her comfortable peignoir and laced into a 
 tweed frock, before she had finished asseverating that she did 
 not intend to move; that she was just writing to Dot, and Jenny 
 Ransom to come and play bridge; that she did not believe 
 there would be any racing, and she was sure, if there were, 
 all the favorites would get beaten. 
 
 Betty took little heed of her protestations.: 
 
 "Go on, Marie, hook her up as quickly as you can. It 
 doesn't really matter what you put on her, she won't be with- 
 out her coat on a day like this. You don't want that footling 
 motor- veil" Carrie was endeavoring to secure herself from 
 
 3
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 wind and weather "the car is shut up. Come on, we can do 
 it in an hour if there are no police-traps. Terence drove it 
 round himself. He has his cousin with him, Derrick Malone; 
 such a fine fellow; twice the size of Terence. Terence says he 
 is a 'black Ranmore,' whatever that may mean. He has just 
 passed an examination and got some appointment. Terence 
 is making no end of a fuss about him. He is about six feet two, 
 green from Belfast, and with a brogue you could cut with a 
 knife. Do come on. Jim is with us. He is riding in the 
 first race. Hurry, hurry, hurry!" 
 
 Betty Brinmore, who had been Betty Carew, was not used 
 to being contradicted. She was impatient under it, and had 
 no hesitation in pressing her point. She wanted to talk to 
 Jim. With the car there were Ranmore, and his cousin Der- 
 rick, and Noel Scales, as well as Jim. Carrie could not leave 
 her in the lurch with them all. Carrie did not see what Bet 
 found in Jim de la Roche, he had only his pay, and no conver- 
 sation except about racing. But then Bet could never under- 
 stand what Terence Ranmore found in Lady Carrie Carthew, 
 and this mental attitude, with the concealment of it from one 
 another, was typical of the two women 's relations. 
 
 Carrie and Bet were neighbors at Melton. They were neigh- 
 bors, too, in town, where neighborhood counts for nothing. 
 You live either in May fair, or out of it. Charles Street was in 
 the area, and there Carrie had set up her Lares and Penates 
 when her husband's sudden death had freed her. But Berkeley 
 Square was only a stone 's-throw away, and fundamentally 
 there was no distinction in the distance. 
 
 Lord Ranmore was standing on the pavement- when the two 
 ladies emerged from the house. If he were as impatient as 
 Betty had said, he certainly disguised it well. But then, Terence, 
 Lord Ranmore, was remarkable for his pretty manners, in an 
 age when, among a certain set of people, it was considered 
 good form not only to have no manners, but to cultivate frank, 
 rude speech. Terence was an Irishman, and Ranmore Castle 
 is not far distant from Cork, near where the Blarney-stone is to 
 be found.
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "And wasn't it worth while waiting for her?" he answered 
 Bet, who complained the delay. "Let me present my cousin 
 to you, Lady Carrie. It 's the broth of a boy he is, and he only 
 speaks Irish." 
 
 When Lord Ranmore took his hat off to greet them, and 
 stood with it in his hand until they were both in the car, one 
 could see that the red-gold wave of his hair would have clustered 
 into curls had the regulations permitted it. He had a dimple 
 in his cheek like a girl, that showed when he laughed, and Ter- 
 ence laughed often, then his blue eyes twinkled, and he had a 
 trick of half closing them. He was quite extraordinarily good- 
 looking, and all his five feet nine were perfect in carriage and 
 proportion. Deny was a rough-hewn giant beside him, and 
 could not be said to have any manners at all at least, the in- 
 troduction hardly held his attention: 
 
 "Can I really drive the car all the way down, Terence? 
 You'll trust it with me, and you'll not be wanting the chauffeur 
 at all?" He had all a boy's eagerness, although he was nearly 
 twenty-four, and so big. Terence had driven it round himself, 
 with Deny beside him, and the chauffeur sitting on the step. 
 But it was raining, and now, that there were two ladies, Terence 
 would surely be wanting to talk to them. 
 
 "It will be a fine drive," he went on excitedly, hardly noticing 
 Lady Carrie Carthew, who was good to look upon, neverthe- 
 less; or so Ranmore told her, giving Deny a cheery word of 
 warning or advice, and following her into the car. The car was 
 a new one, and this was the first day it had been out. Derry 
 thought it was wonderful of Terence to entrust it to him. But 
 when wasn't Terence kind to him? 
 
 "I had all the trouble in the world to get Carrie to dress," 
 Bet told Terence when they had started. Derry, very proud 
 in his position on the box, had his hand on the whistle all the 
 time. 
 
 Carrie put her gloved fingers to her delicate ears. "Tell 
 him not so much whistle, please, I want to talk. I was so 
 disappointed when I saw in this morning's paper that you were 
 not going to ride Montserrat. That is why I was not ready 
 
 5
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 when Bet came for me. I hated going to the Grand Military 
 if I was not to see you ride," Carrie said, smiling sweetly at 
 Terence, as if the weather had had nothing to do with her 
 hesitation, and bridge held no allurement. 
 
 "But I told you that yesterday!" He flushed a little; his skin 
 was as fair as a girl's. "Jim here has the mount, and he'll do 
 it full justice. I've put you a tenner on. As for Bet, I believe 
 it's bankruptcy and the poor-house she'll face, if it doesn't get 
 home. It ought to be a good thing; it's as near a certainty for 
 us as anything can be." 
 
 Jim de la Roche was the best gentleman-jockey in England, 
 and Sir Noel Scales was another Irishman whose most salient 
 feature was a knowledge of Ruff. Form and odds were the 
 topics all the way down, and Betty did most of the talking. 
 Lady Carrie was occupied, as ever when she was in Lord 
 Ranmore's company, in trying to look her best, although her 
 good looks were but a poor thing compared with his. Her 
 strong point was her fair hair; she spent many hours of the 
 day in its tendance. It was pale fawn-color, it was waved 
 daily by the best hair-dresser in London, and washed with white 
 of egg and champagne. Whatever the fashion of the moment 
 in hats, she would wear none large enough to cover it. She had 
 a trim and pretty figure, and rather a plaintive manner, which 
 she used for all it was worth. She called Lord Ranmore, 
 Terence, and paraded her intimacy with him. She dropped a 
 word or two now and again into the midst of the racing talk, to 
 demonstrate to Bet and the other men that she was familiar 
 with Lord Ranmore's movements yesterday, and the day before. 
 This was part of her method. Jim and Sir Noel knew all about 
 it. Everybody knew that Harry Carthew's widow wanted to 
 marry Terence Ranmore. Odds had been laid against her 
 bringing it off. 
 
 Terence's sister was the Duchess of Towcester, and Terence 
 was devoted to her. When the odds on, or against, Lady Carrie 
 Carthew succeeding in her project were discussed, it was always 
 the Duchess and her influence that threw them against Carrie. 
 There was Lady Ranmore, too, to reckon with, Terence's 
 
 6
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 mother. He was as a young sun-god in his mother's eyes; she 
 would never find mortal woman fit to wed with him. Wasn't he 
 the heir to all the Ranmores, seventeen generations of them, and 
 an epitome of the whole of Irish history? Wasn't he the head 
 of the family, to say nothing of being the apple of her eye and 
 his sister's? Certainly Carrie's chances if they depended at all 
 on Terence's family, looked very poor indeed. 
 
 The young sun-god was not quite in his best spirits to-day. 
 His laughter rang out less often, or rang less gaily than usual. 
 The twinkling eyes and the dimple suffered something of an 
 eclipse. Before now Carrie had amused Terence, but her 
 rallying to-day seemed to have little effect. 
 
 Lady Carrie had tact, she did not ask what ailed him; she 
 thought it was easy enough to guess. He was in the habit of 
 consulting clairvoyantes before he went for a day's racing; and 
 yesterday he had been warned he must not ride Montserrat for 
 the Grand Military. Carrie knew that Terence was in debt and 
 needed money. Lady Ranmore was spending her jointure, and 
 all her private fortune, in repairing the castle and improving the 
 estate. But there was not much left over for new motor-cars 
 and polo ponies, ill-luck at racing and cards, and Carrie's own 
 insatiable needs. Terence wanted the money he would have 
 won over Montserrat if he had ridden him. There was no use 
 looking further for the cause of the cloud that was temporarily 
 passing over his brightness. 
 
 Carrie was really too much wrapped up in herself to regard 
 very seriously the absence of Terence's usual high spirits. She 
 thought she held him safely perhaps she accepted his glumness 
 as a further proof of it. For, whatever his sentiments might 
 have been two years ago, when he was new to London and to 
 her, and ready to be pleased with everyone, she knew quite well 
 that to-day there was little sentiment in his feelings for her. 
 Terence had his code of honor, and Lady Carrie had a claim 
 upon him. He would not ignore nor forget her claim, but to-day 
 its insistency now and again irritated him. Who could guess 
 that he was haunted to-day by the sweetest pair of gray eyes, 
 pleading eyes, frightened eyes, eyes that shed tears ? He could 
 
 7
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 not see Carrie's eyes through her veil. They were not Carrie's 
 eyes that were haunting him. 
 
 What had Derry meant by talking to him about Rosaleen 
 before they started? Derry was nothing but a boy a great, 
 overgrown boy, not ripe for love-making. Derry had his way to 
 make in the world, while Rosaleen . . . Well, he didn't 
 want to think about little Rosaleen, nor to hear Derry talk of 
 her. That was why he was riding inside with Carrie and Bet, 
 instead of with Derry on the box. 
 
 Terence, Lord Ranmore, was not the young sun-god his 
 mother thought him. He was, indeed, very human, just a dear, 
 spoiled boy who had always had his own way, and had taken it 
 once too often, perhaps, in a masterful manner. The Duchess 
 saw him with a lesser halo than his mother did, albeit the one he 
 wore before her was bright enough. But although he was not 
 a god, nor quite what they thought him, he had a conscience, and 
 it was pricking, reminding him, worrying him, all during that 
 motor drive to Sandown. 
 
 He was quite gallant to Carrie and paid her compliments, but 
 S2cretly her note irked him a little. If she held him in a chain 
 of roses, to-day the roses had thorns. 
 
 Betty Brinmore went on talking of weights to Jim, as if she 
 were the official handicapper. Sir Noel had his little "Form at 
 a Glance " with him, and helped them to remember performances. 
 Terence easily assimilated his talk to theirs, he was ever adaptable. 
 Lady Carrie's mind remained chiefly intent upon herself, even 
 when she talked to Terence. When the weather brightened, as 
 they approached Esher, she wished she had put on her brown 
 dress; when the rain came down again pitilessly, she was glad 
 she was in tweed. She doubted the fitness of her hat, the stout- 
 ness of her boots, and the resistant quality of her soup$on of 
 rouge. But she continued to show her proprietorship in Terence, 
 and, if she was thinking of herself and her appearance through- 
 out the journey down, secretly longing, perhaps, for her bridge 
 and home-comforts, nobody guessed it least of all Terence, 
 who presently assumed something of his normal gaiety and 
 promised them a fine day. 
 
 8
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Arrived at Sandown, his first care was for Deny. But Deny 
 said he wasn't wet at all, the big mackintosh had protected him. 
 And he had never enjoyed anything so much in his life as driv- 
 ing her down. And wasn't she a grand car, and what would it 
 have been if he had "let her out"? Short as was the walk 
 from the motor to the enclosure, they were all pretty wet through 
 before they reached the shelter of the stand. Terence held his 
 umbrella over Carrie very carefully, as directed, and a very 
 cursory inspection of herself in the glass in the ladies' room 
 assured her that her color had stood, her fringe was still in curl, 
 and there was nothing in the way of her enjoyment, if, indeed, 
 enjoyment were possible under the circumstances. 
 
 Happily, matters improved while they were at lunch, and 
 very little rain fell after racing had begun, although the weather 
 remained for some time dull, gloomy, and uninviting. 
 
 The Duchess had motored all the way from Dunstans. She 
 had heard nothing about the clairvoyante, and fully expected 
 Terence was going to ride Montserrat. She was alone, and 
 would have liked her brother to join her. Neither Carrie 
 Carthew, nor Betty Brinmore, were very congenial to the Duchess 
 of Towcester, Terence's sister. But there was Deny, and the 
 Duchess cared for Deny next to Terence himself. Terence 
 could not leave his party, but he could, and did, persuade his 
 sister to join it. And now he was entirely himself again. 
 
 Derry proved quite a success among the little party. Margaret 
 and Terence ordered him about, and it was easy to see that he 
 worshiped them both, and they loved him. 
 
 Margaret, Duchess of Towcester, had the Ranmore red in her 
 abundant hair, a touch of their persistent brogue in her thin, 
 humorous lips, and all, and more than the family beauty in her 
 blue eyes and ready smile. There was little trace of Ranmore 
 about Derry, although in his way he was no less distinctive. 
 His six feet two made Terence look small, but then Terence's 
 neatness made his cousin look rough, almost unkempt, in his 
 loosely fitting tweeds. The dark hair was thick about the wide 
 brow. There were strength and power in the rugged young face, 
 but there was no beauty. He had engineer's hands, too, a 
 
 9
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 great contrast to Terence's slender "sevens." As for Margaret, 
 her hands and feet were proverbial. Derry was rough-hewn 
 granite beside the delicate terra-cotta of this brother and sister. 
 And he knew it so well. But it was like them to carry him along 
 with them this day, and to have made his rare holiday in London 
 so full and wonderful. He had finished all his examinations, 
 he was off to Siam in another fortnight, to take up his appoint- 
 ment. But Terence and Margaret had been as good to him here 
 as they always were at Ranmore, which they had made him look 
 upon as his own home. He was staying with Terence in his 
 rooms, and Terence had let him drive the new car down. Now 
 there was a day's racing in front of him. 
 
 His good spirits affected them all, and it was a gay luncheon, 
 if a hurried one. Berry's appetite was what Terence called 
 "up to his weight," and the Duchess and Terence and, above 
 all, Betty, enjoyed his Irishisms. 
 
 The rows of chairs in the Club enclosure were unoccupied, 
 and, although a few men in mackintoshes, with race-glasses 
 slung across their sholders, stood about the sodden lawn, and 
 talked in pairs, or in small groups, the scene was desolate in the 
 extreme. The raucous voices of the bookmakers were compara- 
 tively silent in Tattersall's, and the outside public, in the ready- 
 money silver ring, were subdued in laying and backing their 
 fancies. The green course was empty but for a few mounted 
 policemen, it had been cleared for the first race without difficulty. 
 
 The numbers were up when they had finished lunch, and 
 before they had settled down, the thin "field" was straggling to 
 the starting-post. 
 
 Lady Carrie and Bet had the stand to themselves when the 
 men left them, Sir Noel and Jim de la Roche to place their 
 bets, Derry to "see to the car." 
 
 Terence, at the Duchess's request, took her into the paddock 
 to see Montserrat, and talk to the trainer. They made a notice- 
 able pair, and many who saw them together that day, for the 
 last time, turned involuntarily to look at them. It was easy to 
 see the love they bore each other. Terence's face was alive 
 with animation, hers, hardened somewhat by life, for she was 
 
 10
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 five years older than he, and a wife in name only, softened 
 while she listened, and in her eyes, when they looked upon him, 
 was mother-love. He was so inexpressibly dear to her, this gay, 
 careless brother, almost all she had for which to care. 
 
 The first race was soon over. Jim de la Roche was riding 
 in the second, and there was no doubt Jim could ride. Other 
 men had joined the party in the enclosure. Betty Brinmore was 
 one of the most popular women in London, and what she did 
 not know about a horse was not worth knowing. They wanted 
 to hear if Jim was going to win the Tally Ho, but chiefly what 
 she and he thought about the Grand Military. There was 
 some comment about Lord Ranmore standing down; for Mont- 
 serrat belonged to Terence, and it was unusual to give such a 
 mount to another man. When Bet told the story of how a 
 clairvoyante had warned him not to ride, they laughed, and 
 repeated it from one to another, and the thing got about before 
 the flag went down for the Tally Ho. 
 
 The Tally Ho steeplechase brought out only four runners. 
 Jim de la Roche, carrying the money of all the party, took a 
 toss at the stand-fence, and brought home a lame horse some 
 time after the rest of the field. The little group who had been 
 watching the race through their field-glasses shut them up with 
 a cheery word or two. For nobody had "put the pot on" for 
 the Tally Ho, and it is always amusing when a fine rider like 
 Jim gets thrown. 
 
 "It was absurd to come out on such a wet day!" Carrie 
 commented. "The grass is so wet the horses simply slip 
 about instead of running. And I am sure I am catching cold. 
 Let us go home instead of waiting for the rest, and play bridge 
 in warmth and comfort. Some of you will come, won't 
 you?" 
 
 She, too, was quite popular among the crowd. That she 
 pursued Terence Ranmore with her wiles was nothing to them, 
 and bridge was no bad substitute for racing in this sort of 
 weather. 
 
 "Don't be obstinate, Bet," she urged. 
 
 "I am going to see Montserrat win the Grand Military 
 
 11
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 if there's a waterspout instead of a shower. I told you so this 
 morning. So, please don 't worry me." 
 
 Bet was obstinate, and Lady Carrie had to stay where she 
 was. 
 
 The Tally Ho had been a disappointment, the men who 
 stood around or came up to them were explanatory, condemna- 
 tory, or argumentative. 
 
 The great question was now, who would win the Grand 
 Military? And on this opinions were varied. There was 
 no doubt Jim had a good mount in Montserrat. But Jim 
 was all to pieces to-day, he had thrown away the Tally Ho. 
 What a pity Ranmore was not riding! 
 
 The talk swayed to and fro, but always came back to the 
 same starting-point. 
 
 Who was the clairvoyante ? What on earth was a clair- 
 voyante, and what had she said? They did not know Ran- 
 more was so superstitious. Hadn't he backed the horse? 
 
 The bookmakers seemed to know that Lord Ranmore was 
 out of spirits, or out of luck, and their first fancy for Montserrat 
 fizzled out. The horse went back in the betting, and now one 
 could hear other horses' names. 
 
 "Two to one bar one! Two to one Ixion! Three to one 
 Montserrat! the field a pony!" 
 
 For everyone could see the owner was here; and why wasn't 
 he riding? 
 
 "Four to one Montserrat! Six to four Ixion!" The voices 
 reached them where they stood. 
 
 "What the devil's the matter with the horse, Ranmore?" 
 one asked, and then another. "They are laying against him 
 for all they are worth." 
 
 "He was as fit as a fiddle an hour ago, that's all I know," 
 said Terence. "I could barely get twos this morning. And 
 Ixion is a cart-horse beside him. Where's Jim? Jim ought 
 to know." 
 
 He had more money on Montserrat than he could afford 
 to lose. He generally had more money on a horse than he could 
 afford to lose. 
 
 12
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "I'm going back to the paddock to find Jim. You'll be all 
 right here till I come back," he said to Carrie. 
 
 "But Terence, if Montserrat is lame, if anything is wrong 
 with him, put my tenner on Ixion." Carrie always had an 
 eye to the main chance. 
 
 "I tell you there is nothing wrong with him; there could not 
 be." 
 
 "Don't get scared, Carrie, and don't scare Terence. What 
 does it matter about the odds? Jim will win if the horse has 
 four legs left. It's all a question of jockeyship in this race," 
 Bet said. 
 
 "And here is Jim, coming along to speak for himself." 
 
 "But, good heavens! he has changed his things. He isn't 
 even dressed!" exclaimed one of the group. 
 
 Jim looked pale and shaken, and he was evidently in a tear- 
 ing hurry. 
 
 "That you, Ranmore? I want to speak to you." He took 
 him on one side. "Look here, old fellow, I hate doing it, but 
 I must throw up the mount, and they've got to hear about it. 
 No one can ride him but you or me; you know that as well as 
 they do. I've sprained my infernal wrist; I couldn't hold a 
 donkey. I've put a pot of money on him. . . . You don't 
 really funk it, do you?" 
 
 For Ranmore had not acquiesced, as might have been expected, 
 but hesitated. 
 
 "How about Jerry?" 
 
 "Don't be an ass! You are not going to chuck away the 
 race, and my money as well as your own, because a rotten Bond 
 Street charlatan warned you you'd come to grief?" 
 
 "I'll come to grief, anyhow, if it doesn't win." 
 
 "Well, what's to hold it back?" 
 
 What the clairvoyante had said was that she saw trouble 
 in the crystal, and that the trouble was connected with horses. 
 She had not been able to get a clear view, or to give a clear 
 description of what she had seen. There was the race-course, 
 with the horses galloping over the turf; then, before she could 
 distinguish horses or riders, the crystal became clouded. Last 
 2 13
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 year in this very race, Lord Ranmore told her, he had come a 
 cropper at the stand-fence and broken a rib; the year before he 
 had been thrown at the water and damaged a knee-cap. She 
 had warned him not to ride, been insistent in her warning. But 
 it was not entirely because of what the clairvoyante had said 
 that he hesitated. He could not afford any sort of accident 
 just now, that was the truth. He had a sin on his conscience; 
 only last night that wild letter had come from Rosaleen. He 
 was ashamed and sorry for what he had done. Of course, he 
 must put it right. He must not, dare not risk an accident. He 
 had a sense of apprehension on him; not through what the clair- 
 voyante had said, but because of that miserable, despairing 
 pathetic little letter. 
 
 "I don't think I'll ride," he said again hesitatingly. 
 
 Carrie and Bet began to rally him. 
 
 "Terence goes to a clairvoyante regularly," Carrie said. 
 She was really anxious about her "tenner," and felt she would 
 secure it if she could persuade Terence to the mount. 
 "And half the time she is warning him of something or the 
 other." 
 
 "Did she ever put him on a winner?" Jim asked impatiently. 
 
 Ranmore was certainly wavering; it was the merest folly 
 that stood between them and their money. Bet knew it, and 
 Jim no less; but it was Lady Carrie that jeered at him, and 
 knew how to move him. 
 
 "Don't make him do it, Bet, if he really is afraid. He 
 would only lose his nerve and throw the race away." 
 
 "No one has ever seen me lose my nerve when I am on a 
 horse." 
 
 "Well, you know as well as I do this clairvoyante business 
 has upset you. You haven't been yourself since yesterday." 
 
 Terence acknowledged this, but he knew also that it was not 
 the clairvoyante 's fault. 
 
 "Look at that!" Jim held out his hand, the wrist had been 
 bandaged, but the fingers were swollen and red, and there was 
 not the slightest doubt they could not hold a rein. "But I'll 
 ride him with one hand sooner than he shouldn't go at all." 
 
 14
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "Do make up your mind, Terence." 
 
 The numbers were up for the "United Service Steeplechase,'* 
 and already the horses were coming out of the paddock. The 
 Grand Military was next on the card. It was, of course, the 
 race of the day. For the moment betting on it had ceased, 
 but there really was not a minute to lose. 
 
 And Terence was longing to go; there was no lack of heart 
 or courage in him, and he did not know the meaning of the word 
 fear. But he had done a blackguardedly thing, and he meant to 
 put it right. He never had a doubt until the clairvoyante had 
 put it there. Since then he had been thinking, and thinking 
 was a new trick for Terence Ranmore. Suppose anything 
 happened to him before he answered that letter, and made up 
 his mind what he should do? 
 
 And what had Derry meant by his talk about Rosaleen? She 
 wasn't anything to Deny. 
 
 But, there now, what was the good of going over it all again ? 
 What should happen to him? And what a fool he was to go 
 imagining things, letting Carrie and Jim and Bet, and all of 
 them, think him a coward! And Montserrat Montserrat 
 to be ridden by Jerry, or Jim with his disabled hand, or some 
 lout of a stable-body! It couldn't be done. 
 
 The flag was down, the "field" for the United Service was 
 off; there really was not a moment to spare. 
 
 This was the unlucky moment when Derry came back, 
 muddy from some work he had been doing on the car, ignorant 
 of all that had happened. Probably he had never heard of a 
 clairvoyante in his life. For, if he had, bred in a land with a 
 peasantry to whom superstition is as ingrained as their religion, 
 he might have hesitated to speak, or spoken differently. As 
 it was, when Bet appealed to him and said, "Oh, Mr. Malone, 
 here's Terence hesitating about riding Montserrat. Now, do 
 persuade him, for there's no one else can ride him!" Derry 
 dashed into the conversation like a steam-engine. 
 
 "Oh, sure, Terence, and you wouldn't be disappointing 
 the lady, and all of us? I've never seen you steeplechasing, 
 and wouldn't I love to see you skimming over the fences! 
 
 15
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 The memory of it would be something to take with me to 
 Siam." 
 
 It was then, and then only, Terence yielded. He gave in 
 all at once, and as if glad of the chance. 
 
 "All right, Deny, if it's to please you, I'll go. And I'll 
 win your tenner for you, Carrie, never fear of that. You might 
 put another pony on for me, Jim, it will wake them up there 
 in the ring. Go and look after Margaret, Deny; she is still 
 in the paddock. Take her down to the rails to see the race, 
 I '11 try and give you the treat of seeing me half a field in front 
 of the others." 
 
 Jim got him away as quickly as he could. He did not want 
 him to alter his mind, and as it was, there would be very little 
 time for him to change into his racing clothes. Terence went 
 gladly enough now, all his mercurial spirits rising as he talked 
 of what the horse could do. 
 
 The sky really cleared up for the first time that day, and his 
 natural gaiety rose with the lifting of the clouds. He dressed 
 quickly, and found his sister and Deny walking by the side of 
 the groom with the horse. 
 
 "There's nothing wrong with him," she said; "his coat is 
 like satin, and he seems to me to be trained to a hair. I'm glad 
 you're going to ride him yourself. I couldn't make out your 
 ever leaving it to Captain de la Roche. Captain de la Roche 
 can ride, but you ride so much better." 
 
 "I'm better at everything in your eyes, Margaret; in yours 
 and Derry's." And then, for he could not quite throw off that 
 which was oppressing him, he added lightly, "I wish I were half 
 as good as you both think me." 
 
 "Well, we can ride," she said candidly. And, indeed, no 
 one could deny that to either brother or sister. 
 
 He spoke to the horse as he mounted. 
 
 "You'll carry me kindly, old boy, you're knowing it's me, 
 aren't you? Why, it's dancing he is at the thought of a race. 
 Gently now! I'll bring you home the cup," he called out to 
 his sister, as the groom released the bit. Look after her," he 
 said to Deny, "take her down to the rails." 
 
 16
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 , 
 
 He cantered away from them, with his head erect, and a 
 whole lifetime of boyish enjoyment in his blue eyes. Now he 
 forgot everything that had held him back. He felt the strength 
 and confidence of a good horseman on a good mount. 
 
 "God! I could ride anything to-day!" was about as coherent 
 a thought as he could muster, while the horse carried him lightly, 
 and the heavy wet turf splattered up under the hoofs. The 
 wind blew strong and sweet in his face, and the sun shone. 
 There was nothing he had done that he could not put right, 
 and Margaret would help him, a splendid sister to him was 
 Margaret. And, if it came to it, there was little his mother 
 wouldn't forgive him. He knew he was the apple of her eye. 
 He did not know what had upset him so thoroughly, but he 
 was glad he had pulled himself together in time. 
 
 "So ho! gently now! don't take it out of yourself before we're 
 starting." He knew how to talk to his horse, and quiet him 
 with hands and voice. 
 
 Now they were at the post. 
 
 There were eight starters, and Ixion was fidgety. Perhaps 
 he knew how much of the stables' money he was carrying, and 
 fretted to get rid of the burden. 
 
 "They are off!" was called out twice. But each time it was 
 a false alarm; and first Ixion, and then Gabriel, and finally 
 Montserrat had to be taken back, and patted down, and taught 
 to stand still until the flag fell. But he was off at last, the turf 
 flying, the wind in his face, the thud of other hoofs before and 
 behind. There were two miles and a half to go, and nothing 
 was going better than Montserrat; he skimmed the stand-fence 
 like a bird. 
 
 "So much for the clairvoyante!" was the joyous phrase in 
 Terence's mind as he felt the turf under him again. Ixion had 
 fallen, a flying glance over his shoulder saw that, Gabriel and 
 Red Rover were neck to neck on his flank. The danger, if 
 there ever had been danger, was past; there was only the water to 
 get over, and then a race for home. A handkerchief could have 
 covered all three at the water, Gabriel and Red Rover were 
 still neck to neck. It was a fine race, the best race of the day. 
 
 17
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Something touched Montserrat's quarters as he rose Terence 
 knew it; a blunder was inevitable, but he was ready for it. . . . 
 
 "Two to one bar one, the field a pony, six to four on Red 
 Rover, five to four on Red Rover! A thousand to nothing on 
 Red Rover. " And some fool shouted. 
 
 "Hurrah! the favorite's beat!" 
 
 Margaret had been standing to see the race, close to the rails. 
 She turned round to her cousin, and already her eyes were 
 startled. 
 
 " Deny, someone has fallen! " 
 
 Derry saw that her face was white. 
 
 "There are only two of them running now. That's Mont- 
 serrat, with the empty saddle. Why doesn't Terence move? 
 Derry, can you see? My glasses are blurred, can you see 
 Ranmore? Is he on his feet yet? There's Montserrat, gallop- 
 ing home by himself. Derry I" 
 
 "I can't quite focus them, I'm not sure at all who it is. We'll 
 go over, come on, I'm sure it's all right. Here, give me your 
 hand; let's run for it. . . ." 
 
 There was a hush over the field, and even in the ring; men 
 seemed to be rushing past them as they ran, men with white faces 
 and shocked eyes, calling out something they would not hear. 
 
 Only Lady Carrie Carthew, intent on keeping her feet dry, 
 alone in the Grand Stand, recognised nothing ominous in the 
 silence. There had been a spill, as usual. Terence was down 
 and Montserrat's chances done for. She wanted the money 
 badly, but Terence would make it right. One must say that 
 about Terence, he was awfully good about money matters. 
 She shut up her race-glasses. The race was over. What were 
 they all waiting for? Where was The Duchess? She had 
 monopolized that big, hulking cousin of Terence's. 
 
 "Where on earth are they all running to?" she asked Bet. 
 But Bet, too, was running. Everyone wanted to get to the pad- 
 dock, and hear what had happened. It was not like an ordinary 
 meeting. The riders were all their own friends and intimates, 
 and if it was Terence Ranmore who was hurt, it was they who 
 had persuaded Ranmore to ride. . . . 
 
 18
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE Duchess and Deny had run quickly, but the stretcher, 
 and other help than theirs, had already reached the 
 injured man before they got to the paddock. Margaret 
 was not a fainting woman, but the world turned black, and only 
 her cousin Derry's roughened hand held her up when she realized 
 what was happening. 
 
 "They are bringing him to the weighing- room: we'll get there 
 this way quicker. Don't give way now, Madge. Maybe it is 
 not so bad as you think. Come along." 
 
 There was a crowd about the door; the constables were not 
 needed to keep order, for all were Ranmore's friends, who held 
 their breath as he was carried past. There had not been a 
 moment's delay. It was a military meeting, and the ambulance 
 had been galloped across the field the moment it was seen that 
 Ranmore made no attempt to rise. It was true enough 
 everybody was Ranmore's friend; he never had but one enemy, 
 poor lad! Some of the men could not bear to look at what was 
 carried, others pressed close. As Deny pushed through them 
 with Margaret, to whom all seemed blurred with the swaying 
 sky and ground, their ears caught the words: 
 
 "I heard him speak as they carried him in; it can't be as bad 
 as they said." 
 
 Margaret made Deny stop a minute, leaning up against the 
 closed door, she had to gather together her courage. And here 
 other scraps of speech reached her: 
 
 "He fell clear, but Gabriel kicked him." 
 
 "Nothing of the sort, my dear fellow! I saw it distinctly. It 
 was foul racing, I swear; Lawton bumped against him on 
 purpose. Montserrat jumped short, and Ranmore went over 
 his head." 
 
 "Did you hear that a clairvoyante had warned him?" 
 
 19
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 " I must find out how he is, let me pass. Nothing must happen 
 to Ranmore, he is the only bright spot in this hell of a world." 
 
 "Such a little gentleman!" 
 
 " Gay as a lark, there never has been anyone quite like him." 
 
 "No, and never will be again. It's impossible it's as bad as 
 they say." 
 
 "Jack heard him speak. ..." 
 
 It was strange how far off their voices sounded, although they 
 themselves were all so close to her. The voices were muffled too, 
 yet how clearly she heard them. 
 
 Inside the weighing-room everything seemed in military order. 
 The stretcher lay in the middle, just in front of the machine, the 
 doctors, and two of the orderlies, stood at the head. Margaret 
 was very pale, but her courage and calm came back to her when 
 she saw Terence lying there. She thought he was looking for 
 her, she knelt quickly by the side of the stretcher. There were 
 shocked, pale faces, even wet eyes, in the group at the head of 
 the stretcher. But Terence, with a regimental pillow under his 
 head, and his eyes shining, seemed quite in good spirits. 
 
 "That you, Midge mavourneen?" he asked. They were 
 children again together, in league for mischief; it was a childish 
 name he used. "A bad cropper this time, I'm thinking. But 
 there never was a Ranmore died of old age. Let's have a look 
 at you, Margaret. I can read your face like a book, and it'll be 
 written there. They haven't told me a word yet. I can't feel 
 anything. ..." 
 
 She kept her face bidden a moment longer, and then faced 
 him as brave as he was. There was no color in her face, or lips, 
 but her blue eyes lied bravely and smiled into his. 
 
 "I've had a fright, but it's past now. Ah! the trouble you've 
 always been to me, Terence. And here's a month's nursing on 
 our hands." 
 
 But his eyes were bright, and searching. 
 
 "Tell me the truth, Margaret; don't keep it from me^ I'm 
 wanting to know. I must know. ..." 
 
 It was impossible to say how the agony and the certainty had 
 got into the air. Margaret's courage was a thing to wonder at, 
 
 20
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 but there was a cold clutch at her heart, and over and over again 
 the swaying room went black. But her eyes held desperately 
 to Terence's face, and she knew she was not going to fail him. 
 
 "We'll hear presently, I expect," she said. "Anyway there 
 are no bones broken, and the concussion must be quite slight. 
 Go on talking to me. Where do you feel it? How did it 
 happen?" 
 
 "I can't feel anything. It wasn't Montserrat's fault; he went 
 down like a gentleman, and I rolled away from him. I recollect 
 it perfectly. You know the sky was blue, and the sun was in my 
 eyes. I don't know exactly what happened. Who won the race ?" 
 
 " I forgot to look. So you're not in any pain ?" 
 
 "I'm thinking it's the spine, Gabriel must have kicked me as 
 he went over, it wasn't Montserrat. What'll you do about 
 mother?" 
 
 "I'm only thinking about you." 
 
 Then he lay silent for a minute. 
 
 Jim de la Roche was as hard as nails; he had come in quietly 
 and was standing with the two doctors, one of them had said a 
 word to him; and now the tears were coursing down his cheeks. 
 Only Derry, towering above the others, had not yet grasped the 
 position. His eyes, like a Newfoundland dog's, were fixed on 
 Margaret. There was still color in Terence's face, and he was 
 talking. 
 
 "Is Carrie there? Lady Carrie Carthew?" Terence asked 
 presently. 
 
 "Do you want her, dear? I'll send for her," Margaret an- 
 swered. "Go, Derry, go, you'll find her on the stand." 
 
 "Tell her that tenner will be all right. ..." 
 
 But Derry had gone, glad to be doing something, he was 
 hardly uneasy yet. 
 
 "You know all about me and Carrie?" Terence went on to 
 his sister, not quite sure to whom he was talking. His eyes 
 were beginning to glaze. " I have to do something for her. It 
 was I who killed Harry Carthew. God knows, I didn't mean to 
 do it; I don't know how it came about. ..." Some trouble 
 was struggling with his weakness. 
 
 21
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "Don't think of it, dear!" She thought he was wandering. 
 Sir Harry Carthew had died of an accident, two years since. 
 He had been drunk at the Ralyn Club, and fallen downstairs. 
 He had been picked up unconscious, suffering from concussion, 
 then delirium tremens had intervened, and hastened the end. 
 Everyone knew the story, it had all come out at the inquest. 
 It had nothing to do with Terence, his name had not been even 
 mentioned. 
 
 "Carrie knows I killed him. I've helped her out since 
 then. What was it I wanted to say to you? It wasn't about 
 Carrie. . . ." 
 
 Now the cold grip on her heart was loosening, and the room 
 seemed to be growing steady. But if he were going out, then 
 the best part of her life was going out with his. There were 
 only those two brother and sister more to each other than all 
 the world knew. None but Terence understood the tragedy 
 her marriage had been, and the empty life she had, with only his 
 to follow and delight in. And there was the mother of them to 
 face presently. 
 
 Terence had been given an injection of morphia before they 
 had lifted him from where he lay, after the horse had kicked him. 
 His spine was broken, and there was no more hope of his living 
 than if he had died where he fell. The morphia injection was all 
 the doctor could do for him, and it acted intermittently. 
 
 "I feel rather excited . . . I've got so much to say, don't 
 leave me, Midge, don't go," the poor boy murmured, and then 
 drowsed off into unconsciousness. 
 
 Margaret got up from her knees. It was then she saw that 
 Jim de la Roche was crying, and dimly she wondered why 
 anyone should cry but herself. She heard the names of horses 
 being called outside. The numbers were going up for the next 
 race. Terence heard it too: 
 
 "My number's up," he said drowsily. "The flag's down, 
 I'm off, steady, Margaret, don't cry. ..." 
 
 But Margaret was not crying. She spoke to the doctors. 
 There were two of them, and they had sent for more. They 
 could not deceive her or themselves. 
 
 22
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "Is there anything to be done?" she asked. 
 
 "The horse kicked him," one answered vaguely. 
 
 "Don't cry," she said to Captain de la Roche. "He'll hear 
 you. . . . And I want you to help me." Even in her grief 
 she knew how to soothe his lighter trouble. " Will you go and 
 give out that it is nothing of consequence? I cannot let my 
 mother hear it cried in the streets. See the reporters, lie to 
 them. ..." 
 
 But Terence called to him: 
 
 "Is that you, Jim? How quiet everything seems, and me 
 lying here. Let one of the doctor fellows come over." One 
 moved to him. 
 
 "Give me the truth," Terence said. "Am I done for? I 
 want to know." 
 
 "We've sent for Sir Gregory Owen," was all the military 
 doctor could find to say. "You're not in any pain, are you?" 
 
 "Can't you tell me when I ask you?" 
 
 "You've had a bad spill." 
 
 "An' me back's broken?" he said quickly. 
 
 "Wait until Sir Gregory comes." 
 
 "Man, I've maybe got no time to wait. Margaret! Margaret! 
 come over here to me." 
 
 "And as if I'd move!" She knelt down again and he put out 
 his hand to her: 
 
 "It's Derry'll come after me, isn't it? I'm not clear. Is it 
 Derry?" 
 
 She couldn't help the sob in her throat. 
 
 "Yes, it's Derry." 
 
 But all their love was in Terence; and here he lay, already the 
 pallor spreading, and the eyes glazing, and not a hope for her 
 to hold on to. 
 
 "It's Derry then I must talk to. I haven't been what you 
 thought me, Margaret; what any of you have thought me. It's 
 a blackguard I've been up there at Ranmore. Don't let mother 
 know, let her go on thinking I'm all she meant me to be, my 
 father's son, and all that sort of thing. . . . What did Derry 
 say about Rosaleen?" 
 
 23
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "Rosaleen O'Daly? Little Rosaleen at the Castle?" 
 
 "And there's Carrie and I'm up to me neck in debt. And 
 mother saving all the time for me, an' getting Ranmore to rights, 
 an' all!" 
 
 "She's been a good mother to you. She'll not think hardly 
 of anything you've done. Don't fret, darling. Look what 
 you've been to me!" 
 
 " Get Deny here. I want to talk to him . . . Deny." 
 
 Derry was here already, with Carrie Carthew reluctant to 
 enter, shrinking from any unpleasant sight, incredulous of the 
 worst. The racing was going on, and the ring had woke up 
 again; for already Jim had been at work, and the rumors of 
 anything worse than a broken rib or two, and possibly concussion, 
 had been quickly contradicted. But Terence no longer wanted 
 Carrie; for the moment he had forgotten Carrie. It was Derry, 
 his cousin, his heir, to whom he must speak. Terence was 
 hearing the Great Whisper; no longer as a distant murmur, as of 
 waters breaking on the shores of time; it was flood, overwhelming 
 consciousness, drowning thought. But he must speak he 
 must. The tide must not bear him out until he had spoken. 
 This was the bravest act of his life, this struggle against the tide. 
 Pain, agony was on this side, but he would not cross. It was 
 morphia against which he was struggling; had he had full 
 consciousness, he would have said it was a cruel kindness they 
 had done him. He must turn back, breast these breakers of 
 agony, turn his back on the calm flood; there was a message to 
 deliver before he could go. He met the agony like the fine 
 soldier that he was. It brought consciousness with it. 
 
 "Deny! Derry, come dose. Don't let anyone else hear." 
 And Margaret moved back. 
 
 "I'm kneeling close against you. Put your lips to me ear, 
 me heart's yours, Terence. Tell me what you want." 
 
 "You'll do it for me? Everything will be yours you'll 
 do it? Swear. ..." 
 
 There was something on the dying man's mind, or conscious- 
 ness. The words came and went, but never the right words. 
 Something he wanted to tell his cousin, to make him promise. 
 
 24
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Margaret mustn't hear, no one must hear. He grew shockingly 
 agitated, he even made vain, frantic, horrible efforts to rise; but 
 only his head moved a little, wildly, on that regimental pillow, 
 and his eyes grew bright again, and pleaded frantically. 
 
 "You'll do it, Deny ? Swear." 
 
 " I'll die rather than fail you. What is it, then ? I swear I'll 
 do it, if it's me life you're asking." 
 
 And then the struggle ceased suddenly, and Terence lay back 
 easily he thought he had told it. 
 
 "I believe it was always you she liked the best," the dying lips 
 murmured; "little Rosaleen, my dark Rosaleen! how she fought 
 against me! the pretty!" His eyes closed; it seemed he had 
 fallen asleep. 
 
 "Is it Rosaleen?" Deny cried in a hoarse whisper. What 
 was this that was happening ? " What is it you mean, Terence ? 
 Tell me, tell me! You mustn't go now . . . tell me." 
 
 His voice aroused Terence, but the restlessness was gone for 
 the moment. 
 
 "Mother mustn't know; she'd be hard on her. But it wasn't 
 any fault of hers. Tell her I'm sorry ... an' the chapel was 
 consecrated." 
 
 "Is it Rosaleen you're meaning?" 
 
 "Isn't that Carrie?" He was not quite himself now. Carrie 
 did not seem to matter so much. 
 
 Derry's face was almost as white as Terence's when he rose 
 to his feet, staggering a little. And Margaret moved to be near, 
 to support him. Margaret was quick of perception. 
 
 "I saw he had something on his mind, Deny. That's why 
 I left you to him. Has he told you ?" 
 
 Derry put a shaking hand to brush the mist from his eyes. 
 
 "I don't know," he said, almost piteously. "I don't know." 
 
 The two watched Terence; surely he would speak again. 
 
 " But whatever he's asked you to do, you'll do for him, Derry ?" 
 
 " Haven't I sworn it ? And him laying dying there!" 
 
 "Oh, Terence! Terence! Not that, not that! I can't bear 
 it, I can't! Don't leave me alone, don't die ... Terence!" 
 
 It was the first time her despair had been voiced; and it was 
 
 25
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 only then she flung herself beside him and cried to him, raining 
 out her tears. He lay peacfeul, heeding nothing, the morphia 
 well at work now. Berry's slow brain was on fire, and his eye- 
 lids burned, and all his love and loyalty to these two, and to the 
 family, seethed in his great tempestuous heart. 
 
 For Terence was dying Terence, who had been good to him 
 all his life Terence who was the sun of the world, the Ranmore 
 of Ranmores. He had sworn to do what Terence asked. And 
 it was something about Rosaleen. . . . He must not think too 
 much about that. . . . And there was something about Carrie, 
 and that was Lady Carrie Carthew who was outside. Poor 
 Derry was all at sea, and desperately miserable. And the last 
 thing in the world he thought of was that, if Terence died, he 
 would be Lord Ranmore, and stand in his cousin's shoes. 
 
 But the end was not yet. It would perhaps have been better 
 for Terence, and for all of them, if it had been. Science set to 
 work, the Deus ex machina being the great Sir Gregory Owen, 
 who arrived in a forty horse-power motor car, and refused to 
 accept anyone's diagnosis, or to believe in anyone else's examina- 
 tion. The poor lad was roused and stimulated, and examined 
 and cross-examined. He was not to be allowed to die; that was 
 the final verdict. He was to be carried up to London in an 
 ambulance, and to be taken to a nursing home, and experimented 
 upon. For that is what it amounted to. Perhaps Lady Ran- 
 more, hastily summoned from Dunmanway, was glad of this 
 break in the awful suddenness of her bereavement. She had 
 him for a few short weeks to fondle and nurse; she had a memory 
 or two to store up of a plaintive "Mother, are you there?" or 
 "Mother, make them leave me alone," a clinging to her, a return 
 to babyhood. Yet who that loved him could be glad to see him 
 die by inches, instead of gallantly, and suddenly, with his 
 courage unconquered ? 
 
 Science got to work on him, and all the surgeons and physicians 
 of Sir Gregory's own hospital set, whom he called in consultation, 
 carefully avoiding all those of any other school, benefited by the 
 large fees he asked for them. Practically, among them, they 
 vivisected him, performing new and unheard of operations, 
 
 26
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 running through Rontgen Rays and radium, electricity, and the 
 introduction of innumerable bacilli, and micrococci and phago- 
 cytes, torturing the patient under chloroform, or ether, or half a 
 dozen new anaesthetics, delaying disasterously the inevitable end, 
 to their own great pecuniary advantage and self-glorification, 
 but never to the patient's well-being. 
 
 Terence Ranmore should have been allowed to go out like a 
 soldier, like a sportsman, not have been kept back like a Chinese 
 prisoner until, under daily torture, his manhood left him, and 
 his speech. His mind went before he did, and all the fineness 
 of him. It was pitiful to see the wreck they made with their 
 knives and their drugs. And he crossed the dark river in the 
 end, all beaten and helpless and moaning, with his courage gone. 
 That is what science did for Terence, while it wrung his mother's 
 heart for a few weeks of hopeless hope, when Margaret wilted 
 to a shadow, and Berry's young shoulders bent under the sus- 
 pense he carried, and his dark eyes under their heavy brows 
 were just caverns of trouble and despair. 
 
 There was no red Ranmore to succeed Terence, only black 
 Derry. And he wanted neither title nor estate, but only the 
 right to work at the profession he had learned, and the love of 
 his aunt and his cousins, and the memory of his home with them 
 at Ranmore, the only home he had ever known, to carry with 
 him to a new world. 
 
 This prospect had been for Derry Malone, the young cousin 
 whom Terence and the Duchess had loved like a younger brother, 
 and treated like one. For Derrick, Lord Ranmore, must be 
 another fate. 
 
 They carried Terence's body back to Castle Ranmore when 
 he was past torture. Lady Ranmore and the Duchess of Tow- 
 cester went with him, two women out of whose world the light 
 had gone. Derry traveled with them, although he saw little of 
 them on the way. Most of the time his head lay on the coffin, 
 he was whispering to what rested inside, reiterating the promises 
 he had made, vowing himself to his cousin's memory. He would 
 keep it green and sweet. All during the journey he was remem- 
 bering kindnesses, and many gifts, and that Terence had never 
 
 27
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 patronized him, but had just been a friend, and more than a 
 brother to him. And the good shot he was! All the familiar 
 phrases and jests they had had together came back to him on 
 this sad long journey, just Margaret and Terence and he, though 
 he was only a distant cousin, a boy without a father or mother, 
 and with his way to make, coming from school, and later from 
 the workshop in Belfast, to revel in the wild freedom of Ranmore 
 and in all their wealth of kindnesses. Then, he thought of the 
 boat Terence had taught him to sail, and the fish Terence had 
 taught him to catch, and the colt Terence had taught him to 
 ride. . . . And now he was journeying to Dunmanway, with 
 Terence boxed up like this! 
 
 The last stage was perhaps the worst. 
 
 The ill-lit, end-of-the-world station was alive with keening 
 peasantry carrying torches. It was his own people would bear 
 the Ranmore to his last resting-place. The night was dark, and 
 all the way as they went, up the village street, and through the 
 sculptured archway, down that long avenue of trees, all the miles 
 as they walked, the keening grew wilder, and mingled with the 
 wind that moaned about them, and the rain that fell pitilessly. 
 It was to the mausoleum in the grounds they would bear him. 
 And it was Micky Clarke and Jerry Malachy and Cormac 
 O'Daly who carried him, as they had carried his young father 
 fifteen years before, who had been drowned, almost wiihin 
 sight of his wife, when the storm burst on Bantry Bay, the great 
 storm of 1887. Strange were the sounds the peasants made as 
 they marched; the sound of their voices, and the sounds their 
 feet made in the mud, and in the wet, and among the fallen 
 autumn leaves in the long avenue, were muffled funeral music. 
 Deny walked with the bearers, and the mother and daughter 
 walked, side by side, at the head of the procession in their long 
 black robes. All the household servants were there, and the 
 priests. Always as they moved, the procession grew. 
 
 And then they came to the mausoleum, the gray building 
 quarried out of the same stone that served for all the hovels of 
 the village. Generations of Ranmores lay on shelves in its 
 gloomy depths. But there was room for Terence. 
 
 28
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 They halted at the little chapel, and laid their burden down, 
 while the priests said the mass, and chanted the burial service. 
 Always the wind and the rain and the keening followed the 
 prayer like waves the sad sounds beat upon the ears. It 
 seemed long hours during which Derry had heard nothing else. 
 Unconsciously it had soothed and quieted him. It was for 
 Terence they were all grieving Terence, sunny, red-haired, 
 laughing Terence! They must leave him behind in the cold 
 and gloomy dark of that musty-smelling ruin of a mausoleum, 
 round which he and Derry had played in the days that seemed 
 so near. Consecutive thought was suspended, everything was 
 unreal, and he a shadow among the unrealities. 
 
 It was all over at last. And there were whisky and food, 
 with the comfort of reminiscence, and a community of sorrow, 
 for the peasantry and the household in the servants' quarters. 
 There were loneliness and heartbreak for the mother, glassy- 
 eyed and silent in the solitude of her bedroom, whither she would 
 not let even Margaret follow her. 
 
 For Margaret and Derry too, in the great murky, oak-raftered 
 dining-room, trying to swallow a mouthful of food, although 
 there were no words, there was a sense of companionship. The 
 time had not come for words, some day they would talk about 
 him to each other; now fatigue and grief paralyzed them. 
 
 "You'll stay with us, Derry?" Margaret said. It was the 
 first time she had spoken. Margaret was an English Duchess, 
 but the heart of her was Irish; she knew her duty would call 
 her back soon to the husband who was no partner of her joys 
 or sorrows, and the home that was so poor a substitute, with all 
 its grandeur, for Ranmore in its desolation. "You'll stay 
 with mother if she wants you, Derry ?" 
 
 "She hasn't looked at me, nor spoken to me, since. ..." 
 
 "You must give her time. You know there was no one 
 but him since father died. I didn't count. I shan't count 
 now. She won't let me into her room. She is all alone 
 there." 
 
 "Alone, is she?" he repeated mechanically, but conscious 
 of the loneliness. 
 
 3 29
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "We sent Biddy to her with food; but Biddy is sitting on the 
 floor outside the door with her head covered, rocking herself 
 to and fro, and talking to herself. She nursed him, you know. 
 Mother has barred her door. I don't know what to be at." 
 
 The dining-room was so large and so gloomy, with its black 
 oak walls and rafted ceilings, and the few candles in their wall- 
 sconces and on the table made so little effect of light upon it, 
 that Rosaleen was beside them before they knew. Such a 
 soft step she had, and so quietly had she come into the room 
 that they were not conscious of her till she answered Margaret 's 
 despairing "I don't know what to be at" with: 
 
 "Will you let me try? She's used to me waiting on her of 
 late. She wouldn 't take me to London when she was sent for, 
 but she's used to me here." 
 
 There was a sudden stirred remembrance in both of them 
 when they looked at her, when she paused for an answer, 
 framed in the heavy lintel of the door. It was dim and con- 
 fused to Margaret something Terence had said of his mother 
 being kind to her; it was acute, and like a sword in his heart to 
 Deny. She was a tragic figure in her poor black. Rosaleen 's 
 wonderful great gray eyes had sunk back in her head, and chalk- 
 white was the small face, the thin lips indrawn. She was only 
 a poor dependent in the house, only the daughter of O'Daly, 
 the rent-collector, who had been murdered in the bad times 
 that had gone by. Rosaleen was the daughter of O'Daly 
 and his Protestant wife. What had she with Lord Ranmore, 
 or Lord Ranmore with her? And she was but a child still. 
 The blue-black wonder of her hair, and the slender grace, the 
 light that had been wont to play upon the demure sweetness 
 of her face, the quick smile and the dimple it brought, which 
 had begun only last summer to mean so much for Derrick and 
 for Terence, meant nothing to Margaret, Duchess of Towcester. 
 How should it ? She was merely a servant in the house, educated 
 by their charity, brought back here to serve them, as her father's 
 people had served them for many generations. 
 
 Yet, perhaps, even then the Duchess had her misgivings. 
 All the household was mourning for the dead master, but the 
 
 30
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 mourning in the face of Rosaleen O'Daly had in it some strange 
 quality. It was not only Death upon which the girl's eyes 
 were looking, it was Terror and Despair. Terror perhaps had 
 passed, it was despair that was wild in her eyes. 
 
 "Is it Rosaleen O'Daly?" asked Margaret, to gain time, 
 but knowing well. "Don't stand there by the door. Come 
 in, yes, you go up see what you can do for her. A cup of 
 tea now, or coffee? Think what would be the best to tempt 
 her with." 
 
 "She'll not want food now that his lordship is dead," Rosa- 
 leen 's voice had the mournful cadence the Irish accent holds 
 so well "but maybe she'll drink her tea." She and Margaret 
 talked a little, and busied themselves with a tray. But Derry 's 
 heart had turned to water. What was it Terence had said to 
 him, and what was it he must do ? 
 
 Rosaleen proved successful where Biddy had failed. As 
 she said, Lady Ranmore was used to her. A year now she 
 had waited on her, neat-handed and quiet. Terence's mother 
 unbolted the door to her voice, and Rosaleen passed in with 
 the tray. Broken down with grief and strain and fatigue, 
 perhaps Lady Ranmore felt the comfort of the quiet tendance. 
 Once even she spoke; she seemed to have noted the girl's face, 
 too, for she said: 
 
 "Ah! you're all grieving for him the night." 
 
 "An' for you," said Rosaleen quickly. 
 
 Then she knelt by her quite suddenly, her voice loud and her 
 eyes wild. 
 
 "Ah, me lady, me lady! If ye kill me I must ask ye. Did he 
 say anything ? Did he tell you anything ? Me lady, it 's lost I 
 am. ..." 
 
 Perhaps all the blood had been drained from Lady Ran- 
 more 's heart, and all the human kindness coagulated, these 
 last days of watching. The kneeling figure was nothing to 
 her, the words fell with no meaning on the grief-dulled ears. 
 
 "Was there never a word he said to ye?" the girl sobbed, 
 "and him that promised. ..." 
 
 Now she was prone on the floor, crying wildly, and a dim 
 
 31
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 resentment stirred in the mother's heart that anyone but she 
 should cry like this for her son. Her eyes were dry, and her 
 heart empty. She had sent away Biddy, for Biddy's keening 
 shook her dry heart, and burnt her dry eyes. Now here was 
 this girl, who knew so little of him, who had not nursed him 
 in her arms as Biddy had, nor followed his first toddling steps 
 . . . and she making that noise on the floor. 
 
 Lady Ranmore sent her away quickly and harshly. She 
 could not bear the grief that cried out to be beside hers that 
 was beyond tears. She drove the girl away from her, she even 
 said a bitter word or two out of her own bitterness, a word that 
 showed the girl she must not even weep for Lord Ranmore. 
 It was only to his mother his memory belonged.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THOSE first gray days dragged by slowly. Deny hung 
 about, more miserable and resentful when some obse- 
 quious hireling called him "my lord," than when an 
 old retainer, grown dense in the Ranmore service, showed 
 his feeling in furtive diverted glance, and hurried shuffling 
 away from him. For there was luck with the red Ranmores, 
 and Terence had been born and bred among them; but 
 there was no luck with the black Ranmores. And Deny was 
 hardly a Ranmore at all, seeing that the mother that bore him 
 was a "furriner," and his father but a younger son of a younger 
 son, unknown from Dunmanway to Bantry. 
 
 Lady Ranmore could not bear to look upon the new heir; 
 that was clear. She remained in her own room, and what 
 business she had to transact she transacted there, seeing law- 
 yers from London, and lawyers from Cork, making no sign as 
 to what was going on. The Duchess stayed as long as she 
 could, but her time was drawing near, however loath she was 
 to go. 
 
 For many years now, ever since her husband's death had 
 made it possible to reduce expenses, Lady Ranmore had been 
 nursing the estate for Terence, and Terence's children. It 
 was a dream, an obsession, a passion with her, to restore Ran- 
 more to what Ranmore had been a hundred years ago, before 
 the Saxon rule, and, be it lowly spoken, the habits of half a 
 dozen reigning Ranmores, had despoiled them of their acres, 
 and left the big pile of the castle more than three-fourths a ruin. 
 She had her jointure, and that paid the mortgage interest; she 
 had the rents during Terence's long minority, and they paid 
 builders and contractors. Already one wing was restored, 
 and the stables were rebuilt. Then there had been rumor 
 of coal, and much money had been sunk, although as yet with 
 
 33
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 poor result. And on the fourth portion of the nine thousand 
 unproductive acres of swamp and bogland, rock and mountain, 
 that stretched from Dunmanway to Bantry, and from Bantry 
 to the sea, an English company had taken the lease of a copper 
 mine. Some day "royalties" would come in from this. But 
 that day was not yet. The accumulated rents had been spent, 
 and the whole income from the jointure. Terence had been 
 supposed to economize in Ranmore six months in every year, 
 and to be no spendthrift in London. Margaret guessed there 
 would be debts, of which her mother must not hear. She and 
 Deny put their heads together time after time in those few 
 days, and wrote to bookmakers and motor-car builders, and 
 everyone of whom they could think, telling them to wait with 
 their claims, and everything would be paid by the Duchess. 
 The accounts must be sent to Dunstans. 
 
 "He wanted her not to know," they said to each other; 
 and each knew the other would help to keep his name sweet. 
 Derry had excuse enough for opening letters addressed to Lord 
 Ranmore. He knew nothing of his own pecuniary position, 
 and he had a curious sensitiveness about asking. It could 
 wait, everything could wait, but keeping Terence's debts or 
 difficulties from that poor, broken-hearted woman upstairs. 
 It was Quixotism, perhaps, but then Derry was Derry, and 
 faithful to the trust Terence had placed in him. There were 
 bills for jewelry, and some that were difficult to understand, 
 and all of them had to be kept from Terence's mother. As 
 the days went on, and more bills came, the less it seemed that 
 they could talk about them, even to each other. "He was 
 always open-handed," Derry said sometimes, wistfully, apolo- 
 getically. The Duchess only gathered up the bills. 
 
 Yet all might have been well, the improvements proceeding, 
 and all the attempts persevered with to preserve the Ranmore 
 acres and the Ranmore prestige. For, in truth, Lady Ran- 
 more 's mind was not made up. Twenty years she had lived 
 for this, for Ranmore and Terence. She wanted so little for 
 herself; always her eyes had been on the future, when the feet 
 of Terence's children should echo in the empty, dismantled 
 
 34
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 rooms, and, in the fair domain she had created for him, he 
 would reign with them among his people. 
 
 "I had thought to hear thy children laugh with thine awn blue 
 
 eyes, 
 But my sorrow's voice is silent where my life's love lies." 
 
 She had only progressed as far as this in the void his death 
 had made, her trouble only beginning to emerge definitely as 
 unbearable, the first shock had hardly worn off, when that 
 occurred which turned it to a maelstrom of anger unreason- 
 able, perhaps, as anger is invariably. After that her actions 
 became inconsequent, and the unbearable sense of injury she 
 nurtured toward the Providence that had wrenched her beloved 
 from her became diverted against the heir who stood, ungainly 
 and awkward, in the shoes of Terence. 
 
 Deny sinned unwittingly. Again and again in those days 
 that succeeded the funeral he had sought for an interview with 
 Rosaleen O'Daly. He had caught a glimpse of her at twilight, 
 in the sodden evening a hurried, uncertain glimpse from 
 afar. She had vanished ere his long legs had covered the ground 
 betwixt him and her. He had heard a light and furtive step 
 at dawn and had scrambled into his clothes and started in 
 pursuit. But always she had evaded, eluded him, and they 
 had no speech together. 
 
 Yet only last summer, when he and Terence had been here, 
 and she shy and new among them, Deny had had long talks 
 together with her, and he had seen into her simple heart, full, like 
 his own, of gratitude and loyalty to the Ranmores, bent on ser- 
 vice. She had clung to her connection with the family; what 
 was there else to which she could cling? She had not even the 
 religion of the country. For her mother had been an O'Brian 
 from Tralee and a bitter Protestant. Everyone knew Mike 
 O'Daly had carried off his wife without a "with your leave" or 
 "by your leave" to her family. And a handsome man he was, 
 Rosaleen had told Deny, who could well believe it, for whom 
 any woman would have left her home. But a hard man he 
 grew after her death, oppressing the tenantry to get money for 
 
 35
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 that gay Lord Ranmore, Terence's grandfather he who 
 built the stables and had the race-horses and could drink any 
 man in Cork county under the table. Terence 's father had been 
 drowned in Bantry Bay before his grandfather had spent all 
 there was to be spent. He had been drowned just two days 
 after Rosaleen's own father had been shot, in broad daylight, 
 by "them land-leaguers," it is believed, who had never been 
 caught no, not to this very day. 
 
 Rosaleen was only nine years old when this happened. It 
 was Lady Ranmore who had sent her to the convent of the 
 Sacred Heart and had her taught and cared for, but stipulating 
 she should retain her religion, as O'Daly had promised her 
 mother. And now here she was back at Ranmore with my 
 lady herself, to sew for and tend, when the young lord was 
 away with his regiment or up in London, and she lonely with 
 neither him nor Her Grace at Ranmore. 
 
 Deny had drawn some analogy between himself and the 
 girl. For were not both of them orphans and dependents on 
 the big house? And the only Protestants there. And some 
 day, when she was grown up some day well, he thought of 
 what he would ask her some day, when he had made himself 
 a position, and she had left off laughing when he tried to be 
 serious with her. He would let her know the tenderness that 
 was growing with him. For indeed she was still but a child 
 that summer, with her hair like a cloud about her. The gray 
 eyes would dance and glint with demure merriment at any 
 little thing, the dimples coming and going in her smiling. She 
 would not be serious with him for long; she did not want to 
 listen when he would talk seriously. "Standing with reluctant 
 feet, where womanhood and childhood meet"; it was not 
 Deny who would force her too soon to cross the line. That 
 summer it was the child in her he loved. He was but a boy 
 himself, and all their life was before them. 
 
 Terence it was who said she was the prettiest colleen he had 
 seen from Killarney to Bantry ay, and from Cork either. 
 And he'd never shut his eyes on a pretty girl. But Terence, 
 Deny thought, had taken but little notice of her; he had no 
 
 36
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 long talks with her as Derry made opportunity for while they 
 were here together. True, Terence had stayed on in July 
 when Derry went back to finish his course and get through his 
 examinations. 
 
 And never had a doubt crossed his mind, until it struck him, 
 like a blow between the eyes, that day in the weighing-room, 
 where Terence lay dying. 
 
 Every word Terence said was like the writing on the wall. 
 And every night, as if written in phosphorescent letters, Derry 
 saw it in the darkness against his dreams. And now, in those 
 dreams, too, he saw Rosaleen's altered face and haunted eyes. 
 And always when he thought of her his heart turned to water. 
 Speak with her he must, and yet he dared not. What he might 
 learn might prove unbearable; yet he hardly knew what it was 
 that he feared. Terence had told him to care for Rosaleen. 
 But always he would have cared for her; he had no other hope 
 so dear as that he might care for her always. Only now 
 now he feared. There was more woman than man in Derry 
 Ranmore, for all his size and his dark looks; and he dared 
 not, what he yet must dare. For, had he not sworn it to Terence ? 
 And what he did in the end was done in the wrong way, and 
 perhaps at the wrong time. He had his promise to Terence 
 to fulfil, and her hunted, terror-stricken eyes never left him all 
 these days. 
 
 It was when hardly a week of them had passed, that he was 
 sent for to his aunt's room. When she was a happy woman, 
 she was a very kind one, and the boy had been almost as a young 
 son to her; while she had been all the mother he had known. 
 And as a son he loved her, although, perhaps, he was a little in 
 awe of her, as a real son would not have been. But she had 
 never thought of him as Terence's heir. That Terence's sun 
 should go down had been the one inconceivable thing. Now 
 in her new misery, that harsh garment into which she could 
 not fit herself, which exacerbated and fretted her beyond her 
 strength, it seemed that this Derry, this common-clay Derry, 
 so insignificant for all his size, and rude strength, must have 
 always known, always been waiting, expecting, hoping. . . . 
 
 37
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 When she had sent for him, he stood there, so awkward, so 
 big and shuffling on his feet, so unlike the graceful, bright, 
 blue-eyed laddie of hers, that she averted her eyes, she could 
 not bear to look upon him. Was he waiting to hear her say 
 that now Ranmore was his? Oh! how it wrung her heart, 
 to think she should never see Terence installed there, him that 
 was the darling of her heart; how like physical pain it was to 
 picture Deny there in his place! Some moments passed 
 before she could speak. Derry was just full of sorrow for her, 
 and that made him more awkward, for he could not find the 
 words in which to tell her how he felt about it all. She looked 
 critically at his rough hands, and shuffling feet, and rough- 
 hewn, big head. Perhaps he had forgotten to shave this morn- 
 ing, and his hair was unkempt. It was terrible to think he 
 must be Lord of Ranmore. 
 
 Her grating misery made her voice harsh. She had no 
 thought of Berry's sensitiveness, nor of what he felt; she did 
 not think of him loving Terence and mourning him, and want- 
 ing nothing the dead boy had left, except, perhaps, a little of 
 the kindliness that had been as an atmosphere about him always, 
 especially here in his home. 
 
 "I sent for you to know when I must leave the home, that 
 was my husband's and my boy's." 
 
 She had not meant to say that. The sight of him standing 
 there, in Terence 's place, stung her to it. 
 
 "Leave leave here!" he stammered. 
 
 "Well, it's no news to you that his place, that the Castle is 
 yours?" 
 
 "It's God forbid you should go out of it," he said. 
 
 "To stay and see you in his place!" 
 
 Oh, how they hurt each other, she with her contempt, it was 
 hatred he felt behind her words and he with nothing but 
 honor for her, and such a sorrow that it overflooded speech! 
 Her scorn lashed him and bewildered him, he stood tongue-tied 
 before her. But beyond him she heard Terence's happy 
 fluency, the gay and loving words, and felt the arms he'd fling 
 about her . . . gone, gone forever. ... It was Derry 
 
 38
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Malone standing awkwardly there where he should have 
 been. 
 
 She tried to be calm. These days and hours she had kept 
 to herself, it was that she might meet them all with some measure 
 of composure, that she might hide her broken heart, enwrapping 
 herself from the pity that would break her down. But her 
 reasonless resentment against Deny grew all the time. It 
 makes one cruel, the agony of being a mother without a son! 
 
 "I won't keep you long. You'll like to be out looking at 
 your grounds and the new stables and all." 
 
 He could only gaze at her; the bitterness was so new and 
 unexpected, driving him to say he knew not what. He had 
 not thought of the grounds, nor the stables, nor anything of 
 his own. All he wanted was that if Terence could not be here, 
 she and Margaret should be here; that he might feel he had a 
 home. It was for them, not Ranmore, that he cared. 
 
 "What I wanted to ask you was, what arrangement we could 
 come to, so that I could come here every year, for just one 
 week." 
 
 And then she looked away from him, and through the win- 
 dows, and over beyond the Park. The mausoleum was out 
 of sight, although she saw it so plainly, and the old chapel, and 
 all the graves of all the Ranmores. Her breaking heart was 
 melting in tears, but her voice was hard. " One week in every 
 year I want to come here, to ... to mourn my dead." 
 
 He knew that every year since Terence's father had been 
 brought home there had been a week of prayer and mourning 
 at Ranmore: the chapel had been opened, candles burned, and 
 masses said for the dead. 
 
 "An arrangement!" he repeated stupidly. 
 
 "To rent the castle from you, I must have the whole place 
 to myself just one week in the year. I'll pay you for it. There 
 is no entail, it is only the Castle and just a bit of land about it 
 that goes with the title. I suppose you know that. And that 
 I can claim against you for the improvements. I'm not saying 
 I'm going to do it," she added. The improvements she had 
 made for Terence, and the children that should come after him. . . . 
 
 39
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Her heart was like water, but still her voice was harsh. She 
 had not meant to say this, but now she felt it that she must be 
 alone that she could not bear for him to be there. It was 
 her place, her home, they were her dead. What was he but 
 a Malone, an Ulsterman, a Protestant? She had been own 
 cousin to her husband, and a Ranmore in direct descent. Every 
 minute the bitterness grew. 
 
 "Is it money you're offering me for the place you've made 
 home to me?" he said stupidly. But she took no heed of the 
 pain in his voice, she was thinking only of her own unbearable 
 bereavement. 
 
 "I'll go out of it this night, if I'm not welcome with you," 
 he went on, dully; "and I see I'm not that. I stayed on because 
 Margaret asked me, and there was something Terence asked 
 me to do, and I've not been able to do it yet." 
 
 "Something Terence asked you to do?" The tone lashed. 
 "You!" 
 
 And Deny blundered on: 
 
 "He asked me to take care of Rosaleen O'Daly . . . it's 
 fond of her he was . . . . " 
 
 "What are you saying? What is it you're saying? Asked 
 you to take care of Rosaleen Rosaleen O 'Daly's daughter, 
 me own maid! And my Terence my boy asked you to be 
 looking after her! It's lies you're telling me." 
 
 "I'm telling you the truth. He said it to me when he thought 
 he'd no more words to say. Often I've heard it since: 'Take 
 care of Rosaleen,' he said." 
 
 It had only needed this to make his position there impossible. 
 She told him that he lied, and that he knew he lied. She 
 said that the girl had befooled him, and might have tried to 
 befool Terence, who was kind to everybody, worthy or unworthy, 
 himself included. 
 
 If she had not remembered, even as he was speaking, that, 
 when that wire came telling of the disaster at Sandown, the 
 girl, who had been with her, had dropped in a faint at her feet, 
 and been useless for the journey or the packing, or anything; 
 if Lady Ranmore had been able to blot out the despairing 
 
 40
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 words, and the pleading ... if any of these memories had 
 not been with her, she might not have been so fierce in her 
 denial, so violent in her denunciation. She said the girl was 
 lying to secure her place. But out she should go that very 
 night. The shock came on the top of so many other shocks. 
 It was not strange the girl had lifted her eyes to Terence. 
 
 Again as in a vision, pain blurred, the gay charm of him 
 was before her. And Rosaleen O'Daly! It was impossible, 
 incredible that he should have given her grounds to think he 
 had looked back to her. Out she should go out. 
 
 It was only a sudden jealousy, a sudden anguish of jealousy. 
 Her son was to her what other sons are to loving mothers. 
 And purity is the birthright of Irish-women. That there had 
 been romance or love-making between Terence and the girl, 
 and Terence had stooped a little in kindness was all that was 
 possible. But even that was hard to bear; and that Derry 
 should bring her word of it, was harder still. 
 
 Derry was dismissed with the words ringing in his ears that 
 Terence's mother would turn Rosaleen from the door; that 
 it was a slander he was uttering, for Terence would have never 
 degraded himself to look at O'Daly's daughter. The wicked- 
 ness of her to say that he had! Derry carried away an impres- 
 sion of fury and implacability, and he felt desperately that 
 it was he who had stirred up all this against the girl whose 
 champion he should have been. And all his confused thoughts 
 resolved themselves into a hurried decision to find Rosaleen, 
 tell her what had occurred, and of his promise to Terence, vow- 
 ing himself to her service. When he had done that, he would 
 leave Ranmore, he would wipe the dust of Ranmore from his 
 feet. It wasn't as Lord Ranmore he saw himself at the moment, 
 it was as an interloper, an intruder into the family. Where 
 he had been most sensitive, there he was most wounded. It 
 was as an enemy Terence's mother had talked to him, while 
 nothing but love and tenderness had been in his mind toward 
 them all. 
 
 Had Derrick by happy chance been present at the inter- 
 view which took place between Margaret and her mother 
 
 41
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 later in the day, he would have learned that the first words 
 of an angry woman are not the last words; and much trou- 
 ble might have been averted, that was brought about by his 
 misapprehension. 
 
 For, by the afternoon, when Lady Ranmore had thought 
 round and about the position, had sent for Rosaleen, only to 
 be told she was nowhere to be found, and finally had decided 
 to voice her new grievance against Deny to the Duchess, much 
 of her rage and rancor had left her. Grief was back again 
 in full sway. It was kind to the girl Terence wanted her to be, 
 and the last thing she thought of doing was carrying out her 
 threat to turn Rosaleen from the Castle. If it were the truth 
 that she had lifted presumptuous eyes to Terence and indeed, 
 and indeed, who was there that had not loved him ? she would 
 hear all about him from her; they would talk of him together. 
 
 By the time the idea had sunk into her mind, it had become 
 more than bearable. Neat-handed, gentle-footed, patient, 
 everything that a young girl should be, Rosaleen O'Daly had 
 proved since they sent her from the convent to wait upon her 
 patroness. The Duchess must go back to her husband, and 
 it was alone they would be together, she and Rosaleen: they 
 could talk of him, perhaps the talk would help her awful heart- 
 ache. She knew she could not bear it alone much longer. 
 Sometimes she felt her reason was giving way under it. He 
 had left a gap so wide there was nothing for her to hold on 
 to; the whole world was a void, it was a black chasm he had 
 left behind him. 
 
 When Margaret came to her that same day, in the twilight, 
 Lady Ranmore talked first of Deny, of his inferiority and 
 unfitness for his position. She spoke of him with bitterness. 
 Margaret reminded her gently that Terence had always been 
 fond of him, that Terence said it was a fine man he would 
 make. 
 
 "You must remember it's half heart-broken he is. He is 
 not thinking of his position at all." 
 
 Perhaps Lady Ranmore saw him less a schemer and an 
 intruder than she said. She asked her daughter presently, 
 
 42
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 it had been in her mind all the time, but it was only at the end 
 she brought it out. 
 
 "Did you hear anything from our darling boy that day about 
 Rosaleen O'Daly ? Did he speak of her to you at all ?" 
 
 "Yes. It was something he wanted to ask Deny, or tell him 
 about her." 
 
 "And what was it he said?" 
 
 "Something about you being kind to her. I did not quite 
 understand why he should doubt it. But he spoke to Deny 
 after; there had been some love-making between her and Deny, 
 I think. And now that he was to come into the title and every- 
 thing, perhaps Terence doubted that Deny would go on with 
 it. She looks terribly ill and unhappy. Has she said any- 
 thing to you, or you to her?" 
 
 "It was Terence himself, I understood Deny to say ..." 
 
 "Terence! Rosaleen O'Daly and Terence!" 
 
 "It wasn't easy not to love him." 
 
 "Oh! I think you are mistaken, mother. And yet . . . 
 she does look dreadfully unhappy . . . she could not have 
 thought that Terence. . . . Oh, mother! poor girl, if that is 
 so. But I can't believe it. You'll be kind to her, if it is that, 
 you'll be kind to her," Margaret pleaded. "If she took him 
 seriously, perhaps . . . but what does it matter now?" 
 Margaret's unready tears began to flow. What did it matter 
 now if Rosaleen O'Daly thought Terence had been in love 
 with her, or she with him ? 
 
 "I'll not have her thinking she is to grieve for him differently 
 from the rest." Lady Ranmore said doggedly, tears behind 
 her words, "for who was it that could help loving him?" 
 
 "Oh, mother, don't be hard! You've grown so hard. Sure, 
 it's only a child she is, gather her in your arms and comfort 
 her. That's what I'd do if she'd let me; if she is grieving so 
 for him. Now I mind it, she looks like death. We must be 
 good to her." 
 
 That was the talk, and there was none of the rancor against 
 the girl that Deny had heard, and believed in so absolutely. 
 It served possibly to distract Lady Ranmore's mind a little. 
 
 43
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Perhaps that night, instead of black sleeplessness and moaning 
 over her desolation, she bethought her of what she should hear 
 from Rosaleen, of what Rosaleen would tell her of his words. 
 She was sure there had been no love-making, or but little love- 
 making, yet perhaps some talk between them. And she would 
 hear that the very words of him, and how he looked when 
 he spoke them. And dimly she hoped that she might feed 
 her grief upon his remembered words, until it broke to tears, 
 the slow tears for want of which her eyes burned in those black, 
 sleepless nights, when all she knew was that she had no son. 
 She had little rancor against Rosaleen that night. It was 
 against Derry her reasonless jealousy grew, against Derry, 
 who was here in Terence's place. 
 
 But when the morrow came, there was neither Rosaleen 
 nor Derry to be found. And the blunder had been made 
 irreparable.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 AFTER seeking her so many days, it was strange that 
 Derry should have found Rosaleen that very morning, 
 not ten minutes after he had left his aunt's room. His 
 heart was aflame with Lady Ranmore's injustice, and his 
 slow brain was hardly working, or it was working backward. 
 He knew he would leave Ranmore. They had made him 
 welcome there always, it had always been his home; now he 
 was no longer welcome there. He would go to where Terence 
 lay in his coffin, Terence who had been own brother to him, 
 and kneel there to say good-bye; then he'd go to the Sisters of 
 the Sacred Heart and tell them Rosaleen must go back to them. 
 After that he would leave Ranmore. He was so sore and hurt 
 when he left his aunt's presence, that his thoughts were as 
 wild as hers. He rushed to Terence, where he lay in that 
 narrow coffin, hearing nothing, and answering nothing, to 
 the wild cry of the boy. Derry was but a boy as yet, and he 
 cried out against injustice. 
 
 " You know it's not your place I'm wanting, Terence. You 
 know I'd have given my life for yours, and been proud to do 
 it! Oh! Terence, Terence, if you could only come back to us!" 
 This relieved his bursting heart a little; then, with his eyes still 
 full of tears, he stumbled along the little path, all overgrown 
 and soft, that led to the chapel. When he got to the chapel, the 
 door was open. He was not of their faith, but the open door, or 
 his bursting heart, or some unknown hand led him. 
 
 She was there, sure enough, this Rosaleen whom he had 
 been seeking, but for the moment had forgotten to seek, lying 
 all huddled up by the altar steps, sobbing as if her own heart 
 would break. All the words he heard her utter were just: 
 "Oh, Mother of God! Oh, Mother of God! And what shall 
 I do? What shall I do?" 
 
 He had no courage . . . the misery of her! There was a 
 
 4 45
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 trembling on him, and his knees were unsteady, so, for all that 
 he was a Protestant, he fell upon them, beside her. And the 
 prayer he put up wildly was that he might fill Terence's place. 
 It was Terence who had won her, and God alone knew what 
 he had done to her. But Terence had told him he was to help 
 her. He had not voice, nor words, nor strength, while she 
 sobbed so wildly, the slender slip of a girl, the girl that had 
 laughed at him, with the soft light in her eyes, and the thin 
 sweet lips, such a short while ago; it was little but a child she 
 was now. How she shook, like a leaf in the wind! 
 
 "Let me die, Mother! Mother of God, let me die!" She 
 was a Protestant, too, but convent bred, and the prayers she 
 had heard so often came easiest to her lips. 
 
 Nights and nights she had had of sick fear, not grief, only 
 fear. Cold fear, and terror, and despair, had walked with her 
 in the dreadful day, and lay beside her, through the dreadful 
 nights. What Terence had had, he had taken unfairly, and not 
 won. Terence was the master here, and all she had, she owed 
 the Ranmores. But it was not blaming him she was, only 
 herself. She had listened to the soft voice and pleading of him; 
 she had fought against him, but she had yielded. She had been 
 unsafegu^,rded through her very innocence. . . . But she 
 would make no excuses for herself, it was a wicked girl she had 
 been, and now all the world would know. He had promised, 
 here, in this very chapel, before the Image of the Blessed Mother; 
 he had vowed. . . . 
 
 It was a cruel enough story, but the rights of it Deny could 
 not draw from her, neither then nor ever. Neither of them, 
 she in her despair, and he in his trouble, could be ought but ten- 
 der over the memory of the dead man. 
 
 "He said he loved me so dearly; it's married we'd be before 
 the fall. . . . Oh! Mother of God, and what '11 become of 
 me now?" she moaned. She had taken little heed of Deny, 
 she was beyond heeding. But she had not resented his pres- 
 ence there, and something of strength and courage returned 
 to him, for he had to help her, he could not bear her grief. He 
 was only a boy, and sobbing, too, now beside her. 
 
 46
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "The Mother of God, she's just a plaster image there, and 
 the paint gone. It's me you must turn to; he told me all about, 
 and I '11 find the way to help you. Be done with your cryin'." 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Deny, but it's past help I am! I want to be 
 dyin'. And what will she say when she knows? And him 
 that promised!" She could not check her wild sobbing, although 
 she tried while he talked to her, groping for the soothing word, 
 and telling her she had been Terence's last thought. She 
 had not heard a word of that before; now she was listening to 
 him, hanging on his words, remaining on her knees, chilled 
 and trembling on the cold flags, but listening. 
 
 "It's neither of us is wanted here," he said at length. "I'll 
 take you away from here." 
 
 That showed her a gleam of hope, although the firmament 
 was so black that she hardly recognized it. It had seemed 
 there was nothing before her but to stay here, where all the 
 world would get to know of her trouble, and look scorn at her, 
 and never know it was himself who said that vows before the 
 Blessed Mother were as good as being wed. He was dead, 
 and they'd never believe what he had promised. She rocked 
 herself to and fro, and broken phrases came. . . . 
 
 What did it matter Mr. Berry's hearing? Her pride was 
 in the dust; she was but a broken thing before him. She would 
 drown herself the day, for it was drowning she'd thought of 
 every night since he died. Often she'd pictured it. She knew 
 the lake that had no bottom to it, the lake that lay between the 
 rocks, no trees nor rushes near it, the lake on Gabriel. She 
 had seen it once, one happy picnic day out from the convent. 
 She could take the train to Bantry, and from Bantry 'twas but 
 three hours' walking; and then she could throw herself down, 
 and her body would never be found. Mayhap she should have 
 done it before . . . but 'tis hard to die at seventeen. Then 
 the tears flowed again, for Berry's words touched the bitter 
 fountain of them. 
 
 "It's not fit to live I am, you can't help me; it's past help I am." 
 
 "I'd find the way to help you, if I had to crawl all me days 
 on me hands and knees. Rosaleen, he bade me do it. It was 
 
 47
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 you he was thinking of all the time he lay dying. And he made 
 me swear it to him. I '11 not be false to my oath. I 'm going 
 to find a way. 'Swear,' he said to me, 'Deny, swear.' You 
 were in his mind all the time. That ought to comfort you. 
 'It's only Rosaleen I'm thinking of,' or words like that he said, 
 again and again." 
 
 She had stopped crying now, but she was still crouching 
 on the ground, listening, yet saying over and over again that 
 she was only fit to die. He told her, thinking it was the only 
 way to comfort her, of Terence's anxiety for her, straining 
 truth a little, perhaps. But it was not that which soothed her, 
 it was the human sympathy, the first sympathy she had known 
 in these weeks since the cruel telegram came, following so soon 
 on Terence's letter, when he had told her to keep her heart up; 
 the letter which had answered her first shamed, fearful cry to him. 
 
 Deny blundered on in the only way he knew. Terence's 
 mother had said she would turn Rosaleen out of doors if she 
 claimed that Terence had been in love with her. Well, she 
 was claiming that Terence had promised to make her his wife. 
 Never a doubt had Derry that he would have done it. But 
 now all the country-side would point scorn on her, and there 
 was no shelter nor pity, and she but a child still. 
 
 "You'll come away with me this very day," he said, for his 
 strength grew with her consciousness of her need of it. "I'll 
 find a place for you away in London while we're thinking 
 what to do. Neither of us is wanted here. I '11 be own brother 
 to you, Rosaleen, if you'll trust yourself to me. I'll take care 
 of you, and it will all come right. You've no call to be talking 
 of dying, it's living you've got to be; and helping me to keep 
 my word to Terence." 
 
 There was hope in his words, and it was small wonder that 
 she listened to him. She had no money, and no knowledge 
 of any world that lay beyond the convent or the castle grounds. 
 She had tried to think of herself as Terence's wedded wife, for 
 he had vowed it to her here, before this very altar, with the 
 Mother looking down. But she was only a poor girl, for all 
 that, and no priest had blessed them. And she wasn't sure 
 
 48
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 but that she was a wicked girl. Only Deny comforted her 
 by telling her she couldn't be that, for Terence had meant all 
 he said, or why was her name on his lips when he thought he 
 was speaking his last words? And why had he entrusted her 
 to Derry? 
 
 Their plans were soon made. She was to stay where she 
 was until after nightfall, then creep back to the house for her 
 things. And Derry would go back now, and get money and 
 clothes. From Dunmanway station they'd start this very 
 night for London ; and he would find a place of shelter for her. 
 From Cork it was easy to get to Liverpool. If search was made 
 for them it would be in Dublin. But it was to London they 'd 
 go, where hiding was easy. She said mournfully that none 
 would look for her. It seemed to Derry that perhaps this was 
 true, and the sadness of it isolated them still more within the 
 stone walls of that little chapel. The plaster Mother, with her 
 crude blue coloring, and the Babe, whose gold crown was half 
 peeled away with the damp, witnessed a stranger scene than 
 when Terence had taken his vows before the altar, and tried to 
 reconcile his conscience to the sin he had committed. No subtle 
 schemer, or sinner, had Terence been, and, had he lived, oppo- 
 sition or no opposition, he would have made amends. But 
 he had been so used to his own way, and being given what he 
 wanted, that, if it were not to be had by fair means. . . . But 
 it is horrible to write about, and even Derry never heard the 
 rights of it. 
 
 Rosaleen, too, put the remembrance as far as possible away 
 from her when she went forth with Derry that night, neither 
 of them seeing where their journey would take them. They 
 were both of them very young; it is only very young people who 
 see no way to meet trouble but to fly from it, never heeding 
 where the flight may land them.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 LORD RANMORE for henceforward Deny must bear 
 his title left Ranmore, taking Rosaleen O'Daly with 
 him, less than a week after his cousin's death. He knew 
 nothing of his means, he had no money but the few pounds 
 he carried with him, and at first he was even reluctant to apply 
 to the family lawyers. 
 
 It was, perhaps, not to be wondered at that Rosaleen went 
 with him so easily. She knew what was right and wrong, 
 but very little of how wagging tongues put wrong construc- 
 tions on innocent acts. They passed one night at Dublin, 
 and another in getting to Liverpool. The horrors of sea- 
 sickness fell to Rosaleen's share, and Derry nursed her, for 
 the night was a wild one, and the stewards were too busy to 
 tend second-class passengers. 
 
 In London, Derry with his portmanteau, and Rosaleen 
 with her shabby bag, stood doubtfully for ten minutes in the 
 midst of a yellow November fog on the platform at Euston. 
 Derry questioned a friendly porter, who recommended him 
 to a temperance hotel, somewhere off the Tottenham Court 
 Road. Rosaleen was in no fit state to be left alone, and Derry 
 was in no mood to leave her. He had constituted himself 
 her protector, or brother, as he preferred to call himself. Every 
 hour they had been together, his tenderness toward her had 
 increased. It is like this with chivalrous natures. She clung 
 to him, she was utterly dependent on him, poor child that she 
 was. She was worn out with all the sleepless nights she had 
 passed, and the unaccustomed travel, and the strangeness of it 
 all. It was sleep she wanted most, and after the cab had taken 
 them to the temperance hotel, Derry's footsteps paced the 
 dingy coffee-room uncertainly before a friendly chambermaid 
 brought him word that sleep had come to Rosaleen. 
 
 50
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 London, in a dingy temperance hotel on a foggy November 
 morning, is a poor place for right thinking. Deny had little 
 notion of what his next step should be. He felt the weight 
 of his responsibilities; but the sense of achievement, and the 
 consciousness that he was carrying out his vows to Terence, 
 gave him a new sense of exhilaration. He was happier than 
 he had been since Terence's death. 
 
 When Derry asked for a room for himself, the proprietor 
 of the hotel very naturally wanted to know who his clients were, 
 and suggested a payment on account. Derry hesitated about 
 giving his own name, for he had not grown used to it yet. And 
 he hesitated more in giving hers. Yet, had not she a right to 
 be called Lady Ranmore? A better right than his own, he 
 thought, if the truth were known. But the hesitation failed 
 to inspire confidence, when he said at length that they were 
 Lord and Lady Ranmore. A temperance hotel off the Totten- 
 ham Court Road was not the usual stopping-place for a peer 
 and his lady. The fly-blown, green, paper-covered lampshades, 
 the dingy oil-cloth on the table, the early Victorian prints in 
 maple-wood frames, together with the uncarpeted floor, a stray 
 text or two, and an advertisement of a new mineral water 
 seemed to present little temptation to dishonest travellers. 
 Yet the proprietor was obviously suspicious, and even when 
 Derry offered him what payment he wanted in advance, the 
 man continued surly and apparently ill-satisfied. He said 
 his was a respectable house. Derry said it ought to be some- 
 thing, for it was damned uncomfortable! That did not mend 
 matters. In fact, it was only by pulling himself together at 
 the critical moment, and remembering that Rosaleen must 
 have her sleep out, that Derry commanded himself and the 
 situation long enough to procure the hospitality he sought. 
 
 Matters looked better in the morning: not the hotel that 
 was dingier than ever, more fly-blown, more hideously respect- 
 able and text-ridden, and the food past praying for; but affairs 
 generally, and chiefly, Derry's own spirits. 
 
 For Rosaleen came down to breakfast with him, and she 
 looked the better for her night's rest. The dirty Britannia- 
 
 51
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 metal teapot, the thick white teacups, shop-eggs, stale bread 
 and salt butter, elicited no complaint from her. She looked 
 better, but the shadow was dodging her here, too. She had 
 put herself blindly into Derry's hands, but she did not know 
 what Deny would do with her. Nor did Derry himself know. 
 
 But his spirits had risen, and he determined hers should 
 not fall below a certain point. He pressed the eggs upon her, 
 and called for more bacon, and carried the situation with the 
 sheer simplicity of his satisfaction in it. Anyway, he was 
 doing something. 
 
 "And we're free as air here in London," he told her trium- 
 phantly. "There's not a soul knows where we are, and we can 
 just make a start, and go our own way." 
 
 "You'll find me work to do?" she asked him. 
 
 "I'll find you something; don't you worry. You just sit 
 about and get rested when you've taken your breakfast. I 
 suppose I must try and find those lawyers, and see into things 
 a bit. Anyway, we're neither of us with those who don't want us." 
 
 It was hard for him to keep his eyes off Rosaleen, or keep 
 them, when they did fall upon her, from telling her how pretty 
 she looked this morning. There was little doubt why his 
 spirits had risen. She was pouring out his tea for him, and 
 there was not one but him to look after her, and what lay be- 
 hind was done with, and what lay before them could wait. 
 She had wound the great plaits round her head in what seemed 
 to him a very cunning and pretty fashion. Her face was very 
 pale, and her gray eyes were dark and mournful still, but there 
 was some color to-day in the sweet, tremulous lips, and he was 
 even more conscious than she of her dependence on him. 
 
 But they were not as isolated as they thought. They had 
 been seen at Liverpool, and that their destination was London 
 was known. They had run away together, and what complexion 
 could be put upon their elopement? There had been no talk 
 about Terence and the girl, any more than there is talk about 
 the sun when it kisses the tree-tops. But the talk waged wild 
 about the two who had stolen away from the house of mourning, 
 and all Ranmpre waited for news of the wedding. They 
 
 52
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 thought shame on her that she could not wait until Ranmore 
 was cold in his coffin Terence was still Ranmore to them. 
 Lady Ranmore, and even the Duchess, had no doubt, from 
 the moment the news of the elopement was authenticated to 
 them, but that Derry and she had been "carrying on," and 
 it was about this that Terence had wanted to speak. Terence, 
 it seemed to them on consideration, had wanted to ensure that 
 Derry, when he succeeded to the title, should not ignore his 
 obligations, and it was for Derry's sake he had pleaded to his 
 mother to be kind to her. 
 
 That was the reasoning at Ranmore, although there was 
 little reasoning against the feeling of all that the moment had 
 been inauspicious for love-making. Tongues wagged harshly; 
 even the Duchess found it difficult to forgive Derry for having 
 acted so precipitately. 
 
 Anger against Derry steadied the world a little for Lady 
 Ranmore. The relations it had been so impossible to conceive 
 as between Terence and the girl became less completely incred- 
 ible when Derry took the foreground position in the picture. 
 Terence's character, wanting no burnish, stood out the brighter 
 because, on his death-bed, he had been anxious the right thing 
 should be done, and troubled lest Derry, with his new dignities, 
 should forget his old obligations? So reasoned Terence's 
 mother when the elopement was made known. She was very 
 angry, and righteously angry, with what she misread so definitely. 
 In her anger and unreasonableness generally, she resolved 
 suddenly on what she had up to the time of the flight been 
 but dimly contemplating. She would wrench her heart and 
 thoughts from Ranmore. She had a good jointure, and it 
 had been poured out like water for the improvements. Now 
 everything should stop; the building and the excavations for 
 coal, the cottage industries and the lobster-potting down by 
 the coast. She'd build up no home for Derry, and the baggage 
 he had taken with him. Perhaps "baggage" was not the 
 word she used, but she did not forget what was due to the 
 Duchess. And real evil, even of Derry, she was slow to suspect, 
 even while she voiced it. 
 
 53
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Margaret was not so clear about it all as Lady Ranmore, 
 nor so bitter; although she was very shocked at Rosaleen, 
 and very disappointed in Deny. The flight, and the time 
 chosen for it, seemed heartless, and cruel, and unnecessary; 
 but it was not criminal. She had to urge this view upon her 
 mother, and she spoke of their youth, but she only added to 
 her mother's anger, and brought some of it down upon her 
 own head. 
 
 The Duchess's plea for Deny, perhaps a little half-hearted, 
 for she was sore herself, at the moment over his desertion. 
 Seemed to excuse her mother's sudden decision to abandon 
 Ranmore, to let it fall back into the ruin from which it had 
 still only half emerged. Anger and resentment are easier to 
 bear than grief. Lady Ranmore nursed her feeling against 
 Derry, and sent for her lawyer to give effect to it 
 
 But, when the days went by, and no news came of the wedding, 
 the Duchess's conscience grew restless. Lady Ranmore 
 might nurse her grievances, and listen to Mr. Carruthers' 
 advice, and plan reprisals. The Duchess did not take those 
 reprisals very seriously at first; it was good for her mother to 
 have a grievance to occupy her instead of only her loss. But 
 Terence had been troubled in his mind over Rosaleen O'Daly, 
 or over Derry's possible treatment of her, and his sister could 
 not leave things to take their course. 
 
 She had to leave Ranmore, and take up the duties, never 
 neglected, that she owed to that poor derelict Duke of hers. 
 Passing through London, however, on her way to Dunstans, 
 she wrote a line to Mr. Carruthers, asking for Lord Ranmore's 
 address in London; she never doubted his having it. 
 
 Before this incredible elopement had taken place, she and 
 Deny had been full of schemes, in which the lawyer's help 
 was necessary for rounding off all those matters relating to 
 Terence, and keeping them from his mother's ears. She did 
 not doubt but that Derry would carry out their plan, even if 
 his own affairs had become entangled. For entanglement 
 was the euphemism with which she now began to cloak the 
 flight. 
 
 54
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 The contents of the Duchess's letter were given to Deny 
 directly he called upon the family lawyer. He could not delay 
 that, for his funds were very limited. 
 
 After the information had been conveyed to him that the 
 Duchess of Towcester was seeking his address, he did not 
 wait long enough at the lawyer's office to carry out the purpose 
 of his call there. He had been wasting his time in London, 
 not realizing quickly how he ought to act. Now it came at 
 once into his impulsive head that his cousin would befriend 
 Rosaleen; that, in taking her so hurriedly from Ranmore, he 
 had left the Duchess out of his calculations. Margaret's 
 heart was as large as his own. 
 
 He never paused to think of the inexplicable things he must 
 explain. Outside cog-wheels and machinery, Deny was no 
 tactician; even his curious sensitiveness had its extraordinary 
 limitations. He had understood the story Rosaleen had not 
 told him, and he never doubted but that Margaret would under- 
 stand it as easily. The harshness of woman's judgment on 
 her fellow-woman is strange to any young man's mind, and this 
 was never an ordinary young man, this Deny, who had made 
 up his mind for all time that the laws for other men were not the 
 laws for Terence Ranmore. 
 
 He could not quite blind himself to his own feeling for Rosa- 
 leen, although he could subordinate, and keep it in the back- 
 ground. That he might have to suffer through his action never 
 entered his head. Had it done so it would have made no 
 difference to his conduct; the one person Deny never thought 
 of in the affair was Deny. 
 
 It had not been worth while to open the ducal house in Bruton 
 Street for the night or two the Duchess must pass in town. It 
 was, therefore, at Claridge's Hotel Mr. Carruthers told Lord 
 Ranmore he would find Her Grace. Derry had no difficulty 
 in gaining access to her. His unnecessarily extravagant han- 
 som had hardly stopped on the india-rubber covered approach 
 to that fashionable caravanserai, before a uniformed functionary 
 with a hat like a beadle's, had summoned his myrmidons and 
 sent the name to his cousin. Deny had a bare two minutes to 
 
 55
 
 LET THE ROOF PALL IN 
 
 wait in the great, luxurious hall before a page-boy came to conduct 
 him upstairs. The hall of Claridge's contrasted very favorably 
 with the linoleum-covered passage, leading to the coffee-room 
 of the temperance hotel, that Deny had just left. Not more 
 so, of course, than the elegant suite of rooms, upholstered in 
 mauve satin, and elaborate with primrose window-curtains 
 and portiere, where he found the Duchess of Towcester awaiting 
 him, contrasted with the bedroom with its slip of drugget, its 
 deal single washstand, and its rickety chest of drawers with a 
 Bible on it, where he had left the girl he had taken under his 
 charge. 
 
 The Duchess stood to receive him. The beauty of her, with 
 the red-gold pile of hair against her mourning robes, her bril- 
 liancy and fine carriage, although she was the pride of all the 
 Ranmores, could not dazzle the eyes that were fresh from 
 Rosaleen's slender charm. But although he was not dazzled 
 nor overwhelmed, he was struck dumb by her greeting, which 
 had rather judgment in it than welcome, and was unlike any 
 greeting he had ever received from Margaret. 
 
 "I asked Mr. Carruthers for your address, I suppose he told 
 you," she began. She did not offer to shake hands, nor did she 
 bid him sit down. 
 
 "Perhaps I ought to have washed my hands of you, and 
 left you to go your own way, as my mother has done. It could 
 only have been of yourself you were thinking, when you ran 
 away from us like that. You've angered my mother terribly, 
 estranged her from you, embittered her. It was a cruel slight 
 upon his memory, upon all of us. Why couldn't you have 
 waited; why didn't you confide in me, and him not dead a fort- 
 night, and so much to be done for him." . . . Her feelings 
 carried her away, she spoke quickly, almost breathlessly. It 
 was so disloyal, so unlike him. " Oh ! why did you do it, Deny ?" 
 
 She softened even as she spoke, for, indeed, she was fond of 
 Deny, and so had Terence been; and his looks were not furtive 
 nor guilty, only bewildered. 
 
 "Why couldn't you have waited until we had got over our 
 mourning a little, and the strangeness of it? You could not 
 
 56
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 expect my mother not to be angry with Rosaleen, stealing away 
 like that. She has always been so good to the girl, and she had 
 grown used to her. What does it all mean, Deny? But 
 perhaps I should not ask. Only I hate to think ill of you. 
 Why have you not married her? Is it carrying out what he 
 asked you? It's shame you're bringing to the girl, and to all 
 of us." 
 
 She paused, breathless, having poured it all out in a torrent, 
 and now beginning to recognize she understood it less than ever. 
 
 "If you cared for her when you were Derry Malone, you 
 oughtn't to care less because you are Lord Ranmore. W r as it 
 of that Terence was thinking? And did he know you better, 
 after all, than I? I wouldn't have believed it of you, Derry; 
 to bring shame on the girl! And she almost a child, hardly out 
 of her teens. And what is to become of her life?" But even 
 as she spoke, she hardly believed that Derry could have done 
 this thing. There must be some mistake. 
 
 "It's no shame I've brought to Rosaleen," Derry answered, 
 quite taken aback, almost sullenly. The attack was so sudden 
 and unexpected he scarcely knew how to meet it. 
 
 "You are married to her, then? I told my mother I was 
 sure that was how it was. When was it? Why have you kept 
 it secret from me? Did Terence know?" 
 
 "I'm not married to her." 
 
 His heart seemed suddenly to beat faster than it had beat 
 before. He had not faced it, yet this had been in his mind 
 before, in that unforgetable happy summer. But it was Terence 
 who had won her. It was not surprising, for who could with- 
 stand Terence ? But that thought, too, was dim, and the pain 
 in it was numbed and distant. It was for Terence he was guard- 
 ing her. But what was this about marriage? Perhaps it was 
 slow to dawn on him that this was the way, the only way. It 
 was Margaret that was bringing light to the slow dawning. 
 
 He could tell Margaret nothing, having meant that she should 
 have guessed everything. For before he had time to speak, 
 Margaret was telling him not only how wrongly he had acted, 
 and how his action was resented at Ranmore, but which was 
 
 57
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 the only way to repair his fault! And she went on to remind 
 him what he owed to the girl, and what Terence would have 
 thought of it all. She had said a great deal before she waited 
 for him to answer, overwhelming him with it. She spoke 
 quickly, for some of the time she was speaking against her con- 
 viction, though always in accordance with what she thought 
 was her duty, and the right thing for her to be pointing out to 
 him. His dark face flushed as he took it in slowly, but more 
 quickly than he could answer it. 
 
 There was no slur on Terence, unless he put it there; it wasn't 
 Terence they were thinking of at all! What was it that she 
 was saying? 
 
 "If . . .if your hand was forced, Deny? I don't know 
 what to make of it, I don't want to begin thinking . . .it's 
 so unlike what I've always known of you, it is so difficult to under- 
 stand. My mother and I thought it was for Terence she was 
 fretting; and you thought so, too. At least, that is what we 
 understood. Then you take her away, out of my mother's 
 protection, and I suppose she is in London here with you ? We 
 heard of you at Holyhead and Micky was on the boat. Deny, 
 if my mother has been misled about her, and . . . and if she 
 is not a good girl I must not perhaps press you to marry her. 
 But something must be done, you must let us do something." 
 
 "Good! Good! She's better than untold gold a jewel. 
 God bless her, and it's me that's not worthy of her!" 
 
 But his lips went dry, and all at once he saw his way, and his 
 heart was vociferous. 
 
 "Well, you know best." 
 
 She felt rather cold; sin had never touched her closely. Some- 
 how she had not anticipated Derry's attitude; she failed to 
 understand it, naturally. 
 
 "But you are not married, you say?" she persisted. 
 
 "As yet there's been no talk of marriage between us." His 
 lips were dry, and his words came with difficulty. 
 
 "Surely it is very wrong?" 
 
 She must do what she thought right. But she had hoped 
 he would have met her differently. 
 
 58
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "Perhaps I ought not to interfere. You may say it is no affair 
 of mine, you are a man grown, and I am only your distant cousin. 
 But she has no parents, and my mother was her guardian. In 
 a way, we are all her guardians, and her father died in our 
 service. . . ." 
 
 "I'm meaning to take care of her," he said. His eyes were 
 glowing now. Margaret understood less than ever. In truth 
 she hardly wanted now to press this marriage on him. For 
 she was only a normal woman, although a Duchess, and Deny 
 was the head of her house. It was money he should marry; 
 the more so now that her mother would do nothing for him. 
 She hesitated, standing there, softening toward Deny, harden- 
 ing in her judgment of the girl who had led him into this. She 
 said a hard word or two about her, tentatively, and that lit 
 Derry's chivalry to a blaze. But it made it no easier for him 
 to speak. 
 
 "You're blaming her for what was no fault of hers," was all 
 he could get out. "She is as good as gold . . . a jewel." 
 
 "I '11 not believe it was you alone that thought of running 
 away from us all." 
 
 "Is that what they are all saying down there?" 
 
 "It would be a great step up for her, of course, to become 
 Lady Ranmore. But now, now that you ran away with her 
 and have been nearly a week together, you can't expect people 
 to look upon her as they would if you had married her, as indeed 
 I thought you had, or would, at the first possible opportunity. 
 You say there has been no thought or talk of marriage between 
 you." Some doubt, or perplexity, some misgiving, faint 
 enough, but there, stopped her speech. " Is there some explana- 
 tion . . . Derry?" 
 
 And then what came into her mind flushed her face, and low 
 as her voice went, he heard the fear in it. She had come in an 
 instant's intuition within appreciable distance of the truth, but 
 turned sick and faint and his name on her lips was as a plea to 
 him for denial. 
 
 He must get back to Rosaleen. Of course there was no other 
 way. It had been coming so slowly to Deny, perhaps from 
 
 59
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 the time he heard her sobbing in the chapel, perhaps when he 
 named her as Lady Ranmore in the eating-house, that, when 
 the idea was full born before him, it no longer seemed strange, 
 but as if he had known it always. Margaret's voice pleaded 
 to him, and her eyes; it was reassurance he must give her, 
 hurriedly and completely. There must remain nothing on her 
 mind to slur Terence's memory. It was Terence himself had 
 laid this charge upon him. Rosaleen would do it, perhaps, for 
 Terence's memory. Would she do it? He could hardly 
 answer Margaret, so great was this thought that had come to 
 him. But Margaret moved nearer to him, for now the fear 
 and the intuition were sharp. 
 
 "Derryf About Terence? There was nothing, not between, 
 her and . . . Terence." 
 
 "What is it you are thinking?" he said roughly. "There 
 is nonsense in what you are saying. I'm going back to Rosaleen; 
 it was not her I came about at all, but the bills and things. 
 Now you've said enough, too much. Neither you nor my 
 aunt will have anything to do with Rosaleen, and I can't expect 
 it, you say! Well, and I haven't asked it, nor she neither. 
 We came away, isn't that enough? It's . . . it's married 
 we'll be soon." 
 
 Derry rushed from the room without leave-taking, in anger, 
 or something that looked like it. Margaret tried to call him 
 back, but she could not call his name through the corridor, 
 down those wide steps where she saw him running. She had 
 gone after him, she had not meant to be abrupt, unkind, and 
 it was but slowly she returned to that elegant suite of hers. 
 
 Had he completely reassured her? She hardly knew what 
 had suddenly given her that shock of fear; she was still trembling 
 from it. But it was irrational and absurd, no wonder Derry 
 had been angry! How could she have thought . . . ? She 
 would leave off thinking. Derry was but a boy; she would 
 see him again, and yet again. There was plenty of time, 
 he must not spoil his life. As for the girl . . . well, it is 
 not to be supposed that the Duchess of Towcester thought 
 very kindly of Rosaleen O'Daly. 
 
 60
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 She had perforce to put Deny and his affairs out of her 
 mind at the moment, for she was due at Dunstans. Derelict 
 as he was, paralyzed, a mere cumberer of the earth, with a 
 blank mind, and only a body needing tendance, she had been 
 away from her husband long enough. She must see Deny 
 again Deny must come to Dunstans. It is possible she 
 thought the trouble about Rosaleen would pass away. She 
 was really a good woman; but when the sudden fear that had 
 shaken her had evanesced, leaving her uncertain as to when 
 it came, or why, there remained a sediment, of which the main 
 ingredient was the possibility, the hope, that she might hear 
 no more of Rosaleen.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE hansom was still waiting for him, the horse fidgeting 
 decorously on that india-rubber pavement. Derry gave 
 the Tottenham Court Road address and told the man 
 to hurry, to hurry all he knew. Clear as daylight his thoughts 
 were then clearer than the day that was before his eyes in 
 the murky November streets. He saw Rosaleen waiting for 
 him; perhaps her eyes would brighten when he came those 
 mournful gray eyes. 
 
 Because he was habitually slow of thought, now the reminis- 
 cences and the certainties jostled each other too quickly for 
 him to capture or marshal them. The golden summer, the 
 sparkle and promise of her, the secret hopes he cherished . . . 
 then Terence in the weighing-room, and the jar of his words; 
 Rosaleen in the chapel. . . . Derry became convinced, during 
 that drive which seemed so short, that what he was going to 
 do was what Terence had wished. There should be no shame 
 on her or him. It was Lady Ranmore she should be, and 
 that as soon as the law could make her. Beyond this he could 
 not go. She did not care for him at all; it was Terence who 
 had won her. But that must make no difference, since Terence 
 was dead. 
 
 If happiness for himself was not in the picture he was draw- 
 ing, it did not seem to be an essential factor. He had always 
 thought little of himself, of the size that spelt awkwardness, 
 and the muscle that was only of use in the workshop. Next 
 to Terence he had always been as pottery to porcelain, just 
 rough. And she, the elegant slip of a girl . . . it is difficult 
 to credit such selfless thoughts as Berry's, yet there they were. 
 He had seen a sudden fear in Margaret's face, and he must 
 not let it abide there. It could all be made plain and easy. 
 It was himself that must take Terence's place. He anticipated 
 
 62
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 no opposition from Rosaleen; it was so easy a way out of the 
 tangle. Let come what may, he thought vaguely, though 
 without any definite premonition of what might come, Rosaleen 
 must be made Lady Ranmore. 
 
 He found Rosaleen just where he had left her, in the dingy 
 coffee-room of the dingy hotel. The breakfast things had 
 been cleared away, and luncheon was spread. She was seated 
 dejectedly at the table; now and again she had been staring 
 into vacancy, into the dread future. Now and again her head 
 had sunk down in shame, the beautiful little head with its 
 coronet of black plaits. So Deny found her. There was 
 no brightness in the eyes that met his, they were almost as 
 mournful and hopeless as they had been at Ranmore. For 
 who would take her in, or find her work, and how better off 
 was she here than there? And ah! the day! 
 
 Deny went straight to the point, bungler that he was. Any 
 intimacy between them during the last four days was only in 
 his constant thought of her. There had never been any love- 
 making, since that unspoken calf-love last summer, the love 
 which she would, perhaps, have read in time, which he had 
 begun to hope she was reading, when he went back for his 
 examination. But Terence had stayed on to dazzle, and 
 bewilder, and carry her away. A bold wooer was Terence, 
 and hard to parry for a girl with only a conventual outlook, 
 and she a dependent in his house. It was only her beauty 
 that had counted as yet, with either of them. Her character 
 had hardly begun to emerge from a training that had left her 
 without volition. She had had the disadvantages of her Protes- 
 tantism to contend with both in and out of the convent; and 
 this was an additional misfortune. For else there would have 
 been someone to whom she could have told her trouble, even 
 if it had been only a priest in the confessional. As it was, 
 she had the training and the phrasing of a religion bereft of 
 its essence. Her soul and temperament would have to push 
 their way presently through all the human muddlement of 
 her education and final disaster. 
 
 "Rosaleen! I've something to tell you. I've seen my 
 
 63
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 cousin; she says we ought to be married, coming away together 
 like we did. ..." His face was crimson, and his breath 
 was as hurried as if he had been running. "And I've been 
 thinking she is right. We'll get it done as fast as possible. 
 I'm going back to the lawyer's this afternoon, and they'll put 
 me in the way of it, but first I had to come and tell you what 
 I had decided." 
 
 There was only a look of bewilderment in the little mournful 
 face, and no hope nor lightening at all. 
 
 But then, all at once, she could not face him. For she had 
 thought he had known! But now, now it seemed he did not 
 know at all. Marriage! for him, and for her . . . her, who 
 was . . . 
 
 "You've no cause to be taking it like that," he said, for he 
 saw that she was crying. He saw the sudden sobbing that 
 shook her, and his heart ran like water to her, but he dared 
 not touch her to comfort her, not even a hand upon her shoulder. 
 "It's others than ourselves we've got to be thinking of," he 
 said, more slowly, "and there's no other way to prevent them 
 knowing." 
 
 She sobbed on a little, and he, standing beside her, bent 
 now on his way, put it to her again that there was no other 
 thing to do. 
 
 Presently her sobs grew quieter, and she lifted her head: 
 
 "You're not understanding ..." Her tone was past 
 sadness, she went quite white, as if she would faint; not meet- 
 ing his eyes, desperately determined that she must not deceive 
 him, wishing she could drop down dead at his feet, before he 
 knew her shame, he that had been so good to her. . . . 
 
 "I'm understanding well enough!" He tried to take her 
 hands, but she kept them locked fast. 
 
 "You don't want me to touch you," he went on; "I know 
 that's it's meself that is nothing to you, your heart's in the 
 grave with him. I'm understanding well enough. It's not 
 a real marriage, I ... mean. ..." And then the flush 
 mounted in his face. "You'll be ... you'll be ... just 
 as you are. But you'll have his name, and no one will look 
 
 64
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 coldly on you, and that's what he meant, and made me swear 
 to do. ... " Again he put out his hand, and again she kept 
 hers locked. 
 
 "Burden you with me!" she cried, and then, in a much 
 lower voice, a voice he could hardly hear, added the words 
 she could hardly speak, "Me . . . and me shame. ..." 
 
 " It's a burden I'll bear gladly." 
 
 His kindness made her want to cry again; but she was too 
 cold, and too faint, and too frightened to cry. She rose and 
 moved away from him, toward the window, gazing out on the 
 murk . . . she could speak better then, and he was waiting 
 for her to speak, conscious of his own tongue-tiedness, and 
 now of his growing anxiety for her acquiescence. 
 
 "I'm . . . I'm ..." Her face was turned from him, 
 when she whispered, "I'm not fit for the likes of you." 
 
 They were her masters, these Ranmores. Terence had 
 done what he wished to her. Mr. Derry how big he was 
 and kind! And she thought he had guessed her secret, but 
 now she knew she had been mistaken. Oh, what would he 
 think, what would be think of her when he knew? 
 
 "Go away, and let me bide," she said passionately. "Leave 
 me be, Mr. Derry, there's something . . . something more 
 you ought to know. I ought never to have let you bring me 
 away. I'm not the girl you knew ... in June." 
 
 He did know ; all his manhood knew, and kept the knowledge 
 in leash. For he must not think harshly of Terence, and he 
 must not hurt her with his knowledge. He had to handle 
 this delicate thing with his rough hands. 
 
 "It's not whether you are fit for me, or I'm for you; it's 
 him of whom we've both of us got to think. They won't lose 
 sight of you; they have a suspicion. . . ." Her face turned 
 whiter, and a shade more of apprehension deepened in her 
 eyes. His face was more flushed, and his courage stopped 
 at the point of meeting her eyes. 
 
 "It's not for myself I'm asking it. 'Don't let my mother 
 know' and 'take care of RosaleenJ were the last words he said 
 to me. There were other things, too, but these were the last. 
 
 65
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 You'll help me to keep my promise to him. It will be all the 
 same to you." 
 
 This was what he wanted to impress upon her, that it would 
 be all the same to her! His chivalry was flaming in arms for 
 her, and it was as a brother, as a protector, as a guardian against 
 the world, he was looking to her, not as a bridegroom. She 
 was no bride for him, he knew, it was Terence she loved, to 
 Terence she had given herself. But his name would be a 
 shield for what was coming, and under cover of it, the sweet 
 head might be held erect. He did not look very far into the 
 future perhaps he dared not look. He had had a dream 
 about her once, but it was no dreaming he was doing now. 
 If his face was flushed and burning and he had to hold on to 
 his courage with both hands, he never faltered in his purpose. 
 The words fell upon her ears, they were like soft vivifying 
 rain, she could not see his face, nor hear his heart pounding; 
 but as the words fell, the dead petals of hope seem to 
 flutter. 
 
 "'Tis not your real husband I want to be!" Those were 
 the words . . . "it's to give you, you, and . . . and him 
 that's coming, the name that belongs to you both. I'll not 
 trouble, nor come near you. I see you hate me to come near 
 you. But it's broken-hearted Margaret would be, and his 
 mother, if they knew he had left you like this. He said, 'Don't 
 let my mother know;' over and over again he said it and that's 
 why I'm urging you to let me do what he would have done, 
 if ... if God had spared him," his voice broke. 
 
 Then it began to dawn upon her, not the greatness of the 
 sacrifice, nor the greatness of the heart that conceived it, but 
 only the bare husk of the idea that Deny , to save Terence's 
 name, and prevent his mother and sister casting blame upon 
 his memory, would lighten this intolerable burden she was 
 bearing, would make it bearable. It was incredible; she did 
 not believe her ears. And now her eyes helped her no better, 
 for his avoided them. 
 
 "You'd marry me?" she repeated. 
 
 "That's what I'm begging you." 
 
 66
 
 LET THE ROOF PALL IN 
 
 "To keep shame from his name?" Then her honesty 
 impelled her further, "it's not his shame, but mine, I'm thinkin'." 
 Her voice went very low again. 
 
 "It's no shame for either of you; he ... he made his 
 vows to you on the altar in the chapel. If he had lived, he 
 would have said them to you before the priest." 
 
 Still honesty drove her. 
 
 "I'm no' so sure," she whispered. Even to herself she 
 had hardly whispered it before. 
 
 He would not listen to that, he brushed it away. Now 
 all he wanted was that she should not oppose him; that she 
 should agree to any arrangement he might make. He was 
 so considerate of her feelings, and so reticent of his own, that 
 it was doubtful if at the moment she realized all he was offering 
 her, although she knew she was not strong enough to refuse 
 it. But some misgiving she had, and an overwhelming, word- 
 less gratitude. He pressed the point that it was for Margaret 
 and Terence's mother this marriage was necessary, and, to 
 guard his memory with both of them; neither he nor she came 
 into it, they were of so much lesser importance. And she 
 clung to that, tried to see it the way he would have her. They 
 were not to look upon themselves as individuals, but just as 
 they had always been, as dependents, serving the family. It 
 was the way he felt it as he talked, for now his mind was fully 
 made up, and he did not see beyond the certainty that he must 
 give Terence's name to Rosaleen and her coming child.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 MR. CARRUTHERS, to whom Deny went for help in 
 complying with the technicalities of the English mar- 
 riage laws, was the typical lawyer in high-class London 
 practice. He had the capacity for withdrawing all person- 
 ality from any case presented to him, and clearing it of any 
 but its purely legal aspect. Deny was now Lord Ranmore, 
 and there was a considerable number of points to be made 
 clear before the estate could be wound up, and that portion 
 of it which actually belonged to him handed over. That is 
 to say, if anything should be left after legal charges had been 
 met, and all contingencies fully provided for. 
 
 Mr. Carruthers had been over to Ireland; he had seen Lady 
 Ranmore, and met the lawyers from Cork. He was fully in- 
 formed as to the situation, which presented difficulties that 
 would take time to unravel, proving, perhaps, not unremunera- 
 tive to the firm. This afternoon, when Deny called upon 
 him so impulsively to help him to get married, and as quickly 
 as possible, Mr. Henry Carruthers neither queried nor pro- 
 tested. When he understood the inquiry, he sent for his head 
 clerk, and asked him to run through with his lordship the 
 various ways in which he could accomplish his desire. He 
 asked if there was any question of settlements, and suggested 
 that in such case there might be difficulties and delays. Derry 
 brushed the question aside impatiently. Beyond the question 
 of settlements, any marriage Lord Ranmore was contemplating 
 had no interest for the lawyer. 
 
 Henry Carruthers was tall, thin, and carried himself with 
 elegance; he wore eye-glasses, and had had a distinguished 
 University career. He had been called to the Bar, but wisely 
 marrying the daughter of a solicitor, he became convinced 
 
 68
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 that the lower branch of the profession would suit his peculiar 
 talents as well as the higher, and accepted a partnership in 
 his father-in-law's firm. He was compact of vanity, but the 
 soundness of his law was part of its raison d'etre. No client 
 interested him, only his case. Nothing, however, had any 
 real interest for him but Henry Carruthers, and there was no 
 grace or covering to his leanness of soul and body to disguise 
 the fact. He would probably charge a guinea, possibly two, 
 for advising Lord Ranmore, with the aid of his managing 
 clerk, as to where Doctors' Commons was situated, what was 
 the formula for obtaining a special licence, how one could be 
 married by banns, or in a registry office. It was no part of 
 Mr. Carruthers' day's work to take the slightest interest in 
 the bride, nor to wonder at the necessity that brought her 
 intended bridegroom to him. He did ask when Lord Ranmore 
 would be prepared to take over the accounts of the estate; 
 and, after he had gleaned all the information possible about 
 the ceremony that was absorbing him, Deny made an appoint- 
 ment to do so. But the want of humanity about the man 
 oppressed him, and for his part he found the little, round man- 
 aging clerk infinitely more sympathetic. He followed him into 
 the outer office, and lingered talking to him. A "special 
 licence" would strain his resources, the alternative three weeks' 
 "domicile" was an almost insuperable difficulty, and a registry 
 office was out of the question. Mr. Danvers, in the end, was 
 good enough to recommend him rooms, and facilitate matters 
 for him generally. He had a little natural curiosity, too, and 
 even ventured to wish him "happiness." 
 
 When Deny came to have that business talk with Mr. Car- 
 ruthers, he was rather dismayed at his position. For years 
 Lady Ranmore had been paying out, always believing, of 
 course, it was in Terence's interest she made these disburse- 
 ments. But the trustee to Lady Ranmore 's marriage settlement 
 was Mr. Carruthers' father-in-law, or, one might almost say, 
 the firm. They had, of course, been compelled to foresee the 
 possibility of such an eventuality as had now accrued, and they 
 had always safe-guarded their client 's interests. Which meant, 
 
 69
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 as Deny was slowly made to realize, that his income at the 
 moment was practically dependent on Lady Ranmore's for- 
 bearance. The entail went only so far as the Castle and a few 
 adjacent acres. The intestacy gave her practically unlimited 
 power over the rest. The money she had spent upon the estate 
 had become a debt from the estate to herself. The iniquitous 
 death-duties, as they related to land, were brought prominently 
 home to the heir, as a further complication. Altogether it 
 seemed to him he had been better off as Deny Malone than he 
 was likely to be as Lord Ranmore. It was perplexing to find 
 that he, who had never owed a hundred pounds, was up to his 
 neck in debt. 
 
 At the end of the interview Mr. Carruthers said stiffly that 
 he was in communication with Lady Ranmore, and hoped in a 
 day or two to have a proposition to lay before him. 
 
 The letters that had accumulated for Lord Ranmore, and had 
 been forwarded from the Castle, were handed to Deny as he 
 left the lawyer's office. One of them only was of personal 
 interest, and this one he did not read until later in the day, at 
 those rooms to which the managing clerk recommended him. 
 The rooms were near Marylebone Parish Church, where all the 
 technicalities the laws demand for marriage by banns between 
 Protestants were now in process of being complied with. 
 
 It was through indifference rather than want of knowledge 
 of conventionalities, that Rosaleen had her bedroom in the 
 same house, that to all outward seeming they were living together. 
 
 The Duchess knew it, for she had written to invite Deny to 
 Dunstans, and Derry's reply had been that he could not leave 
 Rosaleen alone here! And this had proved an effectual stopper 
 on the correspondence. 
 
 Derry's life had been wrenched so violently out of its groove 
 that all his actions became distorted. He was as a man who 
 can see only one footstep clear, but that the next might land 
 him in bog or morass could not deter him from going on. In 
 Albany Street he found himself well-placed, with a clean and 
 accommodating landlady, and her husband, who had been a 
 butler. Since the rooms were comfortable, and the food well- 
 
 70
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 prepared and served, why should Rosaleen remain on in the 
 dirty and uncomfortable temperance hotel? There seemed 
 no reason for it, and his meals were the brighter for her sharing 
 them. For all that, she continued ill at ease with him, and the 
 conversation between them was often at a standstill. They 
 could not dwell upon the past, and the future, further than 
 the marriage ceremony, was all dim and uncertain. The daily 
 weather, or the daily menu, soon wore thin as subjects for talk. 
 That the embarrassment of the position might increase instead 
 of diminishing, both of them shut out of their minds. Deny, 
 because it was natural to him to be optimistic, and not a little 
 careless, Rosaleen, because there was growing in her all the time 
 a dumb tempest of gratitude to him, a dumb passion of desire 
 to prove it, and a miserable self-consciousness of inferiority 
 that manifested itself in a silence through which, at present, 
 at least, he could not win. 
 
 That companionship, for the moment, was impossible between 
 them, was partially due, no doubt, to the fact that his time 
 during these few weeks was occupied in unraveling Terence's 
 affairs; at least in so far as they concerned his own. There 
 was obscurity, Mr. Carruthers admitted to him, about some 
 of the old tide deeds. Derry could not talk to Rosaleen of 
 Terence, and Terence's debts. Margaret's attitude again, 
 and that of Lady Ranmore, could not be discussed, under the 
 circumstances. A want of mutual ease marked their growing 
 silences. Yet Derry was never uncertain that he was glad she 
 was there. And she was always seeing more clearly, under- 
 standing more definitely, that from which he was saving her. 
 
 Carrie Carthew's letter, coming as it did, ten days before 
 their marriage, was not one upon which he could take counsel, 
 least of all Rosaleen's counsel. 
 
 "DEAR LORD RANMORE, 
 
 "I have never seen you except that dreadful day at 
 Sandown. Perhaps you know how much your cousin and 
 I were to each other? I wonder whether you could spare 
 an hour one afternoon for a chat with me about it. I am 
 
 71
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 always at home between 4 and 5. It was the Duchess who 
 told me you were in town. 
 
 "Yours very truly, 
 
 "CARRIE CARTHEW." 
 
 Derry really had an uncomfortable instinct about this letter. 
 He had half a mind to speak about it to Carruthers, but Car- 
 ruthers, as he said to himself, was just the man to whom no one 
 could talk. He could not explain his misgiving that the letter 
 presaged trouble, but there it was. Terence had mentioned 
 Lady Carrie's name. Derry remembered, before that never- 
 to-be-forgotten black tragedy of a day, he had been promised 
 a confidence about Lady Carrie Carthew. He had been 
 present with Terence at his club when there had been some chaff 
 about her, which Terence had turned off lightly, yet had taken 
 seriously enough to say to Derry afterward, " Don 't you take any 
 notice of anything they may tell you about Lady Carrie. She 
 has been a good friend to me, poor little woman. If it hadn 't 
 been for her I should once have been in a devil of a hole." 
 And he had promised to take Derry to see her. Then Derry had 
 seen her, and received a general impression of Terence's atten- 
 tions to her. Whatever it was that had been between them, 
 she had certainly been on his mind at the end. 
 
 Derry was in half a dozen minds as to what answer he should 
 make to the letter. He did go so far as to ask Rosaleen, " Did 
 you ever hear any talk of Lady Carrie Carthew Carrie Carthew, 
 they call her ? I am going round to see her this afternoon. In 
 Charles Street, she lives. ..." 
 
 Rosaleen had never heard of her. But she remembered her 
 name afterward long afterward and the significance of a 
 certain indecision in Derry 's way of asking her then became 
 apparent to her. Now it passed into the general blur of her days. 
 She did not know Derry 's grand friends; she that had been 
 shut away in the convent until she came to be maid to Terence 's 
 mother. Sometimes now, with all her other feelings, there 
 was a rising resentment at her circumstances, the little chance 
 she had had, and the cruelty of her fate. She had hardly yet 
 
 72
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 begun to rise on the stepping-stones of her dead self. It was 
 such a young and featureless self that had been killed, that the 
 protoplasm of her ego had escaped the harrow, escaped through 
 its very insignificance and immaturity. It came to life much 
 later. 
 
 Carrie arranged with characteristic definiteness for her inter- 
 view with Terence's cousin. That that "great hulking boy," 
 as she remembered him, had succeeded to the Ranmore title 
 and estates was the prominent factor in the situation. Of 
 Rosaleen she knew nothing, of course, and of the value of the 
 estates still less. It is possible she pictured Derry wealthier 
 than Terence had been, for feminine imagination is apt to 
 stray with inclination. 
 
 At four o'clock of a winter afternoon the remnant of daylight 
 could easily be shut out. In the economic distribution of pink- 
 shaded electric wall-lights the narrow drawing-room of Charles 
 Street looked its best. There was no affectation of decoration; 
 whatever else her friends might deny her, there was no doubt 
 Carrie had taste. The plainly painted walls were hung with a 
 few eighteenth-century color-prints, the Lowestoft and Bow, 
 the Whielden figures and the Staffordshire cottages, were 
 massed on shelves and in corner cupboards. The note of the 
 furniture was Chippendale; the pattern of the chintz was a 
 hundred years old. The table of cut flowers, orchids and roses 
 and light Neapolitan violets, was at the head of the sofa, before 
 it stood the tea-table, with the lamp of the kettle alight; and here, 
 too, were the Sheffield dishes that held the muffins, and two 
 or three varieties of cakes and sandwiches. 
 
 Derry was not supposed to understand the subtle refinements 
 of Lady Carrie's room, but the impression to be conveyed to 
 him must be attractive, alluring, as indeed Carrie hoped her- 
 self to appear to him. 
 
 Lady Carrie, who was the eldest daughter of the old Earl 
 of Wickford, by his first Irish wife, with the bluest of blood in 
 her veins, and a pedigree that was a "genuine antique," stained 
 and wormeaten, much repaired and showing signs of wear, but 
 thoroughly authenticated, was thirty-five years of age, and, 
 
 73
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 without the rose-color lamp-shades and the rest of it, looked 
 every day of it. She had a great deal of style and some character. 
 The style was good, and the character bad. There was also 
 individuality, with undoubted intelligence. Either or both 
 must have captured Sir Harry Carthew when she led him to 
 the altar in the desperation of her twenty-eighth year. But 
 then, he had been a determined bachelor, who rode hard, cared 
 for nothing but horses, and never understood how it was he had 
 been married, out of hand, as it were, to this sporting little 
 filly. In communicative after-dinner moods, in the early days 
 of their marriage, he was apt to dwell upon her talents. His 
 income was moderate, yet Carrie dressed from Paris "by God, 
 she did, Sir," and they had the best cook in the neighborhood, 
 and a cellar second to none. The Charles Street house was 
 an incident of her widowhood. But at Melton, from the day 
 of his marriage, Sir Harry's fortune seemed to grow; it had 
 been moderate when she married him. Yet she, as everybody 
 knew, had nothing. He was an honest fool, and his eyes 
 opened very slowly, and not very long before he died. The 
 manner of his dying was the point that was obscure At least, 
 Carrie conveyed to Derry the idea that it was obscure, when 
 he sat in that pretty little drawing-room of hers this afternoon. 
 Derry did find the drawing-room comfortable, and its mistress 
 companionable. She drew him out, and flattered him dexter- 
 ously; and it was only when she felt she was on safe ground, 
 that she threw out those mysterious hints about her husband's 
 death, and appealed to his heart. Derry looked extraordinarily 
 large in that little drawing-room. His head, with its square 
 and rugged brow, was well set upon his shoulders; his hands, 
 now they had recovered a little from their five years in the 
 workshops, were not ill-shaped. His clothes were not ill-fitting 
 either, for he had gone to Terence's tailor. He would never 
 have the bandbox elegance of that other one, who had sat so 
 often in his place; but Carrie had an appreciative eye for him, 
 and decided that he might prove almost unique in the situation 
 she would devise. Underneath her smartness and the purr of 
 her manner, there was a sensuousness to give it its mildest 
 
 74
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 name that set the seal upon her type. It was only a sensuous- 
 ness of imagination, her temperament was cold. 
 
 "It was very good of you to come so soon. I wanted to 
 write before, but it seemed almost intrusive. It was such a 
 shocking, awful thing . . . tea? May I pour you out a cup 
 of tea, while the muffins are hot? What a funny place you 
 wrote from, Albany Street ? You are not in the Army, are you ?" 
 She had some vague idea she had heard of barracks in Albany 
 Street. 
 
 "I'm an engineer," said Lord Ranmore. 
 
 "A sapper?" she laughed. She only knew of one sort of 
 engineer. "Never mind. You'll resign now, I suppose, and 
 begin to enjoy life." 
 
 Then she added, in that language of which he undertsood not 
 one word, and would never learn: 
 
 " I hope I shall be able to add something to it for you." 
 
 "I'm sure you're very kind," said Deny. "It's not enjoy- 
 ment so much I'm thinking of. ..." 
 
 "Then of what are you thinking?" 
 
 She leaned forward a little to ask him. She was a small 
 woman, fair. In the pink light it was impossible to detect 
 the biliousness of her complexion, and the well-shaped nose 
 had a chance. Lady Carrie's lips were somewhat thick, but 
 her teeth were white and pretty, and there was something 
 attractive about her smile. And she was so "nice" to all her 
 men friends and acquaintances, that she had really earned the 
 soubriquet Betty Brinmore had given her years before. Bet 
 called her "the Yellow Peril." 
 
 Derry gave a short laugh. 
 
 "Now it's kind of you to be interested yourself in me. I'm 
 thinking most of the time of Mr. Carruthers, and what he's 
 after telling me." 
 
 "Carruthers! That's the lawyer, isn't it?" Carrie pricked 
 up her intelligent ears. 
 
 "He is the English lawyer to the Ranmore estates." 
 
 "Is he bothering you?" 
 
 "That's just what he's doing." 
 
 75
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "You must tell me all about it." 
 
 When it is remembered that Deny really had no confidant, 
 no one to whom he could voice his perplexities, and that Carrie 
 was a woman of the world, and had an end to gain in obtaining 
 a footing with him, it is easy to see what befell. She flattered 
 and cajoled him, and he had not been used to flattery or cajolery. 
 She wormed out of him all about the tangle of the estates, and 
 what Mr. Carruthers had said to him. 
 
 " It is awful to be short of money," Carrie said sympathetically. 
 "You know, but for Terence ..." And then she stopped, 
 and bit her lip, and seemed as if sorry she had spoken, but 
 regarded him under her eyes, and wondered if he would rise to 
 the fly. 
 
 "That's just what I want you to be telling me." Deny had 
 been wanting to get to it, although really he was so comfort- 
 able, warmed and soothed, that he had almost forgotten the 
 object of his visit. "There was something between you and 
 Terence. . . ." 
 
 She gave a little low laugh at that, and Carrie 's laugh was the 
 most attractive thing about her. 
 
 "You are wondering what it was," she said. And anyone 
 less naturally dense on such a subject than Deny would have 
 jumped to the conclusion she meant to convey. But Deny, 
 besides being naturally averse to thinking lightly of any woman, 
 had his own reasons for acquitting Terence of any love-making 
 in this attractive quarter. 
 
 "I am wondering that," he said quite simply. It was a 
 rebuff, Carrie felt, and an unreasonable irritation, or anger, 
 at his denseness precipitated her into hasty speech. 
 
 "It doesn't strike you that he might have been fond of me?" 
 
 "He told me that you had been a good friend to him." 
 
 She had to review her forces, and that quickly. She had 
 sent for Deny partly in idleness, but mostly with intention. 
 The chantage Terence had paid so willingly she had no lever to 
 extract from his successor; and Derry's youth and obvious 
 ignorance of the world had suggested another way. But now 
 that she found him so unresponsive stupid was the word she 
 
 76
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 used to herself she had to resolve quickly whether she would 
 tell him, or imply to him, that there was a promise of marriage 
 between her and Terence, or whether she would make her 
 appeal to him on some ground nearer the truth. It was Deny 
 who decided the point, by going on in that soft voice of his, with 
 just the touch of the brogue in it: 
 
 "I'd have thought it was you and he had been love-making 
 together, and small blame to him, but for the knowing Terence 
 was engaged in another quarter." This was news to Carrie, 
 but quickly assimilated. "So it must have been some scrape 
 you pulled him through, and that he hinted about to me. Maybe 
 you'd rather not tell me," he added hastily. "But whatever 
 you did for Terence, I count as if it had been done for me, for 
 that was the way of things between Terence and me. And I'm 
 grateful. . . . It's me that's here to set anything right." 
 
 Her plan of campaign seemed to unroll, to straighten itself 
 out. 
 
 "It is not so simple a matter as you might think," she said, 
 to gain time, and readjust her ideas. "He was so impulsive," 
 she went on slowly, as if excusing him before she spoke. 
 
 "He had the good heart," Derry interposed quickly. 
 
 "And a quick temper," she answered equally readily. 
 
 "Maybe." 
 
 "And it was the one and the other that made the link between 
 us." 
 
 "You'll tell me?" 
 
 The maid coming in to remove the tea-things stopped conver- 
 sation for the moment. When they were alone, Carrie put both 
 hands before her eyes, and she spoke, a little in the voice of a 
 sleepwalker. She was back in the past, or playing at being back 
 in the past. 
 
 "Terence thought himself in love with me, years ago, when 
 he first came to London, just a red-haired, impulsive Irish boy. 
 And I'm his cousin, you know, the nearest relative he had in 
 town. He came to stay with us at Melton. There was nothing 
 Terence couldn't ride. He went out hunting with us. Harry 
 liked him, he had such gay spirits. In the evenings he sang us 
 6 77
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 his Irish songs . . . such strange songs. I remember one of 
 them" she hummed it: 
 
 "Oh! whiskey or the Devil, ye are leading me asthray 
 Oh! whiskey or the Devil, drunk or sober . . . 
 
 "And another about: 
 
 "A fine old Irish gentleman, one of the rale old sort. 
 
 " It was about a wake, that one. And there was another of 
 which the refrain went softly: 
 
 "An* he sold her to his servant, 
 An' he gave him twenty pound. 
 
 " Well, the days in the hunting-field, and the evenings at the 
 piano, came to an end. ..." 
 
 Deny had heard Terence sing all his songs. Ah! the gaiety 
 of him, and the voice that he'd never hear again! It all came 
 back to him as she spoke. 
 
 "Up in London, of course, that season, we did not see so 
 much of him, but he was in and out. Harry got jealous, or 
 suspicious about it. It was one day when I was wearing a new 
 ring this one." She took her hands from before her eyes, she 
 held her hand out to Deny. It was a small hand, and its yellow- 
 ish pallor went pink in the lamplight. He could not but take it 
 in his, since she gave it to him, and the ruby on the third finger 
 was set round with diamonds. 
 
 "My husband asked me who gave it me. Terence had given 
 it me; it was a bet we had had Shotover for the Diamond 
 Jubilee stakes. But Harry lost his temper over it. That night 
 he and Terence met at the Ralyn Club. You know what 
 happened? Harry had a fall. Terence brought him home. 
 At the inquest they said Harry had taken more than was good 
 for him he did sometimes, you know. He had just got to the 
 top of the stairs when he met Terence. Terence did not know 
 he had anything against him. It was just a word and a push. 
 . . . Terence could never get over it; he was quite broken up 
 
 78
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 when I told him how Harry had gone out enraged against him. 
 Terence thought he had only been chaffing him, but Harry 
 had not gone out in a chaffing mood. I had to tell Him 
 so. ..." 
 
 Deny had hold of the small hand; he could not but press it. 
 
 "I saved him all that was possible. No one ever knew they 
 were anything but the best of friends. Mossy Leon, the lawyer 
 you know him, of course? was the only member of the Club 
 who had been present. I saw him for Terence. Harry's foot 
 had slipped; they are marble steps, you know. I dare say you 
 remember the evidence, and the verdict of 'accidental death.' 
 Well, it wasn't true. Harry had gone out to find Terence and 
 have it out with him, Terence himself always said he never 
 knew how it all happened. But Mossy Leon knew." She drew 
 her hand away from Berry's, not abruptly, but it had been long 
 enough in his. 
 
 "When Terence knew what he had done, and how alone in 
 the world I was, I must say he was very good to me. Harry 
 had always been extravagant, we had always lived above our 
 income. And Terence was my own cousin. ..." 
 
 "You saved his name," Deny said, in a low voice. As she 
 told the story, it passed by Deny that, if any name wanted 
 saving, hers might have been at least as smirched as his. 
 
 "I did all I could," she said, modestly, accepting his exclama- 
 tion. "He would have made up for it afterward in any way 
 that was possible. But, as you say," Carrie was quick to take 
 her cue "he had fallen in love again. He helped me out with 
 my little income. ..." 
 
 She had got to the point. Now indeed she was watching him, 
 her eyes they were eyes that saw better in the dark than in the 
 light were narrow and bright upon him. "He would not let 
 me suffer financially. I would not take anything from him at 
 first. Do you think I was right? But he insisted, since it was 
 his fault that I was so alone and poor. ..." 
 
 "He couldn't do anything else," Deny answered impulsively. 
 "He must have been very thankful of the chance, very glad he 
 was able to help you . . ." 
 
 79
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "You think that?" she went on quickly. "I was half afraid 
 you would, and that you would want to go on with it, but you 
 have no responsibility. ..." 
 
 Perhaps it had not struck Deny so quickly, but now it 
 was clear as daylight to him that Terence's responsibility 
 was his. 
 
 "Of course, his death must not make any difference to 
 you." 
 
 "Oh! no, no. I'm not dreaming or thinking you'll do what 
 he did. But from what I heard of you" what she had 
 gathered since he had been in the room, she meant "I knew 
 you would want to do something. It was that I wanted to 
 talk to you about chiefly. You must not allow yourself to be 
 inconvenienced." 
 
 Deny had no reason to doubt the story that had just been 
 outlined to him. Terence had wanted to say something to Lady 
 Carrie, and had sent for her, when the greater anxiety about 
 Rosaleen had seized on him, in what seemed likely to be his last 
 hour. Deny would shoulder this burden, too, of Terence's, if 
 he were able. Money had not counted much with Deny up to 
 now. It is with rich people money bulks so largely, not with 
 those who have never had it. Terence had given Lady Carrie 
 money because he was directly , or indirectly, responsible for her 
 widowhood and poverty. On the accident itself Deny did not 
 dwell, the relation of it was certainly a little obscure. But by 
 this time Carrie had produced the impression for which she had 
 been aiming. Deny thought of her as a "poor little woman." 
 The further she spoke of her position, the more pathetic it 
 seemed. 
 
 Cautiously as Carrie moved, the moment had to come when 
 figures must be mentioned. Terence had given her from time 
 to time a great deal of money, whatever he could raise or spare. 
 But not an allowance certainly nothing in the way of an allow- 
 ance. He had been sorry for Carrie; she had put the responsibility 
 of Harry Carthew's death on him, and he had accepted it, though, 
 for the life of him, he had never been able to remember what had 
 happened. Harry was drunk when he came into the Club, and 
 
 80
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Harry was apt to grow" offensive at the second stage. Terence 
 had been talking to Mossy Leon; Mosey had discounted bills 
 for him, taught him how money was to be obtained a good 
 fellow, Mossy! At the moment when Harry Carthew lurched 
 upstairs and began some yarn, Terence thought it was the 
 lawyer he was going for. The words he seemed to remember 
 were "damned shark " and "infernal scoundrel," and he thought 
 it was Mossy to whom he was alluding. Mossy Leon evidently 
 thought so too, for he retreated quickly when Terence interposed. 
 It wasn't fair to go for little Mossy. Terence only meant to see 
 fair play. Harry put up his hands, and Terence was never slow 
 with his. . . . But to the day of his death Terence never 
 remembered touching the man, only seeing him lurch and hold 
 on to the banister, and then leave go. But he remembered the 
 sickening thud of the fall, members running out, the club servants 
 and that huddled figure at the foot of the stairs, and Mossy 
 dragging him backward into the card-room. 
 
 "Keep out of it," Mossy said, "let's keep out of it." He was 
 for saying they had both of them only come out of the room 
 when they heard the noise. . . . 
 
 But, of course, Terence would not have that, and it was he 
 who had taken Harry home, and in an emotional moment of 
 breakdown, facing Carrie in her new bereavement, he had bound 
 the shackles on his wrists that now were to grip Derry's. Those 
 early days of Lady Carrie's widowhood were full of interviews 
 with Terence. The one or two she had with Mossy Leon were 
 nothing new; she had had many transactions with Mossy, but 
 Harry's death made a difference. Mossy knew the difference 
 but he was always considerate to his old clients. 
 
 All this was nothing to do with Deny, who was sorry for the 
 poor little woman, when she made him see how she was placed 
 by Terence's death. It would go hard with him but he would 
 be able to help her. 
 
 He grew quite friendly with Lady Carrie before that afternoon 
 visit of his drew to a close. He understood that she was very 
 lonely. And there was no reason for him to hurry away from 
 her. Nobody wanted him. Rosaleen's thoughts, of course, 
 
 81
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 were wrapped up in Terence. He told Carrie all he knew about 
 his own affairs, but somehow or other, he did not speak to her 
 of Rosaleen. It was really characteristic of Lady Carrie that 
 Deny could not open his lips to her about the girl whose life he 
 had taken into his keeping. It showed that Deny had instinct 
 even if he lacked reasoning power. But he talked to her about 
 the complications of the Ranmore estate, and of the heavy 
 death-dues. 
 
 "I don't know why you should believe everything that Henry 
 Carruthers tells you," she said at length, thoughtfully, when she 
 had assimilated it. "I should think you ought to have an inde- 
 pendent solicitor." And then, still thoughtful, although perhaps 
 it was not entirely of Derry's troubles she was thinking, she 
 added: 
 
 " Would you like me to see Mossy Leon for you, and ask him ? 
 I think it is very possible you are being badly advised. Mr. 
 Carruthers may be, probably is, studying Lady Ranmore's 
 interests, and not yours at aU. I seem to remember Terence 
 telling me the land is very rich; coal, or tin, or something. It is 
 very probable you are being robbed. Mossy is very sharp, much 
 cleverer than Henry Carruthers." Henry Carruthers should 
 have heard her! "You had better let me arrange an interview 
 for you with Mossy Leon, and hear what he has to say about it, 
 if he has anything to suggest ?" 
 
 Deny deprecated the trouble he would be putting her to; but 
 of course he would like to come in again', for his days were not 
 very full. Carrie was a "poor little woman," kind and sympa- 
 thetic to him. He wanted to do something for her. It was a 
 comfort to have someone to talk to, and, as she herself said, 
 if she was Terence's cousin, she must be also his. 
 
 She stretched herself when he had gone. It had been a long, 
 a difficult, interview. But she nattered herself she had gone 
 through it very well. He was extraordinarily simple. She 
 really thought Carruthers would probably be getting the better 
 of him. There might be something for Mossy in it, as well as 
 for herself. She thought how easily she could wind Deny around 
 her finger, and how he had opened himself to her. She never
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 suspected that on one subject at least he had not opened to her 
 at all. The place Rosaleen had with Deny, had always had 
 with him, was in a little shrine, in the very innermost recess of 
 his heart, shut up there now with tenderness, and not a little 
 pain, but in the dark, not to be talked about. To Carrie he 
 gave all the detail about Ranmore that he had learned from 
 Mr. Carruthers, and about the complications. She was satisfied 
 she had all his confidence!
 
 MOSSY LEON had an unique position, whether as 
 solicitor, in which profession he had started life, as 
 money-lender, in which he had graduated under the 
 great Sam Levine's fostering care, or as "one of our leading 
 London dramatists," a distinction to which he considered himself 
 entitled as one of the many authors of many musical comedies. 
 Nat Simmons, the famous theatrical entrepreneur, was one of 
 his clients; to which fact, as much as to his connection with Sam 
 Levine, must be attributed his development. For Mossy was 
 nothing if not adaptable. He was very clever. Carrie was quite 
 right, he was much cleverer than Henry Carruthers, although 
 he did not know Archimedes from Aristotle, and had possibly 
 never heard of either of them. He had a contempt for any 
 literature that was not up-to date, and topical. He had forgotten 
 just enough Latin to make him remember it was in the curriculum 
 of the University College School, which he had left, without 
 attaining any position at all, when he was sixteen. Between that 
 tender age and the time when he passed his "final" and became 
 a fully fledged lawyer, he had kept his sharp black eyes wide 
 open, and learned a hundred useful things about men and women 
 and money. He had developed ambition, too, which presently 
 ran riot in him, and led him into many devious and intricate 
 ways for obtaining the means to gratify it. But his appetites 
 were so numerous, and so insistent, that the money he earned, 
 considerable although it was, never kept him sufficiently supplied. 
 His appetites were ogres, and finally they overpowered and killed 
 him. But this was many years after the date of this story. 
 
 At the time Deny Ranmore made Mossy 's acquaintance he 
 was living in Grosvenor Square, and practising in Lincoln' > Inn. 
 He had a wife in whose veins "ran the best blood in England" 
 
 84
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 so her mother had assured him when he won her. Afterward 
 he used to say it persuaded him she was illegitimate; but, at the 
 time, there is no doubt he accepted the Ayscough tradition of 
 high descent without its touching his rich vein of humor. 
 
 Ethel Ayscough had been quite beautiful enough to persuade 
 any warm-blooded Oriental, in his twenty-first year, to accept 
 any tradition. They were a very pretentious family, the 
 Ayscoughs; they had no really characteristic feature except this, 
 which differentiated them from all the many varieties of Micaw- 
 ber to which they were affiliated, and gave a cachet to the 
 poverty that they wore so aggressively. 
 
 When Mossy Leon realized the style he was expected to keep 
 up as the husband of his wife, he was bound to realize also that 
 six-and-eightpences, however quickly they came in, were insuffi- 
 cient for his needs. He became a jackal for Sam Levine, the 
 great Jewish money-lender, who left four millions of money to 
 London charities, every shilling of which had been earned by 
 usury. Mossy envied him; but when he compared Sam's 
 unwieldy, enamelled and painted wife, as she lolled back in her 
 victoria behind the thousand-guinea pair of horses Sam had 
 bought for her, with his own thin and pretentious treasure at 
 home, he grew more reconciled to fate. They were always 
 Mossy's inconsistencies that made him interesting. 
 
 Ethel Ayscough fulfilled none of the duties of wifehood, and 
 Mossy had discovered the third row of the musical-comedy 
 chorus before he had been married a year. Yet, although he 
 was never faithful to his wife, and they lived on cat-and-dog 
 terms, he was secretely proud of her. She always influenced 
 him unconsciously, and was responsible for his later troubles. 
 As for her, she cared only for externals, draining him of money 
 for unessentials, dress, jewelry, fine houses and entertainments; 
 she was a true daughter of the horse-leech. 
 
 When Deny was introduced to Mossy Leon by Lady Carrie 
 Carthew, he and his wife were at their zenith. Sam Levine was 
 dead, and in winding up his estate Mossy had feathered his nest 
 warmly. The house in Grosvenor Square was being "run" on 
 a fine scale. Lady Carrie had been to one or two of Mrs. 
 
 85
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Mossy's receptions, and Mossy thought he might entertain 
 royalty one day. Also his taste had progressed from the third 
 row of the chorus to the leading lady, and he had a box for the 
 first night of every play worth seeing that is, for every play 
 with songs, and dances, and pretty women, and no "damned 
 nonsense" about plot. 
 
 He was a lawyer, and not a money-lender, he often said. 
 Yet he had the money -lender's art at his bediamoned fingers' ends. 
 Carrie had been very useful to him; he thought her a clever little 
 cat of a woman, and had no illusions about her. But often he 
 would let her get the better of him, he was instinctively and 
 royally generous. 
 
 "What! Ranmore's heir! But Ranmore hadn't a bob! Oh, 
 yes, I'll see him, of course. I know Carruthers a long, thin 
 chap, with a glass in his eyt, stuck-up sort of fellow. I don't 
 like him, but he knows his work. His work is running up costs, 
 same as most lawyers. Me! Oh! I'm different, of course! 
 I don't think! But bring, your pal along. I'm not over busy 
 just now." 
 
 Carrie had come to Lincoln's Inn to see Mossy Leon about 
 Berry's affairs. It was not the first time by many that she had 
 been here. The luxurious easy chairs and sofas, Chippendale 
 book-cases and other luxuries that furnished Mossy's sanctum 
 were all familiar to her. Mossy and she were friends, in a way. 
 Mossy had paid for her friendship, but he bore her no malice 
 for that. There had been a time when, notwithstanding she 
 was Wickford's daughter, and he only Mossy Leon, she had 
 smiled prettily for his benefit, worn her veil down, and, with 
 a soupcon of rouge, a touch of black to her eyelashes, and a 
 general preening of her feathers, prepared for her visits to his 
 office. There had been something not unattractive to Carrie in 
 Mossy's quick wit, and varied knowledge and pursuits, so 
 eclectic were her own tastes. But that time had long passed. 
 Now she sat in her plainest morning tailor-made dress on the 
 corner of the sofa, facing Mossy, who was restless, as always, in 
 his office chair at the big writing-table, and she discussed both 
 Deny and Terence with frankness. 
 
 86
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "You want me to see him and find out what his resources 
 really are. I can't take the winding up of the estate out of 
 Carruthers' hands, I'm afraid, but I'll see the new Earl, of 
 course. Why didn't you bring him with you? I don't think 
 I know him by sight, do I? Ginger?" 
 
 "No, he is what they call a 'black Ranmore'; but that only 
 means he hasn't red hair, he is not particularly dark." 
 
 "He is younger than Ranmore, I suppose?" 
 
 "Oh, yes; three- or four-and-twenty at most, I should think." 
 
 "Drink?" 
 
 "No oh, no!" 
 
 "Well, Ranmore did, you know, not regularly, perhaps, 
 but every now and again. And it would have grown on him 
 it's in the blood." 
 
 Carrie took out a cigarette and lighted it. She did not 
 mind raising her veil now in Mossy's office, nor sitting facing 
 the window. He gave her a brief resume of the Ranmore 
 peerage. He was full of chroniques scandaleuses of the peerage, 
 he always said it was part of his business to work them up. 
 
 "But this man must be a distant branch, surely? I suppose 
 he is the heir?" 
 
 "Oh, yes; the title is his, and the Castle, without dispute. 
 They have always accepted him as the heir, although I believe 
 only a small part of the estate is entailed. Terence and the 
 Duchess were both devoted to him." 
 
 "I had better see him here. Can't you fix an appointment?" 
 
 "No. He hates lawyers, shies at papers and figures, he 
 isn't very clever, you know! You'd better come in to tea this 
 afternoon, and we'll introduce the subject naturally, easily 
 no formalities. Then you can take him away with you and 
 discuss detail. Let it come about that way. He is very dull 
 here in London, he seems to know no one." 
 
 "I can take him home to dinner, if it comes to that." 
 
 Carrie's laugh was mischievous as she blew out her smoke-rings. 
 
 " 'The Last of the Ayscoughs' will gladly entertain Lord 
 Ranmore, and she will telephone that unfortunate sister of 
 hers in the morning, 'My dear, I'm so overwhelmed with people, 
 
 87
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Lord Ranmore dropped in last night,' and rub in the distance 
 that lies between Society in Grosvenor Square and the suburbs 
 in Dorking." 
 
 Lady Carrie had made a study of Mossy's wife. That 
 was in the days of her interest in Mossy. Since then her sketch 
 had grown, and had amused several of Carrie's friends, who 
 went to Grosvenor Square to verify it. Mossy saw the humor- 
 ous side of his wife's character. It was one of his many saving 
 graces that he saw the humorous side of everything, even of 
 musical comedy. But Lady Carrie's sarcasm never altered 
 that secret feeling he had for his wife. 
 
 That afternoon he met Derry, as arranged, in the Charles 
 Street drawing-room. Derry had found himself there more 
 than once since the last week. Lady Carrie was very kind 
 to him, and instructed his ignorance, making him hold his 
 head a little more erect, be more consciously Lord Ranmore. 
 The alteration was insensible to himself, but it was there never- 
 theless. Rosaleen, sharing those rooms in Albany Street with 
 him, waiting for her wedding-day, knew it. 
 
 Carrie introduced the two men. There were no social 
 barriers to break down, as there might have been with a man 
 differently bred. Mossy was full of talk metropolitan, all 
 of it. But then, the metropolis was new to Derry, and had 
 its allurement. Lady Carrie liked to know everything, money- 
 gossip, the debts and difficulties of her men-friends, theatrical 
 news, and every possible or probable society esdandre. Mossy 
 had a whisky-and-soda instead of tea, and drew a wrong augury 
 from Derry's readiness to fall in with Carrie's invitation to 
 join him. 
 
 "My dear fellow," he said Mossy quickly arrived at the 
 "my dear fellow" stage, with any new acquaintance "there 
 is no place in the world like London; you take it from me. 
 What have you seen?" He ran through the musical comedy 
 list. "I'll take you round to the 'Corinthian' to-night, if you 
 like, they keep two stalls for me always; I never get tired of 
 hearing the Etna girl do that song and dance. It seems to 
 me silly to go from one place to another when you know where 
 
 88
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 you can find exactly what you like. For my part, I've seen 
 'The Foolish Virgins' twenty-seven times, and I hope to see 
 it twenty-seven times more. You can't get tired of a thing 
 like that." 
 
 Derry could not honestly say his evenings were engaged. 
 Rosaleen kept to her own room save for meal-times. She 
 had learned to sew in the convent, and was putting her talent 
 to good use, stitching no happiness in with the fabric. But 
 before Derry she could not even ply her needle easily. Derry 
 assented to the evening at the "Corinthian," but he would 
 not dine with Mossy and his wife. He said he must go home 
 to dress; he would join them at the theatre. 
 
 It was when he had gone away with Mossy, and Mossy 
 had offered to drive him anywhere, the motor having nothing 
 to do, and he, Mossy, not being busy, that Derry's curious 
 address was disclosed. 
 
 "But why, my dear fellow, why on earth Albany Street?" 
 
 "Carruthers' clerk recommended the rooms to me; they're 
 good rooms enough." 
 
 "But I cannot make out what Carruthers is doing with 
 you. She told me you were short of money, but it can't be 
 as bad as Albany Street. Can I be of any use to you? Any 
 friend of Lady Carrie's, you know ... I was fond of your 
 cousin Terence. My wife liked him at the house, he was 
 good company, sang a good song. But what's this about the 
 money ? There's nine thousand acres of Ranmore, isn't there ? 
 You might have to let the Castle." 
 
 All the while Mossy was talking, they were driving through 
 Bond Street, Maddox Street, Regent Street, now by Park 
 Crescent. 
 
 "Why don't you change your mind and come home with 
 me? We'll fetch your things. I suppose your man could 
 pack them ?" 
 
 Since Mossy had been in funds, had had his valet, and his 
 motor, and other luxuries, he had forgotten what the "simple 
 life" was like. It really did not strike him that Lord Ranmore 
 had no personal attendant. 
 
 89
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "And then we could talk over your affairs before dinner. 
 It's not six yet." 
 
 Derry insisted he must dine at home. And, as Mossy put 
 it, he began to smell a rat. But he went on talking. If Lord 
 Ranmore was short of money, it could only be something 
 temporary. Mossy had no doubt he could get him a loan, 
 he knew all the right people. 
 
 "You can't go on living in Albany Street," he persisted. 
 "The thing is impossible. Stay at the 'Savoy' or the 'Ritz,' 
 if you don't want to take a flat. You're a mile from the theatres 
 here." 
 
 Derry had no greater desire, as yet, to take Mossy into his 
 confidence about Rosaleen than he had had to speak of her 
 to Carrie. But Mossy was much more inquisitive and difficult 
 to baffle. Derry had to admit, not without some embarrass- 
 ment, that he coujd not leave Albany Street for a few more 
 days. For now he was really within a week of the fulfilment 
 of the law's requirements. 
 
 "You needn't tell me if you don't like." Mossy was good- 
 nature itself. "A case of landlady's daughter? I say, don't 
 you get yourself in a mess. You're new to London, you know." 
 
 Derry seemed very young to Mossy, but he was not as ready 
 to condemn him as "stupid" as Carrie had been. Mossy 
 saw that he was reticent, and guessed there was something 
 he was keeping back, while Carrie's vanity had made her 
 imagine she had gauged the whole of Derry 's mind and found 
 nothing in it deeper than the perplexities Carruthers was 
 creating. 
 
 The motor stopped at the number that had been given to 
 the chauffeur. Mossy's curiosity had no gratification beyond 
 the normal lodging-house exterior of that somewhat dreary 
 thoroughfare. There was not even a face at the window, 
 nor the swish of a petticoat in the narrow passage that was 
 all the quickly opened street door presented to his sight. Derry 
 did not invite him in. Mossy thought, in fact, that Derry 
 was anxious to be rid of him. He thanked him for the drive, 
 and promised to be in his place at the theatre before nine, 
 
 90
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 when the first "Etna" number was due. Mossy did not say 
 anything about supper after the play. He was a little unsure 
 of his footing with this strange young man. He found himself 
 pondering about him as he drove away. Mossy thought 
 Deny was no fool, if he was chary of talk. The very sugges- 
 tion of a woman in the background piqued Mossy's interest. 
 He was at the very opposite end of the pole from Mr. Carruthers, 
 and his way of conducting his business. Mossy's clients were 
 all individuals, men and women to him; he was the most human 
 of scoundrels, if, indeed, he were a scoundrel at all, and not, 
 as one would prefer to consider him, merely an altruist with- 
 out boundaries. Absolutely all the way back to Grosvenor 
 Square he was wondering what sort of woman Deny was 
 keeping in Albany Street, trying to conjure up his type, deciding 
 to note where his admiration fell that night, thinking he would 
 get to know. Among Mossy's appetites was the appetite for 
 the unknown, and already his interest in Derry's affairs was 
 keen.
 
 CHAPTER DC 
 
 ON the 1 2th November, at the Parish Church of Maryle- 
 bone, Derrick, Lord Ranmore, was united in holy 
 wedlock to Rosaleen O'Daly. It was quite understood 
 between them that the ceremony was not to alter their relations. 
 What it meant to Rosaleen was a sense of deliverance so great, 
 so overwhelming, that the passion of gratitude in her was like 
 a flood-tide now, overflowing all the banks. She could not 
 speak to him, nor raise her eyes to his; but she could think of 
 nothing else, and how she could ever repay him. 
 
 Deny thought her heart was all the time with Terence. 
 He was full of pity for her that she had to accept him as sub- 
 stitute. He would not obtrude on her grief, nor intrude into 
 her confidence. Overwhelmed with pity and sympathy for 
 her, he was so anxious to make it clear that, if although it was 
 he, and not Terence, who was standing by her at the altar, 
 it was only as a substitute he was there, that he hardly looked 
 at her, or spoke. She must not think he would take any 
 advantage, it was Terence's widow she was to him and he 
 would not intrude on her trouble. He went through the cere- 
 mony, and said the responses, and held himself so well in 
 hand that she never guessed his passion of pity was as strong 
 as her passion of gratitude. 
 
 He had put the ring on her finger, and she was Lady Ran- 
 more right enough; now the more he kept out of her way the 
 better. That was what he thought. There was still her trou- 
 ble to come, and of that he dared not let himself think. 
 
 Rosaleen could not guess what made him dumb and tongue- 
 tied in her presence, and kept him so many hours out of the 
 house. Everything was difficult for them. She thought that 
 it was only out of pity he had married her, and to save Terence's 
 name with his mother and sister; and she was as shy of intruding 
 
 92
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 her company upon him as he of looking upon her in her trouble. 
 And because of that marriage ceremony, and what it covered, 
 she was one flush of shame now before her newly made husband, 
 the shame Terence had put upon her. In the mantle of it, 
 that was like a flame about her always, everything was burned 
 out but her gratitude. 
 
 "She'll be thinking of Terence," was really Derry's mental 
 attitude. His sensitiveness burned like her shame. It was 
 fire kept them apart. 
 
 Meanwhile Mossy was trying conclusions with Mr. Car- 
 ruthers. 
 
 "Mind you," he said to Carrie, "I'm doing what I can 
 for Deny Ranmore, but I don't believe you've sized the fellow 
 up at all. In the first place, I'll bet a monkey he's got some 
 woman in those diggings of his in Albany Street. He is as 
 close as wax about it, but I'm pretty nearly sure." 
 
 "That would certainly be a complication." Lady Carrie 
 blew her cigarette smoke softly into the air. "But you may 
 be wrong, Mossy, you are often wrong, you know!" 
 
 "I'm never wrong in this sort of thing. So, if you want 
 me to get money for him, in order that you can get it out of 
 him" Mossy was not a gentleman, and that was the coarse 
 way he worded it "it is possible you're reckoning your chickens 
 before they are hatched, that the hatching will be done by 
 another little hen." 
 
 Carrie only smiled. 
 
 "Are you going to get him any money, that is the immediate 
 question? Don't you worry about me, Mossy, I can look 
 after myself." 
 
 For only that very afternoon Deny had been with her, and 
 he had walked about her room in his big, clumsy way, lament- 
 ing his position not on his own account, but because he must 
 seem so mean in her eyes. 
 
 "I'm getting desperate about it," he said. "I must get 
 
 hold of some money somehow. If my aunt and Mr. Carruthers 
 
 don't let me know soon how they are going to arrange matters, 
 
 and what is coming to me, besides the title that is no good to 
 
 7 93
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 me at all, and the Castle, of which I would not dispossess her 
 for a million, I shall go back to my job. There was a post 
 I could have had in Siam, up at Bangkok; it's still to be had 
 for the asking. I've more than half a mind to clear out, and 
 leave them to settle it any way they like. It's only you I'm 
 thinking of, you and ..." Carrie had to admit to Mossy 
 Leon that he paused there, as if she were not all his responsi- 
 bilities. There might be something, after all, in what Mossy 
 suggested. 
 
 "Can't you get him any money?" she persisted, nevertheless. 
 
 "It is rather a curious state of affairs, one that could only 
 happen in Ireland. There is no will, and Terence's mother 
 and sister are nominally Terence's heirs. But we can't get 
 hold of the title deeds, one of which has apparently been lost 
 or mislaid, and Carruthers persists there is no entail, although 
 for hundreds of years the lands have gone with the title. There 
 are about nine thousand acres, any amount of copper, and 
 probably coal. The Duchess has renounced all claim. But 
 the old woman is playing grab; she seems to have a regular 
 spite against our man. ..." That was Mossy's disrespectful 
 way of speaking of Terence's mother, now the Dowager Lady 
 Ranmore, who had spent twenty years hi nursing Ranmore. 
 "Our friend Deny might even find himself a rich man one 
 day," Mossy went on; "although the rental is comparatively 
 nothing, and what there is they don't get since O'Daly was 
 shot." Mossy had been getting up his subject, and had it all 
 at his fingers' ends. "I can get him a certain amount of money, 
 on his prospects, a thousand or so, anyhow. But I could 
 deal ever so much better with Carruthers if Ranmore was out 
 of the way. He is so damned close in some things, and so 
 damned outspoken in others, and he has any number of damned 
 fool scruples. That's not a bad idea of his, clearing out. Do 
 you think you could keep him up to it?" 
 
 Carrie raised her eyebrows. 
 
 "He can't go without money; when could you get him that 
 thousand ?" she asked. 
 
 In twenty-four hours. He'll have to sign a bill, and insure 
 
 94
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 his life, but that's all right. Is he in earnest about going to 
 Siam?" 
 
 "I think he is simply beating his head against the bars. 
 He has not an idea of what to do with himself." 
 
 "He doesn't look happy, that's a fact. Ethel thinks he 
 is in love with his cousin; he has spoken of her once or twice." 
 
 "For Heaven's sake, don't quote Ethel to me. It is the 
 sort of thing she would think. Ethel could not understand 
 anyone not being in love with a duchess! So you've enter- 
 tained him in Grosvenor Square?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, he has dined with us. I like the fellow, that's 
 the fact. I wish he had a little more brains, or a little less. 
 I could put the screw on old Lady Ranmore if I were left alone. 
 I have an idea that there is some sort of a row on between 
 them nothing to do with the estate. But do you think the 
 ass will let me know what it is? Not he! And he won't let 
 me go over to Ireland and see her, or search the Castle for the 
 missing papers, and he won't have favors asked of her; and 
 he won't do this, and he won't have that, until I've half a mind 
 to throw the whole thing over." 
 
 "Not you!" She laughed at the idea of Mossy relinquishing 
 the case because he could not get all his own way. Then she 
 leant forward, and the little yellow fingers that held the cigarette 
 rested impressively on the table. 
 
 "You get him the money. He'll sign anything you put 
 before him. And I'll see that he takes that post in Siam. 
 We'll get Deny out of the way, and you and Henry Carruthers 
 can have all the law you want. You had better make it fifteen 
 hundred, Mossy," she went on, reflectively; "I'm sure it is all 
 the same to you. You mean to make him pay for it." 
 
 "I tell you I like the fellow." 
 
 "I know. But you won't like him too well to make yourself 
 safe." 
 
 Wherein Lady Carrie showed that she did not undertsand 
 Mossy Leon. He never made himself safe; he never was safe, 
 as the end proved. He borrowed the money he lent, for one 
 thing, and, to make over-reaching profits, he took big risks. 
 
 95 
 
 *
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 And he saw too far into the day after to-morrow, in fact 
 whereas to-morrow always came first, with his own expenses 
 that had to be met. This is perhaps foreign to the immediate 
 subject in hand, which was Deny's fifteen hundred pounds. 
 But Mossy Leon was full of inconsistencies, and Carrie Carthew 
 never had the insight, or the sympathy that was necessary to 
 penetrate them. 
 
 It was ever difficult, for instance, for Mossy to take a purely 
 business interest in a man who broke bread with him. Deny 
 dined two or three times in Grosvenor Spuare, and Ethel gar- 
 nished her conversation with "Lord Ranmore" and his cousin 
 "The Duchess of Towcester." The nearest Ethel ever got 
 to a personal acquaintance with a Duchess was hearing Margaret 
 talked of by Deny, but she made the most of that. Deny had 
 a way with him, not quite the same gay way as Terence, but on 
 the same lines. He soon made himself at home with people; 
 he had too great a simplicity of mind, and too little self-conscious- 
 ness to be ill at ease. Always excepting with Rosaleen, of 
 course, where his .very simplicity and ignorance of a woman 's 
 heart stood in his way. 
 
 Ethel and her husband were at loggerheads on nearly every 
 subject, the irritation of her "superior" airs being never ending, 
 but they were agreed about Lord Ranmore. He was a pleasant 
 fellow, a good listener to Mossy 's stories, and either he, or his 
 title, was an ornament to their dinner-table. 
 
 Mossy was not going to rob Deny. He would borrow 
 1500 for him, and he could sign a bill for 3000. But Mossy 
 himself paid 2000. As a financier he had extraordinary talent, 
 but it was of the bubble- blowing type; beautiful, alluring color 
 was the essence of it, but it was not solid. 
 
 What Mossy found unusual-r-but then, everything about 
 Deny was unusual was that he said he did not think he wanted 
 fifteen hundred pounds, he thought a thousand would be all he 
 would need, if Mossy would be able to get him another thousand 
 next year. For now Deny had made up his mind to go to Siam, 
 and he had seen the representative here of the Government 
 Department. He had been told that he could live there well 
 
 96
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 enough on his salary. The engagement was for two years, and 
 he had definitely accepted it. 
 
 "I'll not be keeping a secret from you," he explained to 
 Mossy in the end. "It's not for myself I'm wanting it" then 
 he flushed a little, for the word was new and unaccustomed on 
 his lips "It's for me wife." 
 
 "What?" said Mossy. "What?" 
 
 Well, now that the ceremony had actually taken place, it 
 need no longer be kept a secret. The sooner everyone knew, 
 those at the Castle, and everybody, the better. Yet Deny had 
 to force himself to speak of it, and Mossy saw that his color was 
 heightened. 
 
 "I am wanting it for Lady Ranmore, and ..." He was 
 not quite sure that he ought to tell Mossy half of it was for Lady 
 Carrie Carthew. Deny was under the impression an impres- 
 sion conveyed to him by Carrie, probably with a purpose 
 that Mossy Leon knew Terence had helped her with money. 
 But Carrie had also conveyed the impression that what she had 
 confided to Deny about her husband's death, and the sup- 
 pressed evidence at the inquest, was not to be talked of with 
 the lawyer, who had arranged it. 
 
 Deny had been prompted very cleverly, and now his affairs 
 seemed to straighten themselves out. He found Mossy much 
 easier to do business with than Mr. Carruthers. If Mossy 
 could let him have a thousand pounds this year, and a thousand 
 pounds next, and take off his shoulders all the trouble of those 
 accounts and papers about which Carruthers was for ever 
 bothering him, he would divide the money between Carrie and 
 Rosaleen, and go out to Siam with an easy mind, as he had been 
 on the point of doing when Terence's death landed him in this 
 coil. 
 
 Mossy could not get over the fact that Deny had a wife. 
 He wanted to talk about nothing else, and to hear who she was, 
 and all about her. 
 
 "Ethel will be surprised," he said. 
 
 Deny admitted, not without a sense of guilt, that perhaps 
 he ought to have mentioned it before. But having mentioned 
 
 97
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 it, he was filled with confusion, and the difficulty of explaining 
 why he had hitherto kept it a secret. In the end, because 
 Mossy was curious and persistent, and used to worming people 's 
 secrets from them, he admitted it had been a runaway match. 
 Mossy soon got to know of Deny 's difficulties about the English 
 marriage laws, and the question of domicile, and the three 
 weeks' delay. Mossy had no difficulty, after that, in realizing 
 that he had been right in his surmise. She, whoever she was, 
 had been in Albany Street all the time. Quite easily, too, he 
 realized that this marriage was the point of the difficulty between 
 Derry and his family. 
 
 Lady Ranmore, who was still at the Castle, and the Duchess 
 would have nothing to do with Derry and his wife. Margaret 
 had never said she would have no more to do with him, by the 
 way. It was Derry who put that interpretation on her silence 
 since he had refused her invitations to Dunstans. 
 
 Carrie made no difficulty about accepting five hundred 
 pounds from Derry. That she would have the same next 
 year, and, after that, according to Derry 's means, was quite 
 pleasant hearing. If those means were large, it would not be 
 any fault of hers if her share were not proportionate. 
 
 But it was very different with Rosaleen, when Deny mooted 
 his plan to her. He was not very clear in his mind as to what 
 Rosaleen would do with herself in his absence. The possibility 
 of asking kindness for her, from either of the two women with 
 whom he was just now thrown into such constant contact had, 
 of course, crossed his mind. But they were neither of them 
 women in the real sense of the word. How he knew, it is diffi- 
 cult to arrive at, for he found Carrie companionable, and Mrs. 
 Leon kind; but he did know, instinctively, and could picture 
 neither of them in juxtaposition with Rosaleen. Strangely 
 enough, too, although it would not seem strange to those who 
 knew Mossy, it was Mossy that Derry thought might be a friend 
 to Rosaleen in his absence. There was so much humanity 
 about the Jew. He talked freely about women, too freely for 
 Derry 's liking, but he never spoke unkindly of them. Deny 
 was in several minds about asking Mossy to keep an eye to Rosa- 
 
 98
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 leen in his absence. What he failed to reckon for was Rosaleen 's 
 attitude in the matter. 
 
 "Rosaleen, I want to talk to you. Can you spare me a 
 moment?" he said desperately, one morning, when his application 
 had been made, and accepted, for that berth in Siam, and nothing 
 remained but to take his passage and fix his date. 
 
 "Will it suit you now, or, if you are busy . . . ?" He 
 dreaded intruding upon her, or seeming to intrude; she had 
 withdrawn herself more definitely from him since their pretense 
 of a marriage, it was as if she shrank from meeting his eyes, 
 or speaking to him at all, since he could call himself her husband. 
 
 For answer she sat down again. It was after breakfast, and 
 she had no where to go. They had only the one sitting-room, and 
 generally she left him there with his cigar and his newspapers. 
 It was a travesty of domesticity through which they were passing. 
 
 " Is it talkin' to me . . . ?" 
 
 "And it's talking to you I'd often have been if I thought 
 you wanted to hear me." 
 
 She raised her eyes to his, those mournful, long-lashed, great 
 gray eyes of hers, and her lips trembled. 
 
 "You'll be sayin'?" was all she could get out. 
 
 "Won't you sit here in the easy chair?" He drew it forward 
 for her. "You're sitting up there so stiff and uncomfortable." 
 
 He had got used by now to ladies who lounged. 
 
 Rosaleen did not move. He thought she looked at him with 
 fear, or ... dislike, as if she did not want to be friends with 
 him. But it was not so; it was that her heart was beating so 
 tumultuously that it choked the outlet of her words. 
 
 "I'm thinking what you would like to do with yourself when 
 I am gone. I want to talk it over with you. It is but dull you 
 are here ..." 
 
 Dull! Was dullness the word for the desolation of her days, 
 the gray street of mean houses, the pavement, and the hours 
 and hours by herself? But he had slept under the same roof 
 with her, she had the consciousness of that, and of his generosity 
 in carrying out his scheme for saving her. And he had not left 
 her quite alone in the world. What was it he was saying . . . ? 
 
 99
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "I am going abroad soon. Next week, or the week after. 
 I want to see where I shall leave you, and about it all." 
 
 Only the two words remained, beating on her head and in 
 her ears. 
 
 "Going abroad! You are leaving me here?" 
 
 Desolation then was before her; she would be alone in this 
 great London, no step for which to listen, no voice to hear. 
 Her lips trembled, those sweet, thin lips. In a moment the old 
 tenderness wrung his heart, and he went on hurriedly, so that 
 she should not see his lips were tremulous, too. 
 
 "There's much to be settled about the estates, and I'm in 
 the way while it's being got through, it seems. And I can't 
 hang about here, doing nothing; and it's miserable you are with 
 me," broke from him. 
 
 "And it's less miserable you think I'd be when you've gone," 
 came through the sob in her throat. He went over to her, not 
 knowing what moved him so. But she looked so forlorn. 
 
 "Rosaleen, shall I stay?" 
 
 She pushed her chair back, moved from near him. 
 
 "I've been feeling this week past you'd be glad if I was not 
 here. You rush away as soon as you finish your meals. I'm 
 not blaming you, not a minute"; his voice rose. "You'll not 
 think that ? I know you can't help thinking who it is should be 
 in my place. But since it's like that with you, and small wonder, 
 I thought you'd rather I went away ? It will be better perhaps, 
 when I come back. I'd like to have told you about it, Rosaleen, 
 we were friends once, about the country I'm going to, and the 
 strangeness of it, but you haven't wanted to talk to me." 
 
 "I thought I thought " but her voice was locked, and he 
 could not hear what she said. Again he went nearer to her, 
 and this time she did not move away. 
 
 "I thought you were shamed witii me," she said. Her head was 
 averted, and her eyes were lowered, but he could see the color 
 as it rose rare and exquisite in her white skin, and painfully to 
 the roots of her hair. As for her voice, it was but a whisper. 
 
 "Shamed with you!" His voice was almost as low as hers, 
 and his flush was little less deep. "If you only knew!" A 
 
 100
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 flood of reminiscences swept over him. . . . "The friends that 
 we were, although I think you were always shy with me. Do 
 you mind the gorse, and the day we caught the hare?" She 
 minded it right enough. "And the face of you when it leaped ?" 
 
 "Micky said it must have been the charm ... to catch 
 a hare in your arms." 
 
 "And then I let it go, when you begged me ..." 
 
 Suddenly the aptness of it struck him. A hare she was, too, 
 hunted, without a shelter. "It ran this way and that, not 
 knowing where to bide." 
 
 "Like me!" there was a sob in her voice. 
 
 "Oh, Rosaleen! But you're crying . . . it's not because 
 I'm leaving you, because I'm going away! Rosaleen ..." For 
 an answer she made a rush for the door, he must not see her 
 falling tears. But he stopped her, putting out his arms, barring 
 her way. A great idea shook his voice. 
 
 "You wouldn't go with me?" 
 
 His arms stayed her going, and the excitement in his voice 
 communicated itself to her. 
 
 "You wouldn't be taking me?" 
 
 " Wouldn't I ? But the distance of it, and you'd be frightened 
 to go with me! It's exiles we'd be." 
 
 "It's an exile I am," she said, that moving sob in her throat. 
 
 The consciousness that he wanted desperately that she should 
 go with him had flashed into his mind like lightning. How was 
 it that he had not known it all along ? Why should he leave her 
 behind? She would grow less shy with him soon, and in a 
 strange country it would go hard with him but he'd get that 
 sadness out of her eyes. It was to him she had to look, and 
 him only. What was it possessed him to think he would leave 
 her behind? 
 
 "I'm afraid you will have to rough it." He felt bound to put 
 the worst of it before her as the anxiety he had for her company 
 grew. "There's a bungalow for me in Bangkok, but most of 
 my work will be in the back of beyond, up country. There'll 
 be only black servants, and the great heat, and mosquitoes." 
 He was going on breathlessly ; she must hear the worst of it. " I'm 
 
 101
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 not sure about the food. Sit down and I'll tell you ... I'd 
 love you to come with me, the difference it would make!" 
 
 She sat down to hear about the hardships. If there were no 
 servants, she would serve him. This was really the dawn of 
 Hope; to go with him to a new country. It was leaving her 
 trouble behind her. No, it was not that, but she would not 
 think beyond going away from here, and with him. And that 
 perhaps she could wait on him, serve him. 
 
 "It's two berths I'll be taking then," he went on, triumphantly, 
 tentatively, watching her face. While he had been telling her 
 of all the hardships she must expect, he noted that she never 
 blenched; but that her lips were nearer to a smile than he had 
 seen them these many weeks. 
 
 " It's not hardships I'm fearing, if you want me to go with you." 
 
 " Rosaleen!" he was emboldened now. " We must be friends 
 again." He took her hand. " We'll go out together to the new 
 country and I'll take care of you all I know. You've been shy 
 with me these days, now we'll be friends." 
 
 She sat mute, her hand in his, her eyes downcast. 
 
 "It's friends only I mean. You'll not be afraid with me? 
 I'll not forget." He drew in his breath, he must say it. And 
 then out he blurted it, he was so happy, he did not know why, 
 but he wanted her to share his feelings, not to be afraid of him, 
 "I'll not forget . . . it's . . . it's Terence's widow you'll be 
 to me. But we'll talk together, and be friends, I should have 
 been horribly lonely out there, and thinking of you all the 
 time. . . . You will be friends with me, won't you?" 
 
 The eyes that were raised to him now were not mournful. 
 The dark gray depths of them were alight. 
 
 "Ah! and I'll be that," she answered, fervently.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE new era their talk inaugurated had a thousand charms. 
 Rosaleen forgot to be unhappy when Deny was talking 
 eagerly of plans and outfit. It was strange to her at first, 
 and difficult, to be taking money from him for so many clothes 
 that he said she must have. It seemed a dreadful amount of 
 money he was spending, quite soon she was anxious about his 
 improvidence and trying to keep him from buying this and that. 
 Mossy Leon and Lady Carrie Carthew saw little of Deny during 
 the last days of his stay in London. These were spent in shop- 
 ping. And now, at breakfast and lunch and dinner, there was 
 much to talk about, and she no longer left him the room to 
 himself, but sat pn listening while Deny talked of their new 
 life, and sometimes even he caught glimpses of the old Rosaleen, 
 with a glint in her eyes and the dimple about the corners of her 
 mouth sometimes, not often. 
 
 Deny had obtained a list of what was wanted for the East. 
 He bought clothes and flannels. Nothing would serve him but 
 that Rosaleen should have muslins, and cotton dresses, and thin 
 underwear. Sometimes there were embarrassing moments, but 
 he was extraordinarily tender and considerate of her feelings, 
 and sensitive to her moods. He was full of his intention that 
 there should be friendship between them. He was very happy. 
 Was he not fulfilling all his promises? Carrie had her money, 
 poor little woman; and now he knew he would never let Rosaleen 
 out of his care. He could not talk to Rosaleen about Lady 
 Carrie. The mere hint that there had been love-making between 
 her and Terence made it impossible. But he could tell her 
 about Mossy, and how the lawyers would straighten out affairs 
 between themselves when he was in Siam. 
 
 103
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "Aren't you going to introduce me to your wife before you 
 go?" Mossy asked him. "Why don't you bring her to have a 
 bit of dinner with us? We never see anything of you now." 
 
 Carrie, of course, adopted a different attitude. She took it 
 for granted that Berry's wife was not presentable. She did not 
 ask him to bring Rosaleen to see her, although the announce- 
 ment of the wedding had been in the Times and Morning Post, 
 and she had no valid reason for her course of action. But it 
 was characteristic of Carrie; she hated to be bored, and she 
 thought the sort of wife Derry would have chosen and married 
 in this way would be certain to bore her; she had his money, and 
 her hold on his sympathy. 
 
 Derry was doubtful about taking Rosaleen to dine with Mossy. 
 He was not, however, nearly as doubtful or reluctant as Rosaleen 
 when the idea was mooted to her. But for Mossy's persistence, 
 and the lack of reasonable excuse for refusal, it would never 
 have come about, although Mrs. Leon called in her fine carriage, 
 and left a note of invitation. 
 
 Mrs. Jobson was Ethel's criterion of fashion. Mrs. Jobson, 
 who lisped, and whose friendship with an Irish baronet was her 
 claim to be considered in society, had said that "it was hardly 
 pwoper Mrs. Leon should continue to receive Lord Wanmore 
 wivout his wife." Mrs. Jobson had a curiosity to see the new 
 Lady Ranmore; she had seen the dowager. She implied to 
 Ethel that it had been at Dublin Castle; but, in truth, it was when 
 she had been in service as cook-housekeeper, during one of the 
 intervals when Jobson, who was an ex-solicitor's clerk had seen 
 no way of making a living, and been content that his wife should 
 do it for him. In Dublin, Mrs. Jobson, then not without a fair 
 and comfortable prettiness, had met the baronet, and returned 
 triumphantly to London, setting up an establishment in which 
 he figured as a paying guest. Since then Mrs. Jobson and Sir 
 Patrick Setwell had become quite features in Kensington. 
 Ethel was more intimate with this woman than with her mother, 
 or any of her own sisters, she really was under her influence. 
 Mrs. Jobson, who was even more pretentious than Ethel, thought 
 it was essential Lord Ranmore should bring his wife to Gros- 
 
 104
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 venor Square. She quoted Sir Patrick on the subject, she 
 thought that to quote a baronet's opinion gave weight to her 
 own! 
 
 It was absolutely essential, according to Mrs. Jobson, that 
 Lord and Lady Ranmore should dine with the Leons, and the 
 fact be duly chronicled in the Morning Post. 
 
 Mrs. Jobson advised Ethel to write that they would be alone, 
 or practically alone. "Sans ceremonie" was what Ethel wrote. 
 Mrs. Jobson's knowledge of French was a minus quantity. 
 Derry translated the words to Rosaleen, and explained 
 them. 
 
 "It means you are not to bother about dressing, or anything. 
 They are nice people, and hospitable. I'd like you to come 
 there with me." 
 
 "But they are grand folk, and I shan't know what to say to 
 them. Leave me behind you, Derry; you go, it's you they want." 
 
 "You'll have to get used to going out with me. It's Lord and 
 Lady Ranmore we are." Derry saw that it was as Lord and 
 Lady Ranmore they were going away together. It had grown 
 quite clear with him now that they must appear before the world 
 as husband and wife. He had a great contentment over this; 
 everything was easier, too, now he and Rosaleen could talk. 
 He built light conversational bridges to bear him over the gaps 
 that came between them. 
 
 "They're not grand folk at all; at least, Mossy isn't." He 
 was not quite so sure about Ethel, her pretentiousness had some- 
 what impressed him. "He is just a kind-hearted, genial fellow, 
 and they'll be proud to welcome you." 
 
 There were discussions about what Rosaleen would wear. 
 Derry said it didn't matter at all, for the sans ceremonie had 
 been accepted by him as genuine. 
 
 "Sure and it doesn't matter what you'll wear; you'll look 
 the beauty you are in whatever it is," he said. It was not 
 often he allowed himself to pay her compliments. She blushed 
 at this one. 
 
 "It's yourself that will be the only one to think it," she 
 answered. 
 
 105
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 She put on one of the muslin dresses Deny had bought for 
 her, and plaited her hair neatly. She wanted to be creditable 
 to him. 
 
 Her heart beat very unevenly on the way to Grosvenor 
 Square. It oppressed her to be called Lady Ranmore, and 
 she thought a great deal about that. But she owed everything 
 to Derry, and she hoped his friends would not look down upon 
 her. This was Rosaleen's first definite realization that she 
 must try to be equal to the position she had been given. Derry 's 
 simplicity saw no difference between them. He had been a 
 poor relation, she a poor dependent, of the great house. But 
 Rosaleen knew that Derry was "one of the family," and she 
 the daughter of their farm bailiff. Her humility was alive 
 with pride. She was full of fear, but would not show she was 
 afraid. Had this, her first entry into Society, been of a more 
 auspicious nature, had her sensitiveness not been cruelly attacked 
 and wounded on this first brave essay, she would have shown 
 her quality more quickly. But it is not an Ethel Leon who 
 can play hostess to a new-comer in a strange world, and make 
 her at home in it. 
 
 The muslin frock that was donned for that dinner was short 
 in the skirt, and high in the neck. Rosaleen had made it 
 herself, and she thought it a grand affair. Round her waist 
 there was a black ribbon. Rosaleen was taller than most women, 
 although she came little higher than Derry 's collar. She was 
 pale, the intense blackness of her hair giving a fine transparency 
 to her pallor. Her gray eyes, set rather deeply, were shaded by 
 lashes incredibly long; the delicate pencilling of her brows had 
 a trick of restlessness, moving when she spoke or laughed. 
 Her face was very thin, and her lips softly pink, with tremulous 
 curves. To-night she had divided the great thickness of her 
 hair in plaits, and round and round her small head she had 
 wound them. It was not until they arrived at the big house 
 in the Square that she had any misgiving as to her appearance. 
 What she should say, and do, had been her fear, not how she 
 would look. She had little or no personal vanity. 
 
 There was an awning before Mossy Leon's door, and three 
 
 106
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 powdered footmen were in the hall. Rosaleen was already 
 startled and would have clung to Derry's arm. She did not 
 understand she was to follow the maid to take off her cloak. 
 "I'll leave it with ye," she said. But Deny coaxed her to go. 
 
 She had been in grand rooms at Castle Ranmore, but she 
 had seen nothing like Mrs. Leon's bedroom. At Ranmore 
 the dark wainscoted rooms were lit by candles. Here there 
 was a blaze of electric light, and Rose du Barri hangings, gold 
 bottles and gold-backed brushes on the dressing-table, and, 
 above all, worse than all, a dozen fine cloaks on the bed, 
 all chiffon, and fur, and grandeur. And it was alone Deny 
 had said they would be dining with the Leons! There was 
 enough of the woman in Rosaleen to see the difference between 
 the black cape she had on and those fine cloaks. She would 
 not look at herself in the glass. All her courage was needed 
 to get her to where Derry waited for her in the hall. 
 
 "It's a big dinner-party they are giving," she whispered to 
 him. 
 
 "I know; but it will be all right, you'll enjoy yourself." 
 
 "I'll do everything wrong." There was despair in her voice. 
 
 "Not you!" 
 
 The big doors of the drawing-room were thrown open, and 
 they heard their names called out. 
 
 "Lord and Lady Ranmore." 
 
 Ethel stood near the door to receive her guests. Ethel 
 mistook emaciation for elegance, and prided herself on her 
 eighteen inch waist. She had a new dress to-night, an elaborate 
 confection of velvet and old lace. She wore all her jewels 
 the diamond coronet, the two rows of matched pearls, and many 
 diamond brooches. Her dress was cut so low that, even in her 
 trepidation and alarm, Rosaleen could be confused for her, 
 and ashamed to look at such nakedness. It really is difficult 
 to tell who was the more shocked, Ethel at Rosaleen 's appear- 
 ance, or she at Ethel's. 
 
 What a figure to present to her guests! was Ethel's comment. 
 "Shure, an' it's naked she is entirely," was Rosaleen 's as she 
 looked away. 
 
 107
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Ethel was dreadfully mortified at having to present such a 
 figure to her guests. She did not know what Mrs. Jobson 
 would say. 
 
 Even Deny saw that something was wrong. There was 
 no mistaking the curiosity and surprise on the faces of the 
 other guests, or Ethel's strangulated reception of the intro- 
 duction. In her white high frock, short in the skirt, and her 
 braided hair, Rosaleen was different from all the other guests 
 in their low dresses and diamonds. The vexation on his face 
 lest she should feel the difference, Rosaleen thought was dis- 
 satisfaction with her. And now there was a cold piece in her 
 heart; it was shame she would bring upon him. 
 
 When Mossy offered her his arm to take her in to dinner, 
 she did not know what it was he was meaning, sticking his 
 elbow out like that. She did not know what to do with it. 
 They were watching her, she felt they were all watching her. 
 
 Had Mossy 's acquaintances, or Ethel's friends, been drawn 
 from the class that the Duchess, for instance, would have 
 gathered about her board, neither the ill-bred surprise, nor the 
 ill-bred curiosity would have been manifested. But these 
 were not well-bred people, and the Irish country girl, so strange 
 to her position, felt the rudeness of their staring without knowing 
 how to resent it. 
 
 There were sixteen people settling into their places round 
 that over-decorated dinner-table. When Rosaleen entered 
 the room, not having taken Mossy 's arm, but by his side, and 
 preceding the others, it seemed to her that the business of 
 taking their seats was subordinate to their business of concen- 
 trating curious eyes upon her. They were cold eyes, and curious. 
 Mossy noticed nothing unusual about Rosaleen, except perhaps 
 the quality of her beauty. He was an emotional person, and 
 it struck him almost from the first. "My God! I never saw 
 such eyes in my life, and what a skin!" represented Mossy 's 
 impression of Derry's wife. He neither noticed her clothes, 
 nor the reception the women gave her, or he might have found 
 a way to make her feel at home. He was really the soul of 
 hospitality, and good-nature personified. But he was knocked 
 
 108
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 over by her great, mournful eyes, white skin and pink, pathetic 
 lips, he did not even want to talk to her just yet. 
 
 On his other side was Mrs. Jobson, and Mrs. Jobson being 
 his pet aversion, he thought it necessary to be extra civil to her. 
 The woman, whatever she had been in her youth, when she 
 had netted her poor boor of a Baronet, was now in her aggres- 
 sive and scandal-loving middle age, unwieldy in bulk, and 
 essentially common-looking. That she wore a blue feather 
 in her hair, and affected coquettishness, only brought this out 
 more learly. Mossy always said one could see the landlady 
 in her. When she meant to be ingratiating, he found her only 
 obsequious. It was extraordinary that she had impressed Ethel 
 as a desirable acquaintance. 
 
 "The idea," Mrs. Jobson said to Mossy, as soon as they 
 were seated, "of his bwinging a cweature like vat here wiv 
 him! Where could he have met her? Not at ve Castle, 
 I'm sure." And she laughed. Her laugh was common, too, 
 and affected. Mossy did not realize for the moment about 
 whom she was talking. Mrs. Jobson always talked ill-naturedly, 
 it was what she understood by conversation. She went on to 
 suggest there must be some scandal about the new Lady Ran- 
 more, and to guess its nature. But to Mossy already Rosaleen 
 was a rare creature. And presently, when he had seen that 
 everything was all right, and the dinner beginning to go, he 
 would concentrate on her. But he looked around his table 
 with inward dissatisfaction. He hated the type of people in 
 whose society Ethel found pleasure. His instincts were so 
 much finer than hers. 
 
 On the other side of Rosaleen was Sir Patrick Setwell. Mossy 
 could not stand Sir Patrick either. The Irish baronet had an 
 ill-balanced head, narrow forehead and coarse jaw, he had 
 high Calmuckian cheekbones, with an unhealthy flush upon 
 them, the hands of a navvy, and the manners of a boor. His 
 stupidity was so dense, that, in contrast with it, Mrs. Jobson 's 
 lisped ill-nature appeared bright. The long-standing acquaint- 
 ance between them had influenced what little of character he 
 had. She had estranged him from his mother, and his barren 
 8 109
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 acres, and now that he was her creature, he cut but a poor 
 figure in the surroundings she had chosen for him. A half- 
 witted chuckle of laughter when she spoke to him across the 
 able, was almost his only contribution to the hilarity of the 
 occasion. Sir Patrick had taken Lady Pentacle in to dinner. 
 Mrs. Job on was very strict about etiquette, and kept Ethel 
 up to the mark. Lady Pentacle 's first husband had been a 
 City grocer. The distinguished K.C.B. whose name she bore, 
 had married her in his dotage. Lady Pentacle was old too, 
 now, although she wore a youthful black wig. Her two rows 
 of false teeth moved constantly in her narrow mouth, like 
 those of an animated rabbit, chewing an imaginary cabbage. 
 She was another of Mrs. Jobson's "paying guests," the centre 
 of a little, grasping, bridge-playing circle she gathered together 
 in the Kensington drawing-room, and out of whom she made 
 her living. 
 
 Mr. Jobson was of the dinner-party. He looked like a seedy 
 waiter, in a very low collar; he had a neck like that of a withered 
 chicken, a furtive manner, and a deprecatory way of clearing 
 his throat. Mrs. Jobson made a point of being attentive to 
 him in public, and would say what old "fwiends" he and Sir 
 Patrick were. 
 
 Mrs. Macklesfield was another of what Mossy called the 
 "Jobson brigade"; an under-bred, over-dressed, black-eyed, 
 Colonial woman, in a Parisian dress thick with gajidy embroidery, 
 a turban head-dress, decorated with diamonds, but inhar- 
 monious in color, and more jewelry, more diamond chains, 
 ropes of pearls, and ill-assorted Maltese and Runic crosses in 
 rubies and emeralds, than one would have thought it possible 
 could be concentrated on one human being. She, too, was 
 coquettish; she and the old Indian civilian, without whom she 
 went nowhere, were known as the "turtle-doves." Mrs. 
 Macklesfield was very rich, ambitious of social advancement, 
 and ignorant of how it was to be achieved. The Indian civilian 
 dined with her, and drove with her, and was seen with her 
 everywhere. He had only a pension. 
 
 Mrs. Streeter was a more decorative, tall and beautiful 
 
 110
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 woman with white hair, in a pink brocaded dress. She raised 
 her tortoise-shell lorgnette and surveyed Lady Ranmore with 
 quiet insolence. 
 
 "Who did you say she was?" she asked Ethel, quite aloud, 
 and without any consideration for anybody's feelings. "Lady 
 Ranmore? Oh!" 
 
 Derry sat opposite Mrs. Streeter, and, turning her lorg- 
 nette now upon him, she asked sweetly: 
 
 "Is your wife a foreigner, Lord Ranmore?" 
 
 "A foreigner! The saints forbid!" 
 
 "She is so unlike an ordinary Englishwoman." 
 
 "My wife is Irish," he answered shortly. He was beginning 
 to see the difference between Rosaleen at the other end of the 
 table, and all those other women, in their decollete dresses 
 and jewelry. No man can guess all that a woman feels at 
 such a disadvantage; but Derry saw, or suspected, something 
 of the malice in Mrs. Streeter's inquiry. 
 
 "She has not been out at all," he went on; "she is straight 
 from her convent school." He turned to Ethel. "You said 
 'without ceremony' that you'd be alone." And then his 
 pride would not let him make excuses for her. "It's she that 
 will be shocked with your clothes here." 
 
 If it had been only the clothes, there would have been little 
 harm done. But the etiquette of the dinner-table, and the 
 society laws that obtained, were each fresh stumbling-blocks 
 to poor Rosaleen, at the end of the table, the cynosure of these 
 curious eyes. f 
 
 Mossy took everything about her for granted. With all 
 the disadvantages of her dress and braided hair, he realized 
 the quality of her rare good looks, and they took him captive 
 immediately. 
 
 "You don't like,, caviare? Of course, you're right. It's 
 only decayed entrails, but it's the fashion to like it." 
 
 Rosaleen had never seen caviare before. The Bortsch w r as 
 equally strange to her, and she refused the cream. 
 
 "I say you've got no appetite at all! . . . How do you 
 like London?" he asked her. 
 
 Ill
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 He thought those mournful eyes she turned on him were 
 astoundingly beautiful, they almost took his breath away. 
 If he noticed at all that anyone was staring at her, he would 
 have put it down to that. He wanted to stare at her himself. 
 
 " 'Tis a rare sad place, I'm thinking," Rosaleen answered 
 in a low voice. 
 
 "Sad! Cheery, I call it. What have you seen? I suppose 
 Derry has taken you to a play or two, or to the Palace ? They've 
 got a clever girl at the Palace now; sings a good song in a new 
 way." 
 
 "Is 't to the King's Palace you're meaning Derry should 
 have taken me?" she almost whispered, gazing on Mossy 
 with something like awe. She was trying to hold on to her 
 courage, but the low-necked dresses, and the servants that 
 kept offering her things she did not want, and the looks she 
 saw directed to her, the jeers she suspected, made it a desperate 
 venture. Mossy seemed kind, kinder than anybody who was 
 there. But what was it he was asking her about the Palace? 
 Was he only making fun of her? It took Mossy a minute to 
 realize her meaning. Then he shouted with laughter and 
 repeated what she had said to his neighbor. 
 
 "She thought Flossie Delaporte's engagement was at Buck- 
 ingham Palace!" 
 
 The mistake did not seem anything very out of the way 
 to Mossy, who knew Rosaleen had been brought up in a convent, 
 and was fresh from Ireland. In repeating it he merely wanted 
 to give the talk a roll, to help on the bonhomie and geniality 
 that seemed to be lacking from the dinner-party. Ethel's 
 dinner-parties generally did lack hilarity; when he wanted to 
 enjoy himself, he chose his own guests. He was annoyed 
 when Mrs. Jobson answered. 
 
 "The idea! Where on earf did Lord Wanmore pick her up?" 
 
 He turned away from her quite abruptly, he never spoke 
 to her again that evening. He hoped Rosaleen had not heard; 
 he was sure, in his optimism, that Rosaleen had not heard. 
 But of course she had, and now she was yet more confused 
 and ill at ease. And Mossy's manner to her failed to help. 
 
 112
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Mossy was one of those convivial spirits who get drunk with- 
 out drinking. One glass of champagne, the exhilaration of 
 having discovered a new beauty, the desire to protect her from 
 Mrs. Jobson's ill-nature, combined to make him extraordinarily 
 talkative. He asked the bewildered girl if she had ever thought 
 of going upon the stage. He promised her his influence, and 
 told her what he had done for other good-looking girls. And 
 then he was busy with his hospitality, sending this bottle round 
 to one man, recommending something else to another. Mossy 
 wanted all his guests to be happy, and to enjoy themselves, 
 to eat and drink of the best. Even if they were not the guests 
 he would have chosen, it was equally on his mind that he was 
 their host. He really did not notice how little Rosaleen answered 
 him, how monosyllabic were her answers. Mrs. Jobson asked 
 her whether she played "bwidge," and got a hurried, ingenuous 
 admission that she did not know what it was. Maliciously, 
 then, one and another asked her questions. She became more 
 and more uncomfortable, her brogue increased, and her ignor- 
 ance and unfitness for her position seemed to her to be com- 
 pletely exposed. 
 
 "Is it plays you're talkin' of? An' I've never seen a play 
 at all," she told Mossy desperately. "It's meself that never 
 was out of the convent till I went to the Castle, to wait upon 
 her ladyship." 
 
 The words seemed, even in her own ears, to be loud across 
 the dinner-table. Mrs. Streeter's lorgnettes were turned full 
 upon her. Mrs. Jobson grew quite pink, and said "Ve idea!" 
 remembering that she had been in service herself, but hoping 
 that no one else would. Sir Patrick emitted one of his ill- 
 bred chuckles; it had nothing to do with Rosaleen, but of 
 course she thought it had. It was only Mossy who thought 
 nothing at all of what she had said. He was ever more of a 
 talker than a listener, and he wanted to tell her about the first 
 play he ever saw. What did it matter whether she had been 
 in service, or what she had been, with eyes like these, and 
 such a delicate rarity of flush ? Yet it was Mossy who deepened 
 her confusion to breaking-point. 
 
 113
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "Of course you knew Terence then," he said. "Bright 
 fellow, wasn't he? Everybody loved him. I suppose you 
 didn't get off scot-free. ..." 
 
 She gazed at him with fear-distended eyes, and her mouth 
 went dry. It was unfortunate that was the moment the finger- 
 glasses were placed. If your mouth goes dry and it's water 
 that's put before you, what can you do but drink it? 
 
 In Kensington and Hampstead, Belsize and Regent's Park, 
 all the localities from which Ethel's friends were drawn, it 
 was told for many a day how Lady Ranmore drank from her 
 finger-glass. Ethel's sudden rise and movement before the 
 fruit had been served was a move of exasperation. This 
 was the last straw of aggravation. Her vaunted guest had 
 admitted she had been in service, now she drank from the 
 finger-glass. Ethel heard the titters quite as loudly as Rosaleen. 
 They hurt her almost as much. She could have borne it better 
 if Ellaline had not been present. Ellaline was the Ayscough 
 sister who had married a stockbroker, and lived at Dorking. 
 Ellaline had had much to bear. It was mere human nature 
 for her to whisper: 
 
 "It is so good of you, dear, to give me a chance of meeting 
 'really nice people.' One has so little opportunity, living 
 in the suburbs, of seeing how 'really nice people' behave." 
 
 Ethel colored with annoyance. She always invited Ellaline 
 with some such preamble as the one quoted. She loved to 
 make Ellaline think she lived in the centre of fashionable 
 society. She had no sense of humor, and could not bear the 
 tables being turned upon her like this. She had no repartee 
 ready, and could not conceal her mortification. It was at 
 its height by the time Rosaleen reached the drawing-room. 
 She could have borne everything better if Ellaline had not 
 been there to see it. 
 
 Rosaleen did not even reach the drawing-room first, as she 
 ought to have done. She missed the signal Ethel gave, or 
 did not know what it meant. She had kept her seat until 
 Mossy said: 
 
 "That's right, Lady Ranmore. You stay and talk to us!" 
 
 114
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Then with a fresh flush of confusion, she had understood, 
 and got up. 
 
 They were all in the drawing-room when she got there, 
 the curious, ill-bred women, and Mrs. Streeter, whose lorg- 
 nettes seemed concentrated on her face like burning-glasses. 
 How she wished for the quiet of her small bedroom at Albany 
 Street! What had her host said about Terence? Had Deny 
 heard? And what did he mean at all? How unfit she was 
 to be here among Berry's fine friends! The things she had 
 done at dinner! And now those burning-glasses on her face. 
 
 "You waited on Lady Ranmore," Mrs. Streeter began, in 
 those sweet tones of hers that carried as much malice as Mrs. 
 Jobson's lisp. Mrs. Streeter could not bear that there should 
 be other good-looking women in the world. She was quite 
 virtuous herself, and thought her condition, considering her 
 beauty, quite exceptional. She had never had a lover; her 
 little, respectable, consumptive husband sufficed her coldness. 
 But she suspected all other beautiful women, drew her skirts 
 away from the contamination of them, and hated them for 
 the happiness that had been denied to her. "Do tell us why 
 you left. Was she pleased when you married her son?" 
 
 "It wasn't Mr. Deny that was her son. It's Lord Ranmore 
 that was her son." Rosaleen had no weapon with which to 
 meet this insolence. She went red and white, and looked to 
 this side and another like a trapped animal, as she answered 
 in the simplicity of her confusion. 
 
 But Mrs. Streeter had made a. faux pas, and, of course, Mrs. 
 Jobson drew immediate attention to it. 
 
 "Fancy you not knowing Lord Ranmore has only just come 
 into ve title! I should have thought you'd have known vat, 
 Mrs. Streeter." Mrs. Jobson laughed. "Though of course, 
 it's not as if you had ever mixed in ve Castle set. ..." 
 
 In parrying Mrs. Jobson's attack Mrs. Streeter let go her 
 hold on Rosaleen. The glasses were directed elsewhere for 
 a moment, and Rosaleen's face could begin to cool. 
 
 Her hostess took no notice of her at all. Those among the 
 guests who were not actively malicious had not the manners 
 
 115
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 to approach her. For a few minutes she stood quite isolated 
 and strange among them. Then there was a movement 
 made to the dressing-rooms. There was powder to be 
 replaced, and fringes to be adjusted before the men rejoined 
 them. Bridge was to be the order of the evening. Already 
 two or three green cloth-topped tables, each with its 
 ordered burden of cards and markers, were incongruous in 
 the elaborately upholstered room. Rosaleen was neglected, 
 or forgotten for a moment. And she seized upon her 
 opportunity like a famished dog upon a bone. She wanted to 
 move out of the focus of these curious eyes. She wanted to be 
 alone again, to cool the burning of her cheeks, and still the 
 tumultuous beating of her heart. She went out of the drawing- 
 room when they did, but it was not upstairs to the bedroom she'd 
 be going with them. They did not want her, she was not of 
 their kind. She was flying downstairs while they were chattering 
 about each other's jewelry and clothes. She was down the 
 stairs, and through the street-door, before anyone noticed she 
 was gone. She had not waited to find her cloak; she would not 
 face again the blaze of light in the pink room. 
 
 Down the stairs, and through the hall she darted, as if the 
 lorgnettes and that sweet, insolent voice would pursue her. A 
 wondering footman, startled into politeness, opened the door 
 for her. 
 
 Now she was in the street, panting. She did not stop to look 
 this way or that, she was afraid they would be after her. She 
 took to her heels like a child pursued by fear, round the Square, 
 and down Grosvenor Street, never pausing until Bond Street was 
 passed, and two or three corners doubled, and she could feel 
 herself safe. 
 
 But Rosaleen's costume of white muslin, without coat or hat, 
 was even more conspicuous in Regent Street than it had been in 
 Grosvenor Square. She paused to take her bearings when she 
 reached the Circus, and in that pause a man came up and spoke 
 to her. Of course it was an outrageous thing for him to have 
 done, seeing that he was a married man, on his way home to 
 Portland Place, after a decorous game of billiards at his club. 
 
 116
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 But he had never seen her on the street before, and her looks 
 were unusual and striking. Perhaps, however, it was unneces- 
 sary to try to excuse him. 
 
 Rosaleen was a little dazed by now. The man seemed kind 
 when he spoke to her; but it was out of the way of everybody 
 Rosaleen would be flying. There was no sense or reason in her 
 action, already she knew she ought not to have run away, to 
 have left Deny behind, to have behaved so childishly. And now 
 she had lost her bearings. 
 
 "Are you looking for anybody? Is there anything I can do 
 for you?" Willie Henhouse asked her. She stopped, regarding 
 him doubtfully; and emboldened, he went on: 
 
 "I think we must have met somewhere. You don't remember 
 me, perhaps?" 
 
 "I've never set eyes on you, I'm thinking." Even that short 
 speech was enough to betray her country. 
 
 "Surely we met in Ireland. Won't you try and remember?" 
 
 "Is it from Ireland you are? Then perhaps I can ask you. 
 It's Albany Street I'm looking for; it's my way I've lost. Am I 
 near there belike?" 
 
 Albany Street was hardly an address to assure a man about 
 town that he had made a mistake in addressing the young 
 woman. 
 
 "We are within a quarter of an hour of Albany Street. You 
 will let me walk with you; or perhaps you'd rather drive?" 
 
 "I'll be thankful to you, I'd rather walk," she said simply.. 
 
 It was the strangest experience for Willie Henhouse. He 
 walked by her side, steering her carefully down by-streets and 
 out to Portland Road Station. They might have passed his 
 own house, but of course he avoided that. He talked all the 
 time about Ireland, and why she had left it, the length of her 
 stay in London, and so on. She never answered him at all, or 
 if a word fell from her, even he could see that her thoughts were 
 elsewhere. When they came to the corner of her street, her face 
 lit up in recognition. 
 
 "I'll not be troublin' you any further," she said. "For it's 
 here; and thank you kindly for bringing me." 
 
 117
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "Oh, nonsense!" Willie answered. "Of course you are 
 going to ask me to come in with you?" Now he caught hold of 
 her arm. She wrenched it from him indignantly. 
 
 At that moment Berry's hansom drew up, he was out of it 
 before it had time to pull up, out of it and on to Willie. 
 
 "What do you mean by it? What do you mean?" 
 
 He had hold of him. 
 
 "Run home, Rosaleen, run home." He shook Willie, who 
 was a little man, well known in the rubber-market, but insignifi- 
 cant outside of it. Willie Henhouse thought he had got himself 
 into a tight place, of course this was her bully, this big fellow 
 who had a grasp like iron on his arm. Willie had quick visions 
 of blackmail, and esclandre, and no end of horrors. He looked 
 desperately up and down for a policeman, but there was no 
 policeman in sight. 
 
 "It's your life I'll be shaking out of you! How dare you 
 speak to that lady?" 
 
 Rosaleen had not obeyed his injunction to run home. She 
 stood by, wondering at Berry's strength, and the great size of 
 him. But now she thought she would speak. 
 
 "It's me that asked him the way in Regent Street." Berry 
 dropped Willie's arm, and turned round to urge she should go 
 away home. "I'd lost my bearings ..." 
 
 You cannot be a dealer in the rubber market and lack smart- 
 ness. The very moment Berry dropped his arm, Willie had 
 his foot on the step of the waiting hansom. 
 
 "A sovereign when you get me to Portland Place," he shouted 
 to the man. 
 
 The London cabman looked at Berry, and at the girl in her 
 white dress. Then he gave his new customer a solemn wink. 
 
 "Hell for leather," said Willie, and the man whipped up his 
 horse. Whichever of the two swells was in the right, was not 
 for Cabbie to inquire. He had brought the other from Gros- 
 venor Square, and he, too, had urged speed. But a quid is a 
 quid, and he whipped up his horse. 
 
 This night's experience was not one that Willie Henhouse 
 ever related; he was in a sweat of apprehension until he was safe 
 
 118
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 inside his own door. He was a married man, and lived habitually 
 in impeccable domestic virtue. What had induced him to 
 embark upon such an adventure he could not imagine. His 
 mind led him to blackmail, and a thousand dangers he had 
 escaped. It was a most wholesome lesson to Willie, and one by 
 which he profited. 
 
 As for those left behind on the pavement, it was Deny who 
 spoke first. 
 
 "How came you to do it, Rosaleen?" he asked. He opened 
 the door with his latch-key, and drew her into the shelter of the 
 narrow passage. Still holding her arm, he led her up to the 
 sitting-room, then turned on the gas. 
 
 "How came you to do it?" He was quite breathless, white 
 round the nostrils; and the look in his eyes was different from 
 any she had ever seen in them.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 HOW dared that man lay hold of you?" 
 He had her arm himself, and he did not leave go, 
 although now they were in the sitting-room. She 
 made no effort to free herself from him. 
 
 Deny had been full of anxiety when he heard that "Lady 
 Ranmore had gone home," although the exact manner of her 
 going had not been told him. Mrs. Leon had said she feared 
 she was unwell, but Derry had not been very attentive to Ethel's 
 artificial surmises. He had made his excuses as' quickly as he 
 could and dashed after her. He was filled with misgivings. 
 Having made her accept the invitation, he knew the experiment 
 had not been a success. In the cab as he dashed after her, he 
 was tender and pitiful in his thoughts of her. And, for some 
 reason or another, unrecognized even by himself, the tenderness 
 and pitifulness were less quixotic, and more primitive, than any 
 he had as yet allowed himself. To Derry it seemed that Rosaleen, 
 although she was different, had more than held her own among 
 those second-class ladies at Ethel's party. Derry had no fault 
 to find with the high frock; the crown of black hair was more 
 becoming than jewels; the white skin, with the geranium flush 
 that came and went, was more beautiful than painted cheeks. 
 Yet because of his own sensitiveness, he had guessed something 
 of how she must have been feeling among them. When he heard 
 she had gone home, he knew he must follow her. Then, when 
 he came up to her, and saw her on the pavement, talking with 
 a man, a man who laid a sacrilegious hand upon her sleeve, he 
 had lost his self-control. 
 
 "How dared he lay hold of you?" he asked. 
 
 Rosaleen was facing a Derry that was new to her, one with 
 anger in his face, and excitement. He hurt her with the tight- 
 ness of his grasp, but she had no fear of him. 
 
 120
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "Are you angered with me?" she asked wonderingly. 
 
 "What did he say to you?" 
 
 "He said he'd be glad to see me a step on me way." 
 
 "Be damned to him! be damned to him!" 
 
 "And 'twas when he said that I might ask him to come 
 in ..." 
 
 "And you ..." his grasp tightened. 
 
 "It's bruising me you are." She tried to get free. 
 
 "Oh, yes, 'tis he that might hold you; you that can't bear I 
 should touch you." 
 
 She looked at him, and then she met his eye, saw a light, an 
 intentness in them, and lowered her own. 
 
 "Anybody but me may touch you," he said sullenly. 
 
 "'Tis cruel you are, cruel!" Her hands went up to hide her 
 face. But he took them down, and held them, and forced her 
 eyes. 
 
 "You like me less and less." 
 
 "It's not the truth you're speaking." This was quite low. 
 And then, because of her own heart that was clamoring, or because 
 of what she saw in his eyes, having once before seen the same 
 look in a man's eyes, she was suddenly one burning blush, and 
 her head drooped like a wilted flower on a stalk. 
 
 "You're hurting me; let go my hands." 
 
 "You know I would not hurt you." 
 
 "You've been good to me." There was a sob in her throat. 
 
 "Not as good as I'd like to be;" he was a little beside himself; 
 "you only half trust me." 
 
 "You're angry with me for running away, for leaving the 
 house like that," she said, in confusion, conscious still of that 
 light in his eyes, which might be anger. 
 
 "It's not angry with you at all I am." Now his voice was 
 as soft as a caress. Then he tried to remember all he had for- 
 gotten. But she looked so beautiful, standing before him in 
 confusion, in fear almost, now pale and now flushed, and so 
 like a girl, the very girl who had caught his love in the Ranmore 
 woods, that he heard his own heart beating, and his breath was 
 caught in his throat, as it might be with a man in face of physical 
 
 121
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 danger. Perhaps it was fear, too, that she heard knocking. If 
 her eyes drooped, his had a sudden hunger in them; and yet he 
 was ashamed. 
 
 " If you'd never met Terence at all . . ." he found himself 
 saying; it was only by accident the words slipped out, it was as 
 if he were thinking aloud, and then was ashamed of the words 
 as he heard them, and stopped abruptly. The fitful color in 
 her face faded to whiteness; an anguish of memory and shame 
 seized her. 
 
 "Ay, if I'd never met him, if I'd never set eyes on him!" she 
 echoed. 
 
 He mistook the strain in her voice, the hopeless misery of it. 
 How could he know that every hour since she had been through 
 that empty ceremony of marriage with him, the memory of 
 Terence, and what Terence had made of her, had become more 
 and more unbearable ? She looked back in shame, and forward 
 she could not look at all. She had been through so many 
 emotions this evening; but when Deny said to her, "If you'd 
 never met Terence at all!" it was agony that shot through her at 
 the thought of what might have been! . . . She dropped on 
 the floor at his feet, her head went down on her arms; she was 
 only a peasant; she broke out into weeping, and her slight form 
 was shaken with sobs. Derry dared not trust himself to stoop 
 and gather her in his arms; he walked up and down in agitation 
 instead, and said: 
 
 "Oh! don't, now, don't!" And "Give over, do! Give over!" 
 
 He only felt that he had frightened, shocked, outraged her, 
 brute that he was, unfit for his charge. She had loved his 
 cousin, and was mourning for him all the time; these wild sobs 
 were for him. He hated himself for what he had said. He 
 forgot exactly what he had said, but he knew what he had meant 
 or felt. Only for a moment, it had only been for a moment, he 
 had lost his self-composure. She must not sob like this. He 
 stopped before her abruptly. 
 
 " Give over crying like that," he said. " It's Terence's widow 
 you are, sure enough, I wasn't meaning anything but taking 
 care of you. It wasn't angry with you at all I was, only resentful 
 
 122
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 when I saw that man touch you. And so he would have been 
 himself. It's his widow you are to me." 
 
 She was ashamed of her wild sobs, they ceased quite abruptly. 
 His words were like a douche of cold water on them; it "was only 
 Terence's widow she was to him. She got up slowly, keeping her 
 face averted from him. But indeed he was not looking at her. 
 
 " It's been a long day, and trying ..." 
 
 "Good night to you," she said dully. "I'm sorry ..." 
 
 "There's no need." 
 
 She was sorry she had failed him so miserably at the grand 
 party, sorry her self-control had broken down for that wild 
 moment on the floor. If she was sorry for something beyond 
 that, some stilling, stunning words that reverberated in her ears, 
 she was not conscious of it. Dully she said: 
 
 "Good night," and "I'm sorry." 
 
 "There's no need," he answered. He had hurt her by his 
 words about Terence, and in her hurt she had cried out. That 
 was all. 
 
 He opened the door for her. She passed through, then she 
 came back, hesitating. 
 
 " It's getting late," he said quickly. " Good night." He held 
 the door. 
 
 "Would you rather I'd not be going out to Siam with you? 
 You'd be freer alone. I'll be a drag and a hindrance to you." 
 Now she, too, was speaking very quickly. "It's not Lady 
 Ranmore I'm fit to be, anyhow, and after to-night ..." 
 
 "You were the greatest lady of them all to-night." 
 
 "You'd best be leaving me behind." 
 
 "You're not trusting me, because . . . because I lost me 
 temper with you." 
 
 "I'm trusting you to the death. But . . . but it's disgracing 
 you I'll be!" Her voice was low, and the sob was not far from it. 
 
 "You'll not be doing that." 
 
 "It's the wrong thing I'll be for ever doing. It's a grand lady 
 you ought to have had for your wife, and not me at all, at all. 
 I ought not to have let you do it; it's selfish I've been to you. 
 But you'll be free if you go to this new country alone." 
 
 123
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "Come in a minute." 
 
 She came back into the room, and he shut the door be- 
 hind her. 
 
 " Will you sit down ?" He pushed a chair toward her. "Do 
 you mind if I smoke? We won't go to bed this night without 
 talking, and it's not so late." He knew he must reassure her, 
 and perhaps himself. She obeyed him, coming back and sinking 
 into the chair he gave her, she was just tired. But all she was 
 thinking was that she was nothing but a tie to him, and that he 
 should leave her behind. 
 
 "It's a poor Irish country girl I am, it's nothing but the 
 cooking and the needlework I know. Your aunt said I was 
 light-footed after her, and quick to learn, but what's that to 
 yourself?" 
 
 Derry did not want to speak too quickly. He filled his pipe 
 very deliberately. At first his fingers trembled, but at the end 
 they were steady. 
 
 "We've got to go out there together. Don't be thinking 
 too much about the future, let us go on as we were going. To- 
 night was strange to you. I ought to have helped you more, and 
 I'm sorry I lost my temper at the end, here in this room . . . ." 
 
 He had finished filling his pipe, now he lit it. 
 
 " It was that man . . . of course I understand now. What 
 I want you to get clear is that we have undertaken this thing 
 together, and we've got to carry it through. It's Lady Ran- 
 more you are, and nothing is going to alter it. All we've done 
 would go for nothing, if you let me go away alone. What 
 would they think up at the Castle?" 
 
 He knew he did not want to part with her, that was all he 
 would allow himself to know just now. Nothing had happened 
 to make them change their plans. He did not know she was 
 as little anxious to part from him as he from her. They had 
 no glossary as yet to each other 's language. 
 
 And yet she felt she was not as unhappy as she had been a 
 few moments ago. He did not want to lea^e her behind. She 
 listened to his arguments, and he went on arguing, perhaps 
 with himself. 
 
 124
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "I'll go with you, if you want me to, and gladly," she said, 
 in the end. "And I'll bear myself as Lady Ranmore as best 
 I may. You'll not be hard on me, if it comes slow? I'll try 
 to make myself worthy." 
 
 She had risen from her chair, and now he, too, got up again. 
 He had quite subdued himself, and there was nothing left of 
 that primitive feeling which had seized him on seeing another 
 man's hold on her arm. In the reaction he felt quite cold to 
 her. She looked very tired and very young. It was a long 
 way they were going together. 
 
 "It's getting late," was all he said. "We've a good bit to 
 be seeing to to-morrow." 
 
 She felt the reaction so much more quickly than she had felt 
 the approach. 
 
 "Good night." 
 
 But he did not go to bed himself for quite a long time after 
 that. He sat and smoked and looked into the fire. He could 
 not see happy pictures there, of wife and children, as other men 
 might have done; nor of Castle Ranmore with himself at the 
 head of it. What he saw at first, as he sat, was not the future, 
 but the past. Terence welcoming the raw, shy schoolboy that 
 he was when he first went to Ranmore. Terence, before he 
 went back to his school in Belfast, pouring out the contents of 
 his own ill-provided pockets, dividing everything into two 
 halves. One half must always be for Deny. And the letter or 
 two that would come from him, not very well written, not very 
 well spelt, for Terence was never a scholar . . . The letters 
 held so much of himself that Deny used to think it wasn't 
 Terence writing, but Terence speaking: "I miss you horridly 
 here, old man. I've got no one to bully nor order about, and 
 I'm spoiling for a turn-up with you, and hugging afterward. 
 Margaret says I'm to tell you there'll be the trout this time, and 
 you're not to have grown any more, or the shadow of you will 
 frighten the fish." 
 
 "I promised I'd^ok after her for him," Deny said drearily 
 to himself, as he^nishecl looking back, and got up from the 
 chair, "and look after her I will, but ..." 
 9 125
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 The "but" was so loud and tumultuous that it ticked from 
 the clock, it was like a voice in the close little room. He stretched 
 himself, and meant to go off to bed. As he had said, there was 
 much to do to-morrow, one of the few to-morrows that were 
 left to them in England. But what was the use of going to bed 
 and lying awake, thinking? There was so much thinking to 
 be done, and he had done none of it, he had only acted: that 
 was his way, his young, impulsive way. Now, quite suddenly, 
 and for the first time, misgiving seized him, a cold, uncanny 
 thing to seize a man at one o'clock in the morning. Cohorts 
 of doubts suddenly assailed and buffeted him. For all the 
 "buts," the only answer was the irritating tick of a cheap 
 American clock. They stopped him in the middle of that 
 healthy stretch of himself. He had felt the youth and strength 
 and muscle in it, but . . . had he overburdened his strength ? 
 He was going out to a new country, to work he hardly knew, 
 he was taking a girl with him, taking a wife with him . . . 
 taking Terence's widow with him. Even now that he was alone 
 he flushed at the thought of it. She was Terence's widow. 
 But what were his own feelings toward her? Misgiving was 
 a cold and haunting thing, and the little room was hot, stuffy, 
 unbearable. Yet to go to bed and lie awake, and look back 
 or forward, was impossible. 
 
 Rosaleen, listening upstairs, as every night she listened for 
 the sound of Berry's going up to bed, heard instead the slam 
 or the street door. He had gone out. He could not bear the 
 small rooms or his own thoughts. Deny walked over half 
 London that night, getting his blood cool. He saw a gray 
 London, half-blind, with shuttered windows, inexpressibly 
 dreary and unfriendly. What lay before him in that strange, 
 distant country would surely be better than this. The gray 
 deepened, and now the houses were silhouetted against a fitful 
 black sky, gusty clouds showed no stars nor promise. His 
 courage was at its lowest ebb just then. How alone he would 
 be in the new country! He would take hoLwith him, but he 
 would not see too much of her. It was nQ himself she was 
 wanting, only to nurse her grief. And wasn't it enough if he 
 
 126
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 could stand by, and be of help to her sometimes she was but 
 a girl? Then the clouds began to spread, and over the whole 
 of the sky there came a lightening. After all, he was young 
 and strong, and he had only done for Terence what Terence 
 would have done for him. Didn't he leave his squirrel in the 
 cage one never-to-be-forgotten holiday, when he was little 
 more than ten years old, leaving it without food, and forgetting 
 he had meant to let it out? He had cried himself blind in the 
 train, thinking it would starve to death. Terence was going 
 away himself the next day, and the squirrel would have neither 
 food nor water. Deny ate no supper, he cried himself tired in 
 the dormitory that first night at school. It was'nt homesick 
 he was; but all the time he was seeing the squirrel walking 
 round and round in the cage he and Terence had made for him, 
 looking for nuts, for water. Derry had all the pangs of hunger 
 in his bed that night, and the bars, too, he saw around him. 
 They had always meant to let him out when the holidays 
 came to an end, but it had been such fun feeding him with the 
 nuts. . . . 
 
 In the morning came Terence's penciled scrawl: "I let the 
 squirrel out when I got back from the station. You should 
 have seen him scamper. We'll catch him again at Easter." 
 
 Derry, on the Thames Embankment, between three and 
 four o'clock on that dreary morning, staring into the water, 
 found himself wondering if he had persuaded or ... But 
 he would not let himself wonder, nor stare down into the water, 
 seeing their two faces reflected there. He turned away feeling 
 a little sick. The dawn had lightened, and now the dosed 
 eyes of the houses began to open sleepily, slowly, but still to 
 open. 
 
 He was a man, and if it were a burden he had to bear, he 
 must strengthen his shoulders, that was all. Involuntarily 
 he squared them as he turned his face homeward. There 
 would be work to do, and a place to fill, and in a new land 
 there were new possibilities. Already the horizon was brighten- 
 ing. What had he to do with misgiving? It wasn't himself 
 he had to be thinking of at all, but Rosaleen, who was brave 
 
 127
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 enough to go with him, trusting herself to him. He would 
 make a life for her out there. It was not of his feelings toward 
 her he must be thinking. And now he had no feeling toward 
 her at all, other than a swelling pity, and chivalry. It was 
 going to be quite a bright morning. Somewhere, although he 
 could not see it for the houses, the red sun must be climbing 
 the horizon, as so often he and Terence had watched it rising 
 through the mists behind the trees in the green woods of Ran- 
 more. He need not doubt himself; he would not fail in loyalty 
 to Terence, nor to the girl who had only himself upon whom 
 to depend.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THERE was no God-speed from Ranmore, nor from 
 Dunstans, to start them on their journey . The announce- 
 ment of the marriage had been too long in coming. 
 It seemed that Deny had behaved badly, callously, to say the 
 least of it, and without regard for anyone but himself. That 
 was what Lady Ranmore thought, and it was that supposition 
 on which she based her subsequent actions. The Duchess 
 was slower to think ill of the boy she had watched grow up, 
 neither callous nor unkind, but just impulsive and simple, a 
 dog at Terence's heels. Terence had been fond of him, and 
 thought the world of him. Margaret sent no word, but many 
 a time she regretted the omission. Her conscience reproached 
 her that she had not been kind to the girl, nor to Deny either. 
 
 Rosaleen put resolutely away from her, as Derry told her 
 that she must, the feeling of the unreality of her position. He 
 talked about it often during their last two days in London. It 
 was husband and wife they must be before the world. She 
 had a genuine humility of mind, and the knowledge of how 
 she had come by her position was ever present with her. But 
 she set herself bravely to the task of taking her place by his 
 side. It would have been easier if she had known the place she 
 had in his heart, but there was a wall between them. It was 
 not so much the deficiencies in her education, for, although 
 it would not have qualified her for an entrance to Girton, or 
 enabled her to pass even the Junior College of Preceptors' 
 examination, yet the instruction that had been given her, with 
 the qualities it brought out, proved of more practical utility 
 than would the undigested cachets of information administered 
 by the English High Schools. 
 
 It was not in education primarily that Rosaleen failed, it was 
 in the knowledge of the world. Her first glimpse into the second- 
 
 129
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 rate "smart" world, through Ethel Leon's dinner-party was only 
 of value in so far as it directed her attention to things which had 
 hitherto found no place with her spiritual unessentials, yet 
 making for grace, external grace. Berry's wife ought to have 
 every advantage, the poor girl thought. She realized his qualities 
 while undervaluing her own. She would learn to bear herself 
 as one more worthy of him; she made up her mind to that. 
 
 Berry's passage was paid by the Siamese Government, by 
 whom his services had been accepted when he was Berry Malone. 
 They had no official intimation that it was as Lord Ranmore 
 he was coming out to them. 
 
 There is a small colony of Englishmen employed in different 
 capacities by the Siamese Government, and their head-quarters 
 are at Bangkok. Berry had been appointed on his qualifications. 
 To celebrate his success he had that never-to-be-forgotten week 
 with Terence in London. As events turned out, it was fortunate 
 that the Eastern habit of moving slowly left the post still free 
 when he made his hurried decision to take it up. It carried a 
 salary of something like ^400 a year, a bungalow, and all 
 expenses. Berry had signed for two years. He felt quite rich 
 with his secured 500 a year from Mossy in addition to this. 
 He had taken a nice cabin for Rosaleen on the ss. Moira. He 
 knew they were going to make a success of their project from the 
 moment they entered Marseilles, and stood on the quay in a 
 blaze of sunshine. 
 
 "It's a good omen for us," he said; "all the sunshine, and the 
 beautiful boat she is." 
 
 Rosaleen's spirits, too, seemed to rise as England and Ireland 
 receded, and the new, strange home loomed on the distant 
 horizon. 
 
 There was the usual crowd of travelers, whose destination was 
 Port Said. The big financier, who was helping us to tighten our 
 hold on Egypt, was there, with his secretary and valet. This 
 big financier, by the way, was a small and rather irritable person, 
 apparently more interested in his liver than in any affair of state. 
 Calling himself an Englishman, he spoke its language with a 
 Teutonic accent, and the title that had been conferred upon him 
 
 130
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 for services rendered sat strangely on his lack of dignity and 
 childish petulance of temper. 
 
 There were married couples with their provincial or suburban 
 narrowness of outlook, incongruous against the blue breadth of 
 the Mediterranean, fussy about their deck-chairs and cushions, 
 full of talk about their meals and their neighbors, interested 
 chiefly in the weather and the boat's daily record of knots. 
 There were several unattached officers, a clergyman or two, and 
 three entire parties of Americans, more or less typical, with 
 women-folk whose attractions were insistent. Also there were 
 Lord and Lady Ranmore. Under the influence of deck games, 
 concerts, charades, and various other amusements, there grew 
 up a strange semi-intimacy, or camaraderie, among these incon- 
 gruous people. 
 
 The boat sped through the blue waters, the wind and sea-spray 
 held the sun in solution. The weather grew hotter and ever 
 hotter. The passengers seemed, in the limitless horizon of the 
 sea-girt days, to have nothing but mutual interests, mutual 
 pleasures; they were like a huge family party, with trivial pur- 
 suits that yet sufficed them. But the undercurrent of the pleasant 
 days was an ever-threatening boredom, the evasion of which was 
 the one genuine objective. Deny had, perhaps, more than the 
 fear of boredom to evade, and it was he who became the head 
 of the Sports Committee, animating it always to fresh effort, 
 trying to keep the ball rolling. Bigger in every way than any 
 of the men on board, his cheeriness dominated them. Perhaps 
 at first he was playing a part, but it soon ceased to be that. 
 There was nothing morbid about Derry, and he meant to fill 
 his days. He was for ever varying the "how many knots a day 
 sweepstake," and devising new forms of competition and prizes. 
 He would not let Sir Alfred Schloss's moroseness affect him, 
 and he assisted in initiating the Rev. Dionysius Parker into the 
 mysteries of Chinese poker, and Kentucky loo. He had first 
 to learn them both himself, but he was never backward in learning 
 games. 
 
 Rosaleen thought everything he did was wonderful. She tried 
 at first to follow in his footsteps, but she never attained even a 
 
 131
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 measure of success. She could not learn the cards, the deck 
 games, of course, were out of the question, she would be only a 
 spectator at charade or concert. The art of trivial talk was at 
 present beyond her, silence being the only polished weapon in 
 her armory. Around her instinctive reticence was the chain- 
 armor of the secret she had to guard. She could not talk of her 
 travel experiences, for from Ranmore to London was all she 
 knew. Of the past she could not speak, nor could she answer 
 kindly, intrusive questions. The present was all strange, and 
 the future unknown. The Americans said she was "stuck up," 
 but Lord Ranmore was "just a daisy." In the ignorance of 
 their self-sufficiency they attributed to pride what was due to 
 humility. In the end the majority of the passengers avoided 
 her. She had meant to learn much from their ease of manner, 
 their gift of light talk, but she soon realized she could only learn 
 in watching. Comedy or farce was their drama, tragedy 
 hers. 
 
 Perhaps it was not strange that in Sir Alfred Schloss she found, 
 after Derry, her most congenial company. The multi-millionaire 
 the successful financier and friend of kings, was as much alien 
 as she from the frivolity and emptiness of that daily life. If he 
 had great affairs on hand, as the talk would have it that buzzed 
 about him on board, or if, as he said himself, he was voyaging 
 for his health, it was no matter. Withdrawing into himself as 
 she into herself, they found companionship when their chairs 
 were side by side. One whole afternoon he talked to her about 
 the vagaries of his digestion, twice he took the trouble to send 
 his man for a larger umbrella for her, one that supported itself 
 behind her chair, lined with green, and luxurious with fringe. 
 Sir Alfred was going on for sixty years of age, a widower, and 
 immune from women's wiles, as many knew. But Rosaleen had 
 no wiles, she had only her beauty and her quietude, and either 
 or both of them soothed his nerves. 
 
 Rosaleen never found herself embarrassed by his questions. 
 The curiosity he felt about anything but pounds, shillings, and 
 pence was infinitesimal. But he did ask her about Berry's 
 appointment. 
 
 132
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "I am surprised he should have taken it," he said. "The 
 Siamese Government is notorious in its treatment of English 
 employees. He will never get any further with them." And 
 then a gleam of interest, or avarice, came into his little bright 
 eyes. "But of course, if he is going up country, he may have 
 something else in his mind, some concession. ..." Sir 
 Alfred dreamed of concessions. "He has influential friends, he 
 could get any capital he might want?" 
 
 "He has a great deal of money," Rosaleen answered; for 
 indeed Deny had told her of the 500, and that seemed a great 
 deal of money to her. He was wasteful with it, but when is an 
 Irishman not wasteful, or an Irishwoman either, for that matter? 
 Thrift was no real part of Rosaleen's character, but the only 
 feeling she allowed herself for Deny, the mothering or protecting 
 instinct, told her he was too open-handed. 
 
 Very rich men have their only real human intercourse with 
 other rich men, people who do not ask them for money or help. 
 Sir Alfred would have avoided a richer man than himself, for 
 he would have felt jealous, or resentful, of a superior ability to 
 amass wealth. But Lord Ranmore could not be that, or he 
 would have heard of it. Sir Alfred Schloss extended his tolerance 
 from Derry's wife to Deny. By the time they arrived at Port 
 Said he had unbent sufficiently to hope they would meet again. 
 Derry hoped so, too; he hoped he would meet everybody again. 
 
 The moment they were in sight of land, they were surrounded 
 and overwhelmed with the insistent turbaned black men, offering 
 their wares. Derry immediately began buying presents. He 
 bought presents for the Americans, and for the parson's daughter, 
 and one for Rosaleen. Rosaleen, watching the novel scene with 
 brooding eyes, felt indeed that Ireland was far away. Ranmore, 
 in the luxuriance of its green foliage and verdure, was a dream 
 from which she was but slowly awakening to this glare and dazzle 
 of dust and sun. And it was through a nightmare she had passed. 
 Again everything seemed unreal to her. When Derry came to 
 her with his offering, it seemed more unreal still. She felt this 
 through that dream-like feeling in which her consciousness was 
 suspended. He had bought her a silver scarf. He told her it 
 
 133
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 was night itself with its silver stars she would look like when she 
 threw it over her head. It was kind of him; everything he did 
 was kind. They had had little talk together during the journey, 
 yet each had been supremely conscious of the other. If it were 
 a duel of sex in which they were engaged, as yet they were only 
 surveying the ground, eyeing each other from the distance, 
 apprehensive. 
 
 Between the banks of the Suez Canal they glided past the 
 Arab villages; the camels, too, were dream-like and unreal 
 against the deep indigo of the wonderful nights. The search- 
 light from their own boat made deeper the shadowed solitudes. 
 
 Derry was always there, and although they had so little talk 
 together, she often felt that he and she were alone. She had 
 nothing in common with the people who got up gymkhanas, and 
 discussed fancy-dress balls while the marvelous sunsets hung 
 low on the red waters, and the splendor of the night followed on 
 the splendor of the day. Derry mingled with the other passen- 
 gers, talking to them, playing with them, but surely he and they 
 had nothing in common. 
 
 That fancy-dress ball seemed to Rosaleen the last word of 
 strangeness. Vulgarity would have been a better expression, 
 but it was not a word in her vocabulary. Many of the same 
 people with whom they had started from Marseilles were travel- 
 ing on with them to Ceylon. By now she had grown tired of 
 watching them, of their vapid talk, and their wearisome egotism. 
 She had meant to learn from them, but there was little but their 
 clothes that she found worthy of imitation. Rosaleen had the 
 dress instinct. Perhaps, when she remembered that dreadful 
 dinner-party at the Leons', it was her lack of suitable clothes she 
 seemed to remember most vividly. Here, in this heat, the 
 muslins and cottons Derry had bought her were sufficiently 
 appropriate, and passed muster. But they could not be named 
 in the same day as the delicate, clinging confections from Doucet 
 and Voisin that draped the grace of the young women from 
 New York. 
 
 On the night of the fancy-dress ball she took infinite pains to 
 do credit to him. She adopted the idea he had given her, and, 
 
 134
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 with black dress and silver draperies, silver stars shining in the 
 hair she let down, she looked indeed like the spirit of beautiful 
 night. Her hair was lustrous, and it hung far below her waist, 
 the black loose folds of her dress clung indefinitely about her 
 softly moving feet, and to-night her eyes shone; it was as if a 
 star were in the center of each dark iris. There was no one 
 could touch her for beauty or strangeness. 
 
 Little as she cared for anyone's opinion but Berry's, although 
 she had dressed herself for him, and for him alone, it would have 
 given her confidence in herself, and proved valuable toward 
 that education which was proceeding so slowly and imperceptibly, 
 if there had been public recognition that she had done well. 
 There were votes and prizes for the best costumes; other girls 
 and women had striven for distinction. But eyes that had 
 not wandered from the bridge-table when the moving panorama 
 of Suez and the Red Sea was spread with wonderful lure before 
 them, eyes that had been dull to the morning glory of blue sky, 
 and brilliant sun, to the evening majesty of sapphire and gold, 
 were blind, too, to the rarity of the human picture that asked 
 their suffrage. 
 
 Rosaleen had hardly five votes to her name, and one of these 
 was Berry's. The prize went to the buxom daughter of the 
 Rev. Mr. Parker, who had concocted for herself, out of two 
 tartan rugs and a sporeen, a Scottish effect that brought down the 
 house. She danced a reel, too, and Berry with her. He must 
 not be always looking at Rosaleen. All the time, he was living 
 to his plan, his plan not to embarrass her by attentions too per- 
 sonal. He still read grief in her eyes, respected it and looked 
 away. For in truth he could hardly bear to see it. 
 
 Rosaleen noted that he did not look at her, although she had 
 dressed to please him. She listened to his gay talk, and watched 
 his gayer dancing of the reel. She shed a few absurd tears 
 when she sought her cabin that night absurd, she thought, 
 because what concern had she, in her shame and sorrow, with 
 fancy-dress balls and the like? If her heart was heavy it was 
 surely from other causes. But Berry had danced the reel with 
 the rosy-cheeked girl in the tartan get-up, and 'twas he who 
 
 135
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 had read out the prize-winners, and seen her name at the 
 bottom. 
 
 On Christmas Day they reached Colombo, and quitted the 
 Moira for good. Rosaleen's "foolishness" had taken her to the 
 point when she was glad to know that the Rev. Dionysius and 
 his family were going no further. 
 
 Derry and she and their luggage were conveyed from the boat 
 to the Galle Face Hotel. Now from the window the lovely 
 view of the bay lay before them, the wonderful blue waves, 
 lapping with luxurious slow regularity the white beach, accom- 
 panied their voices with monotonous music. The parson and 
 his wife and daughter had come to the hotel with them. There 
 had been laughter and chaff on the way and Rosaleen's heart 
 had sunk at the warmth of Derry's hopes that they would meet 
 again, and the promise that the afternoon should be spent in 
 looking for parting presents. It was in the essence of him to be 
 gregarious and readily on good terms, to make friends easily. 
 It was just a surface lure of manner, this friendliness of Derry, 
 but to Rosaleen it was a new pain she had to bear that day. 
 The parson's daughter was high-spirited, like Derry himself, 
 and her boisterous mood and merriment took impetus from 
 Rosaleen's pallor and watching. There are some feminine 
 natures that enjoy their conquests over man only if they have 
 another woman for spectator. Bridget Parker was one of them. 
 She thought she had made a conquest of Lord Ranmore, and 
 to flirt boisterously with him under his wife's eyes during that 
 drive to the hotel gave zest to the familiarities she permitted 
 herself. It was she who proposed they should all lunch together 
 a farewell lunch. Rosaleen excused herself, but up here, in 
 her own room, a little afraid lest Derry should be resentful of 
 her withdrawal, she said: 
 
 "Do you mind if I don't lunch with you? I'm thinking it's 
 resting I'd better be. It's strange to see the land stand still." 
 
 "It's not luncheon you are to call it here, it's 'tiffin,' and I'll 
 be getting an appetite for myself to do justice to it." 
 
 They were to join the Delhi that afternoon. It seemed to 
 Rosaleen that Derry, kind as he was to her, was nevertheless 
 
 136
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 anxious to get away. His eyes were bold on Bridget Parker's 
 while on her they hardly ever rested. 
 
 "There's a swimming-bath beyond, and I'll just indulge 
 myself. Is there anything I can get for you before I go?" 
 
 Rosaleen was hurried in her assurance that she had all she 
 needed. When he had gone, her eyes wandered over the bay. 
 After the moving panorama of the last weeks, the stillness and 
 restfulness had a curious effect. If only her thoughts could 
 have rested like her eyes! But they followed Deny, and the 
 buoyant girl with whom he would lunch and shop. It was not 
 jealousy she felt. Why should she be jealous of him? She 
 told herself this new pain in her heart was sorrow for him. For 
 she was not only a burden, she was standing between him and 
 happiness. Not that Bridget Parker was worthy of him. She 
 had danced and talked and flirted with other men all through the 
 voyage, a bold piece of goods. 
 
 When Derry came back to the hotel to fetch Rosaleen for 
 the Delhi, he was full of enthusiasm about Colombo. She 
 heard that he had had a merry time. 
 
 "You never saw such beautiful buildings. There's the 
 post office now, with a fellow a scribe they call him sitting 
 outside all day long in the sun to write letters for people. Now, 
 that's an idea I'd like to take home with me." 
 
 " 'Tis few letters we have to write." 
 
 "I'm not thinking of myself; but you should hear the number 
 of people the Parkers have to write to, the post cards they 
 have to be sending. . . . And you should see the Govern- 
 ment house, Rosaleen, just long and low, and painted the green 
 of the Ranmore hazel. There are cocoanut palms, and big 
 cocoanuts growing on them. And the tall banana trees, with 
 the clustered, hanging branches of fruit. ..." 
 
 But Rosaleen could have seen them all, she would have 
 gladly gone with him had he pressed it. It wasn't for lying 
 down she had withdrawn from the party. 
 
 The Delhi was a smaller and inferior boat to the Moira, 
 but it seemed to Rosaleen there were almost the same people 
 on board; certainly they were people with the same ideas 
 
 137
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 of amusement. And Deny was at home with them at 
 once. 
 
 They had escaped from the heat; now a steady breeze blew 
 by day, and the nights were cool. Deck quoits were abandoned, 
 and the saloon was full of card-players. Bridge was the order 
 of the day, but the sweepstakes on the run continued. 
 
 In seven days they reached Singapore. There was a bridge 
 "drive" or tournament in progress, and who would leave the 
 excitement of the game for such a sight as the red cliffs covered 
 with verdure, sloping down almost to the water's edge? There 
 were not half a dozen" passengers on deck when they 
 steamed in. 
 
 "I'm told Singapore harbor is like Clieveden Woods," one 
 said carelessly. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I believe it is, but I live at Maidenhead, so it is 
 no treat to me to look at Clieveden. Hearts are trumps 
 please get on with the game, we'll be in in an hour, and if we 
 are not finished, I don't know what they'll do about the prize. 
 It will be simply awful!" 
 
 The game never was finished, by the way, for at Singapore 
 they had to disembark. What eventually became of the prize 
 is a problem that to this day has not been solved. 
 
 Deny had a great deal to attend to with luggage and the 
 like; perhaps that was one of the reasons that the prize problem 
 was not cleared up. Amid the din of the disembarkation 
 two shrill female voices pursued the subject. There was not 
 much time to spare for any of them. The P. and O. harbor 
 was right on the other side of the town, and everything in the 
 boat had to be transhipped. Deny and Rosaleen were con- 
 veyed in gharries to the hotel recommended to them, the Raffles 
 Hotel. Long before they reached it the rain was coming down 
 in sheets. Deny was concerned for Rosaleen, and wanted 
 her to have his coat as well as her own. Bad as the weather 
 was, and although there was no glory of bay, or public build- 
 ings, Rosaleen enjoyed her few hours' sojourn in Singapore 
 a great deal better than the same time in Colombo. Deny 
 insisted on her drinking wine to "keep the cold out." He had 
 
 138
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 got over his own shyness with her for the moment, and used 
 an authoritative, half brotherly, wholly protecting, manner 
 that seemed just perfection to her. She ate to please herself, 
 and drank to please him, and it was as if to a picnic they went 
 now, each in the covered gharry that waited for them in the 
 strange Chinese street. 
 
 Arrived at the pier, Deny could not find his luggage any- 
 where. Several people had seen it in the bullock cart, waiting 
 to be unloaded; now it had disappeared. 
 
 Derry was seriously considering whether it would be as well 
 to delay their journey when it was discovered in the boat, quite 
 safe and awaiting them. 
 
 Rosaleen wanted no delay. Her mind's eye was fixed now 
 on Bangkok, and the bungalow they would dwell in together, 
 the life of work she would share with Derry, lightening it, 
 perhaps, for him. She thought her heart had forgotten to 
 sing, but it was breaking into song as she stood on the pier 
 looking at the boat, so small after the others, that would take 
 them to what now she had begun to call home. 
 
 She was destined to be disappointed; for some reason or 
 another, it was suddenly announced that there would be a delay, 
 and that the boat would not start until the next morning. 
 
 Then it was that Deny 's popularity became manifest. There 
 had traveled with them from Colombo an elderly merchant 
 and his wife, of the best type of English Colonial people, unaf- 
 fected and homely. Rosaleen had had but little talk with 
 Mrs. Darrell, and none at all with her husband, but Derry 
 knew them both well. They would not hear of the Ranmores 
 going back to the hotel, they must come home with them. 
 
 Rosaleen hesitated and looked at Derry, who never hesitated 
 at all. 
 
 "Well, now that's kind of you, that's very kind, and my 
 wife and I will be delighted. I'll just see that everything is 
 all right aboard, and you'll give me the direction, and we'll 
 take dinner with you with all the pleasure in the world." 
 
 Rosaleen got through that dinner well enough. There were 
 just the four of them, in their traveling clothes, and it was really 
 
 139
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 without any ceremony. Mrs. Darrell was homely, motherly, 
 although she had no children of her own. She petted Rosaleen 
 and made much of her, and the girl thawed under this treatment. 
 All her secret could not be kept. If Mrs. Darrell penetrated it, 
 and said a kindly word, it seemed now, in this beautiful new 
 world, that it was a word which did not hurt. 
 
 "It will be all right for you at Bangkok, my dear," she said. 
 "I'll write to my friend, Mrs. Sydney Biddle, about you. She 
 has a beautiful home there, and it's open house with her always. 
 And there is an English doctor, I know." 
 
 Deny said, easily, during that friendly dinner: 
 
 "Don't you think my wife is very brave to come all this way 
 with me? She has proved a famous traveler, neither sick nor 
 sorry." 
 
 "I'm sure you've got a very good wife," Mr. Darrell answered, 
 comfortably. But Mrs. Darrell had noted the girl's quick 
 blush, and found the opportunity for that kind and reassuring 
 word. 
 
 Rosaleen thought it had been wonderful of Deny to talk about 
 their strange relations in this easy way. For an hour before they 
 started, they sat on the veranda overlooking the great still 
 mystery of the lake, and that heart of hers which had begun 
 to sing was full of deep, unfathomable thanksgiving. She knew 
 to whom she owed her succor. Hope and promise thrilled in 
 the warm air. The Chinaman that came to announce that the 
 carriage was waiting to take them to the harbor swung a lantern 
 in his hand, and on the waters of the lake the bright colors 
 made bright larger reflections. The weather had cleared, and 
 for five miles, under an ultramarine sky, where little light 
 floating clouds now hid, and now revealed, the myriads of stars, 
 she and Deny drove together. They seemed so near to each 
 other, so much nearer than they had been during all this long 
 voyage. The very silence that was between them this night 
 held an intimacy that all their other silences had lacked. 
 
 When Derry's hand sought hers in the carriage and he said, 
 "You were not minding what I said at dinner?" she answered 
 simply: 
 
 140
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "It's kind you've been from first to last." 
 
 "And it's brave you've been," he answered. There was no 
 reason their hands should not lay locked in this friendly way. 
 The air was so soft, the sky so darkly blue and beneficent about 
 them, that they forgot everything but that they were young and 
 alone. If one called the feeling that was between them "grati- 
 tude," and the other named it "pity," the little god who knew 
 the truth could afford to laugh and wait; his arrows were planted 
 surely. They might hurt where they stuck, but never, never 
 would the wound they made be healed by such misnaming. 
 
 The boat, that seemed so tiny after the P. and O. steamers 
 puffed its uncomfortable way along the Gulf of Siam. Rosaleen 
 lay on a sail-cloth deck-chair, and now the singing in her heart 
 had reached her eyes, and they sang, too, of hope. The life 
 before them was coming very near; two days more, one day 
 more, and they would be at Bangkok. 
 
 10
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THEY had made up their minds not to be disappointed 
 whatever might await them at Bangkok. They talked 
 it over during these last two days, even as they had 
 talked it over in London, before that long pilgrimage began, 
 with the mutual shyness. They assured each other not once, 
 but many times, that they were not afraid of "roughing it," 
 that the unknown presented no terrors to them. 
 
 Derry had understood that the Director of the Siamese Survey 
 Department, in whose service he had entered, would meet him 
 at Bangkok. But there was no one to meet them, and their 
 first night in Bangkok was passed at an hotel. Afterward it 
 transpired that a letter sent to them at Singapore had missed 
 them. It was all made right in the morning, when Derry went 
 to the office and announced to the phlegmatic official the fact of 
 his identity with Derry Malone. 
 
 The bungalow allocated to him was fully furnished; his 
 predecessor had evidently luxurious tastes. The beds were 
 English, and there was enough glass and china, considerably 
 damaged, as it was. Before they had time to go through the 
 four rooms and big veranda of which the residence consisted, 
 it seemed to Rosaleen that the neighbors began to call. Cer- 
 tainly they were met with kindness or was it curiosity ? from 
 the whole of the English colony. It is not usual for a young 
 nobleman, even if he be of the Irish peerage, to take a subordinate 
 position in the Survey Office of Siam. Some were frankly 
 astonished, and interrogated him as to his motive; some were 
 suspiciously surprised, and put the worst possible construction 
 upon an exile that must have been necessitated by debt or 
 difficulty at home. Others, again, were disingenuously not 
 surprised, and more subtly interrogative. This was the way 
 
 142
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 that impressed Rosaleen as being the most natural. That was 
 the true Celtic attitude of mind to take up toward the unknown. 
 The quality in Deny to which she found it most difficult to 
 accustom herself was his frankness. Deny told everyone his 
 inheritance had come to him as a surprise, that there seemed 
 great difficulty in getting matters settled, and, as he had to live 
 meanwhile, he thought he had better do so by the only profession 
 he had learned. And he said "my wife and I" whenever he 
 talked of his affairs. Over and over again Rosaleen heard him, 
 but never without a quickening heart-beat. 
 
 At the English Club they said Lord Ranmore was a white 
 man; but Lady Ranmore won their suffrages less easily. She 
 wanted neither to patronize nor to be patronized, what she really 
 wanted was to be left alone, to work out her daily life 
 so that it would enable her to be of service to the man 
 who had given her a home. She fell easily into the habits 
 of the place, and her domestic qualities developed rapidly. 
 She made war against ants and cobwebs, learned to leave 
 the cook to his own devices, and express no surprise when 
 her little brown maid was courted by an aspirant, who 
 sat on his haunches and watched her without speaking, at 
 all hours of the day and night. The price of food-stuffs 
 appalled her, and all the ways of the colored servants were 
 strange at first. It irked her that if she went shopping, for 
 instance, she should be followed by an Indian watchman with 
 a big stick; but she submitted to it, as it was Derry's wish, and 
 apparently not unusual. Deny bought a dog-cart and a pony. 
 In less than a week the syce ran away without notice, but before 
 she had time to wonder who would groom the pony, a brother of 
 the Indian watchman appeared, and announced that he was 
 their new syce. He was an inch or two taller than the other, 
 and not insignificant in weight, dressed all in white, even to the 
 turban; a most princely figure. Rosaleen pitied the pony 
 should he attempt to drive. But Deny said it was all right. 
 Deny had a way of saying things were all right, and thinking 
 it, too. 
 
 But Deny was restless. The happiness Rosaleen was getting 
 
 143
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 out of their lives together, the happiness that was independent 
 of mosquitoes and insect life generally, and visitors, and the 
 inevitable occasional throbs of homesickness, was her portion 
 alone. 
 
 These days saw Rosaleen looking very beautiful. Happiness 
 irradiated the whiteness of her skin with some inner glow of 
 transparency, and always now a star shone in the center of 
 each dark iris. Deny saw her early in the morning when 
 she rose at six o'clock to get him coffee before he went 
 for his daily exercise at the squash racquet-court. He 
 saw her in the evening, when, after his day's work was done, 
 she would come out with him on the veranda and sit con- 
 tentedly by his side, while he smoked and tried to 
 speak only of the lessons he was taking in Siamese, of the work 
 he had to do at the office, of the Sports Club, and the daily 
 routine. 
 
 But he was young and hot-blooded, and the girl by his side was 
 the girl that he had pictured there when first his eyes had turned 
 toward the East. Here she was, but not for him. There were 
 fruit and flower in his home, but he must neither taste nor enjoy. 
 His eyes might linger, and the desire to taste, to gather, might 
 come now and again upon him suddenly, a thrill of longing that 
 was pain, but fruit and flower were dedicate to the dead, and 
 even the desire made him feel like a thief, made him flush, and 
 look away, and be ashamed. 
 
 Rosaleen never guessed what lay beneath his restlessness. 
 
 Derry played more, worked more, drove and rode and talked, 
 more than all the other Europeans in that little colony. Presently 
 it was whispered that he could also drink more. That was heredi- 
 tary in the Ranmores, but he tried to keep it in check. Yet he 
 thirsted, and always within his reach were the grapes he must not 
 pluck; day and night they hung in luscious clusters temptingly 
 before him. 
 
 Sydney Biddle, who was head of the department for which 
 Derry worked, heard of his visit to the "Tingle-Tangle." He 
 had heard of many visits, and some lingering, at the United Club, 
 but for an Englishman to visit the "Tingle-Tangle" was going 
 
 144
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 a little beyond the limits that married men in Bangkok were in 
 the habit of openly allowing themselves. 
 
 Sydney spoke about it to his wife, it was a habit of Sydney's 
 to refer his troubles there. And this was quite a trouble, for 
 Sydney Biddle took himself and his position seriously. He 
 liked his energetic young subordinate, and his feeling of responsi- 
 bility toward him could not let him ignore the matter when it 
 was brought under his notice. 
 
 Sydney Biddle's wife was the daughter of the leading English 
 merchant in Siam. She was a woman no longer young, but 
 gifted with extraordinary energy. A great deal of it had been 
 expended, by the way, in pushing Sydney's interest; but there 
 was enough left to manage all the affairs of European Bangkok, 
 to dress and doctor its women and babies, arrange its water- 
 picnics and visits to the native festivities, settle its tennis and 
 bridge parties, and pair off its unmarried couples. The Biddies 
 had no children, and they had been in Bangkok for many years; 
 they looked upon themselves as the mother and father of the 
 colony. Rosaleen's lack of response to many a proffered 
 kindness now rose up in Emma's mind. 
 
 "Of course we only see the surface of their married life. 
 Perhaps she is reticent because she has something to conceal. 
 We don't know much about them, only what he has told us 
 himself. He came into his title very unexpectedly, and there 
 was no inheritance to go with it apparently. We don't even 
 know how long they have been married. But it seems a strange 
 time for him to choose to go to that place." 
 
 "Of course, he may have only gone because it was a novelty, 
 because he wanted to see what it was like." 
 
 "I know." Neither Sydney Biddle nor his wife were likely 
 to put the worst construction on any action. "But I really 
 must make another effort to get on better terms with her. I 
 have asked them to dinner twice, but once they refused with- 
 out any valid reason, and the other time, as you know, he 
 came alone. He does his work well, doesn't he?" 
 
 " Better than well. And he is learning the language incredibly 
 quickly. There is one thing about Irishmen, if you get clever 
 
 145
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 ones they are cleverer than all their Saxon brothers put together. 
 I don't believe there is anything Ranmore set his hand to that 
 he wouldn't make a success of it. It's a pity if a taste for ... 
 for anything like dissipation should get hold of him. He 
 carries his wine well, but it seems to me he tests his capacity, 
 occasionally, to its extreme limit. I'm bothered about the 
 fellow, that's the fact. The 'Tingle-Tangle!' " 
 
 The expression on Sydney's fair, sunburned face was as if 
 he had swallowed something exceedingly nasty, and Emma's 
 expression, as always, reflected his. 
 
 "We must see what is to be done," she said. 
 
 The immediate upshot of that conversation was renewed 
 kindnesses from the Biddies to the young couple under dis- 
 cussion, kindnesses that Deny accepted eagerly, and that 
 even Rosaleen found it impossible to parry. 
 
 "If they are not agreeing very well, they ought not to be 
 left too much to themselves. There are always difficulties 
 in the first year." 
 
 Emma thought that Deny would not be so much at the 
 United Club, or the Sports Club, and would certainly go never 
 at all to the "Tingle-Tangle," if he and Rosaleen had been 
 in accord. And it was easy to find color for the conjecture. 
 They were not seen much together, their manner toward each 
 other lacked something, or held something; it was difficult 
 to say what it was, but certainly it was different from that 
 of other young wives and husbands under similar circumstances. 
 The "circumstances," to experienced feminine eyes, were not 
 difficult to discern. They might have their differences of 
 opinion. Lord Ranmore was open-handed, open-hearted, 
 talkative. Lady Ranmore seemed cold, self-contained, silent. 
 Perhaps he had chosen badly, but if so he should make the 
 best of it not his way of making the best of it, which led to 
 clubs, and too many drinks, and the horrid possibilities of the 
 native tea-rooms but Emma's way, which she proceeded 
 to develop. 
 
 Rosaleen was uprooted forcibly from her domesticity. Good 
 Mrs. Biddle discovered that the Ranmores were seeing nothing 
 
 146
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 of the country. She and her husband, with the best intentions 
 in the world, broke up that home-life that was giving Rosaleen 
 so much quiet happiness, and Deny so much unrest. First, 
 Sydney found urgent work for Lord Ranmore which made 
 it essential he should pass a week at the Survey Office, Sapatum. 
 It was a palace that had been built for a Siamese prince, com- 
 fortless to a degree, and boasting only one staircase, a spiral 
 one of iron; it was impossible to use it without passing and 
 repassing the native servants going up and down. 
 
 "He'll go back to his home with so much more satisfaction 
 in it," Emma explained, when she suggested the arrangement. 
 And, indeed, both Deny and Rosaleen were glad when the 
 week was over. In a way a way far from the one the Biddies 
 saw it had not been a bad move for Deny, the puny physical 
 discomforts had kept his mind on the task of lessening hers; 
 he was full of expedient, and had little time for dreaming and 
 growing uneasy in his dreams, and full of self-reproach. 
 
 Then, there were the three days' festivities for the King's 
 birthday. Nothing would satisfy the Biddies but that the 
 Ranmores should give up the bungalow, and stay with them 
 for the whole time. No one in Bangkok lived in such luxury 
 as the Biddies. Emma Biddle had a French maid, and a 
 Chinese cook, who was noted throughout the whole place. 
 Deny frankly enjoyed the luxuries, the fine baths, the carriage 
 that took him to and from office to club and home again. He 
 was glad Rosaleen should be freed from her domestic work, 
 and should only tiffin and sleep, drive out, and be generally 
 cared for. He was genuinely grateful to Emma; he had no 
 idea that it was his own conduct to Rosaleen that had been 
 under suspicion. He was glad not to be living that strained 
 life alone with her in the bungalow. And he showed this only 
 too clearly to the Biddies, who, finding him both sober and 
 domestic, already began to think the fault, if fault there was, 
 must be Rosaleen's. 
 
 They went up the river for a wonderful picnic. The destina- 
 tion was one of the largest temples in Bangkok, but the strange 
 river craft, the floating houses, the panoramic variety, interested 
 
 147
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 them more than the temple. The scenes through which they 
 floated that evening on their way home, under the soft glow 
 of what, in England, one would call a harvest moon, were a 
 curious m'xture of civilization and savagery. The moon 
 hung, somewhat yellow, like a burnt-out sun, low above the 
 waters. There was light above and behind and below it, 
 light paler than the moon itself, more transparent, a cloud 
 mountain on which it could float, and this cloud-mountain, 
 and not the moon, was reflected on the dark bosom of the 
 still waters. 
 
 The Siamese fleet, eight vessels all told, outlined with small 
 electric lamps, made a brave show. To-morrow the King 
 would sally forth at the head of a grand river procession, bear- 
 ing his gifts to the priests. To-night all was preparation in 
 the native boats. One saw the busy little brown men, with 
 their women and children, hanging paper-lamps, cutting tinsel, 
 and making chains and flowers. Weirdly the lights of moon 
 and burning torches, the electric lamps from the fleet, and the 
 paper ones from the junks, mingled on the waters. 
 
 "I really don't think there is anything amiss between them," 
 was Emma's comment to her husband that night, when they 
 got home. "Did you see how anxious he was that she should 
 see all there was to be seen? He borrowed a shawl from me 
 for her, and put it over her shoulders. I'm sure even you 
 couldn't be more attentive." 
 
 But there were differences between the domestic life the 
 Ranmores led, and that to which the Bangkok residents were 
 accustomed. And it is difficult to keep a secret in such a 
 place. Either the native servants talk, or the ubiquitous 
 washerwoman. Anyway, and without any undue prying 
 of theirs into the affairs of their neighbors, the Biddies were 
 still conscious that the Ranmores did not live as other young 
 married couples. 
 
 It was Emma's scheme that Deny should be sent "up 
 country." The week at Sapatum had certainly not been with- 
 out its effect. It is difficult to know how she arrived at this 
 conclusion, but there it was, fully established. Back in the 
 
 148
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 bungalow, Derry's convivial tastes again gave food for gossip, 
 and it was Mrs. Biddle's idea that her husband should try 
 him with the "simple life." 
 
 "It will cut him off from it all before it goes too far." She 
 was not explicit as to what she meant by "all." But then, 
 the significance lay in the ellipsis. Deny, notwithstanding 
 his spirits, appeared to neither of them as the happy married 
 man. They did not stay to trace this feeling about him to 
 its source. The domestic arrangements at the Bungalow, 
 or the incident of the visit to the "Tingle-Tangle," or perhaps 
 the restlessness, helped the diagnosis. 
 
 "Send him to Petchaburi," was Emma's decision. "He 
 speaks quite enough Siamese already to be able to do the work. 
 And she will pine for him, and perhaps be warmer when they 
 do meet. She hasn't his gaiety of temperament, and the first 
 year of married life is always trying," she repeated. "Try 
 a short separation for them. I'll keep her under my own 
 eye while he is away, and I dare say I shall have the chance 
 of dropping her a hint or two. Why, even I, when I came 
 up here first, was impatient sometimes, and used to let out 
 to you." 
 
 But Sydney would not have it that his wife was ever less 
 than perfect. What had somewhat marred their married 
 life was certainly not marring Derry's. 
 
 "Well, then perhaps it's that that's the matter. She hasn't 
 spoken of it to me and she has shut up like wax when I have 
 tried to get her to talk about it. But women are different at 
 such times. She may easily feel ill, and perhaps a little set 
 against him for the moment." 
 
 Mrs. Biddle knew so much, but her knowledge profited 
 her little when, placing Derry's, in the category of ordinary 
 marriages, she made her wrong deductions. 
 
 However, there was no doubt that he did not resent being 
 sent to Petchaburi, that, in fact, he welcomed any change. 
 The more Deny saw of Rosaleen, the more his heart was set 
 upon her. That was the truth about it, and the whole truth. 
 Sometimes he got beyond his own self-control, and then there 
 
 149
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 was nothing for it but the drink, or the violent exercise. Some 
 day, perhaps, he would have to tell her he was not her brother, 
 or her cousin, but just a man. But when he felt he was getting 
 to that length, sitting by her in the bungalow, watching the 
 rise and fall of her bosom under the folded kerchief, the little 
 ear of her so close against the white neck, the black abundance 
 of those plaits, that once he had seen let down, he would get 
 up and move away, sometimes he would have to go out. It 
 was he that was her guardian just now, and a sacred trust 
 she was to him Terence's wife that would have been. But 
 it was very hard. He thought it would become less hard 
 if he could leave her for a spell, so long as she was well cared 
 for and in kind hands. He knew she cared for him, but it 
 was only as cousin or brother. She had no unrest when she 
 sat by his side in the long evenings. 
 
 Berry's preparations were quickly made under Sydney 
 Biddle's directions. When Rosaleen first heard he was going 
 to leave her, for a moment her heart stopped beating, and 
 all the color ebbed from face and lips. She was on the point 
 of fainting, but recovered herself. When his voice reached 
 her, she was hearing him say that he looked upon it as a mark 
 of confidence, as a step upward; that he wanted to see the 
 ricefields, and that Bangkok was beginning to pall. He talked 
 as men whistle in moments of danger, it was to keep up his 
 courage. To stay was sapping his strength, to leave her was 
 the only possible course. It never occurred to him that the 
 pain of the impending separation could wring her heart. 
 
 "I'm thinking it will be good for you, as you say," she got 
 out after a pause. "It's a country life you're needing. Here, 
 with the heat and the games, the office, and all the hospitality 
 you're taking, it's thin you're growing." 
 
 There was nothing behind the quiet words to indicate the 
 pain which, after that first acute thrust of it, was but a dull 
 ache. She went on with the sewing she was doing when he 
 broke the news to her, but the needle seemed to be growing, 
 now too large to slip through the stuff, now too small for her 
 to hold. 
 
 150
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "You'll not be missing me?" he interrogated. 
 
 She could not trust her voice to answer. He was unlacing 
 his boots, and the flush on his face when he asked the question 
 might well have come from the exertion of stooping. 
 
 "You'll not be dull nor lonely, I know," he/said. "There's 
 Mrs. Biddle will be the best of friends to you. And Sydney is 
 a very jewel of a man. They'd like you to stay with them all 
 the time I am away." 
 
 "I'd rather be here, it's not lonely I'll be," she answered 
 quietly. What she had in her mind was that she would be 
 happier here, in her own home, than with strangers, however 
 kind. She had had many happy hours on the verandah beside 
 him, sewing, with him talking to her. Now he had grown 
 restless, tired of her company. But those good hours were like 
 angels in the house. When she would be quiet and alone here, 
 she would hear the flutter of their wings in the air, and feathers 
 from them would fall softly about her, like benisons. 
 
 "It's here I'd rather stay," she said again, when she could 
 trust her voice. 
 
 Derry had to tell the Biddies so, for he saw she meant it. 
 His heart was sore because she would not be missing him, but 
 it is doubtful if it had the ache that hers had. He, at least, 
 knew what was the matter with him. She thought she was 
 ungrateful and unreasonable, that she had tired him with her 
 difficulties in making friends, and in not keeping the house 
 gay with company for him. He had only his longing for her 
 to hurt him, his lawless, dishonorable longing, as he voiced it 
 to himself. She had a thousand misgivings; the knowledge 
 that she was a drag and a drawback to him deepened. It was 
 his life he had sacrificed to her and to Terence. The weight 
 she carried was as a load in her heart and a heaviness in her brain. 
 Only those winged, happy hours that had been in the bungalow 
 were there to soften the new solitude. 
 
 She bade him good-bye with what seemed to him such cold- 
 ness and indifference that he had not even the courage to kiss 
 her, as he had intended, with the Biddies on the platform to 
 see him off, both of them wondering at the omission. 
 
 151
 
 "They've said their good-byes at home," Emma explained 
 But neither she nor Sydney felt very satisfied. Derry's face 
 was at the window, straining for a last look of her, but it was 
 only her back he saw, for already she had turned away. All 
 her spirit was set on hiding her distress; but how could he, or 
 the Biddies know that?
 
 THREE weeks after Berry's departure for Petchaburi, 
 Mrs. Sydney Biddle called at the bungalow to invite 
 Rosaleen to go with her to a Royal cremation. Hardly 
 a day had passed without some attention on the part of the 
 older woman, and this, although it sounded rather gruesome, 
 was to be a great function. 
 
 "You know it is partially our fault that you are lonely. 
 Sydney might have sent someone else to Petchaburi, so you 
 must let us do what we can to compensate you for his absence," 
 Mrs. Biddle was always saying. But a word let drop acci- 
 dentally, a word heard at the Club, borne on the air, told Rosa- 
 leen that Derry had been sent away because it seemed to be bet- 
 ter for him to be got out of the town. And her sensitiveness 
 suffered under the possibility that someone had guessed how 
 things were with them. She knew it was impossible, yet the 
 thought of it made her intercourse with her neighbors always 
 less easy; it was only the Biddies whose kindness was impossible 
 to avoid. And she no longer wished to avoid it. But for the 
 feeling that she was talking it unfairly, that, if they knew her 
 for what she was, they would not be treating her as they were, 
 but for Rosaleen 's consciousness of her duplicity, in fact, 
 Emma would have got through all Rosaleen 's reserves, as, 
 indeed, she had already got through many of them. The 
 girl wanted mothering, that was the truth of it; and often for 
 a few moments now her defenses went down. She talked to 
 Emma Biddle of the old days in the convent; now and again of 
 the green glory of Ranmore. 
 
 "She is frightened at what is before her," Emma told Syd- 
 ney, "that's the whole truth of it, I do believe. And she has 
 resented it with him. I only hope it will be all over before he 
 comes back. You can keep him there until the spring. My! 
 
 153
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 we shall see a difference between them then. For she is fond 
 of him, Syd, I am absolutely sure of that. But she is homesick 
 and lonely, and frightened, and much shyer than most young 
 things, I 'm getting very fond of her. All her little gaucheries 
 and awkwardnesses with people are due to her convent training. 
 After all, if you were to take any girl, only six months out of a 
 convent, and those six months passed in a ruined Irish castle, 
 you would not expect her to know about returning people's 
 cards, and having her own visiting day, and that sort of thing. 
 She is handy enough with her needle; you should see the little 
 things she is making, and has made. Yes, Syd, you may smile, 
 and say all my geese are swans. But I 'm getting fond of Rosa- 
 leen. If I'd had a daughter, I wouldn't have wanted her to 
 be very different. She is not given to making friends, but she 
 kissed me to-day she did indeed and said I 'd been so good 
 to her." 
 
 Mrs. Sydney Biddle was quite touched, and pleased by a 
 growing dependence upon her that Rosaleen manifested. 
 Sydney made her a present of a dog, an Irish terrier, to keep 
 her company of an evening. The dog and the Biddies, and 
 her youth, from which hope was inseparable, helped her over 
 these weeks. Deny wrote to her, wrote quite often; he wished 
 her to write to him, too, and she did, letters full of the Biddies' 
 kindness, and about the terrier, which she called "Buggins," 
 and he would know why. For "Buggins" had been a feature 
 at Ranmore the terrier that was cleverer than a ferret. They 
 had common memories about " Buggins," and his letters and 
 hers told anecdotes. Derry wrote of a primitive, wholesome life, 
 lived mostly in the open air. He made light of physical dis- 
 comforts and deprivations. "I wish you were with me," he 
 wrote, more than once. "I sleep in a tent, and my food, such 
 as it is, is cooked on the doorstep of the sola. I bathe in the 
 river, and ride my pony all over the place. It's fat I'm getting 
 now, and so sunburnt that it's an Indian I'll be taken for when 
 I come back. ..." 
 
 Rosaleen was glad he wished she were with him. She 
 thought, maybe, she could have added some comforts to the 
 
 154
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 menu he gave her. She told Mrs. Biddle of his letter as they 
 drove to the Royal cremation. Mrs. Biddle said, perhaps 
 thoughtlessly, considering that she had arranged it, never 
 doubting the wisdom of the arrangement: 
 
 "I used always to go up country with Sydney when we 
 were first married. I couldn't bear to be without him for a 
 day. I always said it was the best part of my honeymoon 
 no one but me and Sydney and the coolies. We had our sleep- 
 ing-tent just outside the sala, and were in the open together 
 nearly all the day, riding the little Siamese ponies, bathing in 
 the river. I had a maid then, who would weave wreaths for 
 my hair while I was bathing. And, not to offend her, I always 
 put them on when I came out of the water. You can picture 
 me." 
 
 Mrs. Biddle was past forty now, and her gray hair did not 
 look as if it could be appropriately crowned with flowers. 
 
 "We wore hardly any clothes out there. I bathed in my 
 chemise, and had a dry one waiting for me, over that I wore a 
 kimona, so you can guess how I looked, with the wreath to top 
 it. Syd would come to meet us with nothing on but a vest and 
 a pair of Chinese silk trousers. The pair of us would have 
 made a sensation in Bond Street. What? But there was no 
 one to see us then. Oh, yes, there was, by the way, I'm for- 
 getting the natives who followed us wherever we went, squatting 
 on their flanks and watching. And the washerwomen! I 
 remember sitting outside the sala, working, and my washer- 
 woman and another squatting down just in front of me. What 
 did she do presently but lift up my skirts and show the others 
 the clocks on my stockings! Quite gravely, as if, having 
 washed them, they were as much hers as mine, and she was 
 proud to show them." 
 
 Mrs. Biddle explained everything that wanted explaining 
 in Berry's letter. The sala was a sort of resting-place for 
 travelers, generally attached to the temples. It is only a large 
 barn, built of wood, and raised from the ground on piles, but 
 many of these salas have been beautified outside with frescoes. 
 Derry was living in one of the best, or living outside it, rather, 
 
 155
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 for when he was not in his sleeping-tent he seemed to be on 
 his pony. 
 
 It appeared to Rosaleen but a short drive to where the Royal 
 cremation was taking place, so interested was she in picturing 
 Deny amid such scenes. 
 
 This festivity of the Royal cremation had been long talked 
 of in the town. Nothing in the way of our Western funeral 
 services could be compared to it. Long before they reached 
 the long room, with its roof of white cotton, which was to be 
 the scene of the obsequies, they saw the road lined with booths, 
 in which the Siamese people, in their native costumes, were 
 performing wonderful, endless plays, and doing the national 
 dance. The national dance is with the hands and the body 
 and the head, everything but with the legs, which scarcely 
 move at all. Many of the dancers wore great gilt masks, 
 which certainly added to the bizarre effect. 
 
 There is no fixed time, apparently, in Siam for a cremation. 
 The corpses on this occasion were of a young prince, a nephew 
 of the King, and of his mother. The lad had died last year in 
 Germany, but the mother had been fifteen years waiting for 
 her funeral service. 
 
 Rosaleen and Mrs. Biddle sat on benches outside the death- 
 chamber while relays of priests, in yellow vestments, went in 
 chanting, and seemed to stay there, awhile, incessantly chanting. 
 When they emerged they were wearing new and more brilliant 
 yellow robes, and they carried embroidered fans! These were 
 their presents from the dead farewell presents. They seemed 
 very proud and pleased with these presents, especially with the 
 fans. Their thin, impassive, ascetic faces shone with an expres- 
 sion of great content, and their oblique slits of black eyes seemed 
 more awake, more human. Rosaleen thought she could detect 
 a satisfied cupidity. She was sure they looked happier than 
 when they went in. 
 
 The Queen was the first of the royal party to arrive. The 
 ceremonial itself, more than a thousand years old, a legacy from 
 Buddha, was not made less striking by the example of modern 
 science introduced. The Queen arrived in a motor-car, quite 
 
 156
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 up to date, the chassis English, but the coach-work from Paris, 
 and in quiet Parisian taste. The car was closed, and she sat 
 back in- the corner of it, without bonnet or veil, still, strange, 
 Eastern figure, quite immobile. 
 
 Then came the Siamese band, playing the Siamese anthem, 
 a most dire and discordant chant. The band preceded His 
 Majesty, King Chulalongkorn, who made his appearance in a 
 European uniform. He was, however, accompanied by a 
 bodyguard of eight Siamese, holding over him an enormous 
 umbrella of cloth of gold, that glittered in the sunshine. 
 
 The urns that contained the corpses were two tall vases, 
 Greek in form. They were probably of lacquer, but looked 
 flimsy, as if made of gold paper. The ceremony consisted of 
 the king setting fire first to one and then to another of these vases. 
 There were sandal flowers and sandal- wood candles in the death 
 chamber. By the time Rosaleen and Mrs. Biddle had pushed 
 their way in, the smell was something appalling. It was con- 
 cocted of the sandal-wood candles, and the burning urns, per- 
 haps also the priests. In any case the two ladies were glad to 
 push their way out again. 
 
 Presents were given to them, too, tokens with inscriptions in 
 Siamese, and sandal-wood flowers. The whole thing was much 
 more like a wedding than a funeral, with perhaps a dash of a 
 country fair thrown in, to add to the other incongruities. Both 
 women were conscious of headache and a sense of fatigue. The 
 carriage was waiting for them, but beside it stood Sydney's 
 own syce; he had evidently driven out, for the dog-cart was 
 there, too. 
 
 "Why, there is Sydney come to meet us!" exclaimed Emma. 
 "That is good of him. Just like him, too! I didn't ask him 
 to join us, for I knew he was up to his neck in work." 
 
 But Sydney was not there, only a note from him, sufficiently 
 urgent for him to have sent it instead of waiting until his wife 
 returned. 
 
 "What can he be writing to me about?" she said wonderingly, 
 as she took the note from the man who produced it from his 
 turban and handed it to her. 
 
 11 157
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "DEAREST, I've had news from Petchaburi. You'll know 
 how to break it to the girl. Ranmore has had a sunstroke. 
 Mitchison writes in a great state. I thought I'd better let you 
 know at once, so that if she decides to go up to him, you can go 
 home with her and help to get her off. Send me word what you 
 think, and I'll see about a seat in the train, and join you at the 
 bungalow later. Make as light of it as you can. Mitchison is 
 not very experienced, and she mustn't have more anxiety than 
 necessary on her way up." 
 
 It was characteristic of Sydney, and reflected his own married 
 relations, that he never doubted Rosaleen would want to join 
 her husband, whatever her own condition or the trouble before 
 her. His wife thought the same, but she foresaw more clearly 
 than he what such a decision would mean. She had the sense 
 to keep the contents of the letter to herself for the moment, to 
 make no further exclamation. She gave the man his message, 
 and he salaamed and left them. She could begin to tell Rosaleen 
 when they were nearing home; there was no need to prolong the 
 tension. The heat was intense. 
 
 It was that intense heat that gave her the first opening. 
 
 "If it were not that you are not in the best of health, you'd 
 be almost better off in Petchaburi than here," she commenced, 
 "it never seemed too hot to me." 
 
 "It's cool in the evenings, Derry writes. He sleeps half out- 
 side his tent, he says." 
 
 "He has a fine constitution." This was vague, and seemed 
 to have little to do with what had gone before. 
 
 "Derry is very strong," Rosaleen answered. Then she was 
 quiet a little, partly because her head ached, partly because she 
 was thinking of Derry's six feet two, and the breadth of his 
 shoulders. It was but a little fellow Terence had seemed beside 
 him in those far-off days. He had wheedling ways, and a voice 
 to which no one could say no; but it was Derry was the fine man. 
 
 Out of the fulness of her heart she began to talk of feats of 
 strength in which she had seen him engaged. 
 
 "He wrestled with Tim Doolan once, and Tim was the 
 champion of the whole of the south of Ireland. Derry didn't 
 
 158
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 know the tricks as well as he did, but he just stood firm on his 
 feet, I've heard Terence tell, like a statue; and the other could 
 neither grip nor hold him. All of a sudden he tried for a fall, 
 and then indeed he laid hold of him it's Derry laid hold, I'm 
 meaning and he put Tim down as if he'd been a child, flat on 
 the ground, with his shoulders touching. All the people shouted 
 and called out to him ..." 
 
 "You are very proud of him," Emma said curiously. 
 
 "It's proud of him I've cause to be," answered Rosaleen, 
 unstrung a little through her memories. 
 
 "And yet Sydney and I have sometimes wondered ..." 
 the ready flush warned her. 
 
 " Have sometimes wondered if you and he quite hit it off 
 together. I don't mean that exactly, but you are not quite like 
 other married couples, you know." 
 
 "Is it different we are then?" stammered poor Rosaleen, 
 with a clutch on her heart. 
 
 Mrs. Biddle mentioned casually one of the differences she 
 had noted, and Rosaleen's flush was painful. 
 
 "Of course you are both of you very young. I'm not asking 
 for your confidence. Only this note from Sydney was about 
 Derry. " 
 
 "About Derry?" she faltered, and all the flush of color died 
 out suddenly. "What is it about Derry?" She laid her hand 
 on Emma's arm. "What is it about Derry? There's no acci- 
 dent ? It's not ill he is, and you asking me about his strength ?" 
 
 "I don't think it is anything very serious. You must keep 
 yourself calm. We are driving home as quickly as possible, and 
 there is nothing to be done until you get there." She kept 
 hold of the hand that lay nervous on her arm, and petted and 
 patted it. " Lord Ranmore seems to have had a slight sunstroke, 
 Mr. Mitchison has written ..." 
 
 "What will I do? What will I do? I'm alone the day!" 
 She wrung her hands, she made as if she would get out of the 
 carriage "Is it a sunstroke you're telling me? Oh! it's dead 
 he is, Mr. Derry is dead! Let me be, let me be. I want to get 
 out. It's not bearin' it I'll be. And me alone here! She saw 
 
 159
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 her loneliness, the horror of her position; she shook all over, her 
 teeth chattered, she had no courage at all. Had she not seen 
 Terence go forth, all gay and strong, and then the telegram on 
 the top of it, and never again the light laugh of him, or the low, 
 wheedling voice. And now Derry! 
 
 It never struck her that she might go to him, it never seemed 
 to enter her head once through the drive, during which, as Mrs. 
 Biddle said afterward, she was as a girl possessed, crying, 
 moaning, and saying the strangest things. Mrs. Biddle was 
 disappointed in her, she seemed to have no practical sense at all, 
 and certainly no idea that if her husband were ill, and alone in 
 the up-country sola, it was her place to go to him, and that as 
 quickly as possible, and see what good nursing would do. But 
 then, of course, Rosaleen had no idea she could go to Derry, nor 
 that he would want her. 
 
 Emma had a moaning, distraught creature on her hands by 
 the time they got home. She sent for a useless doctor, and 
 discussed every remedy, from bromide to a hot-water bottle, she 
 exhausted reassurances and scolding. She resorted to open 
 reproaches at last, and told Rosaleen the harm she might be 
 doing to another life dependent upon hers. Finally Sydney 
 arrived upon the scene, and was taken to see the now almost 
 uncontrollable patient. 
 
 "Wouldn't you like to see Mitchison's letter?" he asked the 
 girl, who had got no further than the veranda, where she lay in 
 a huddled heap, moaning and saying it was she that was the 
 wicked girl, and it was through her that Derry had followed 
 Terence ... it was the ill-luck she brought them all. And 
 much more, equally foreign to the situation, as Sydney saw it. 
 He and Emma could only suggest the Celtic temperament as an 
 excuse for her. 
 
 "I don't know what to do, I really don't. She has been like 
 this ever since I told her, moaning and crying out that it is a 
 judgment upon her; and talking about Terence that's the 
 cousin who was killed horse-racing the one this one succeeded. 
 I can't make head or tail of it all. She certainly does not think 
 of going to him, she could not go to him in this state. You'll 
 
 160
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 have to send someone, if Mitchison asks you for help. Who 
 would be of any use ? What time does the train go ?" Certainly 
 Emma was nothing if not practical. 
 
 Sydney suggested she should tell the girl they were sending 
 someone up to look after her husband. And Emma managed 
 to convey this in an interval of comparative quiet. The effect 
 was electrical. 
 
 "It's not dead he is, it's not his death you've been trying to 
 break to me!" She brushed her arm against her eyes. "Now, 
 tell me again, what is it you're saying . . . ?" 
 
 She was very confused. The news had come on the top of 
 great fatigue, and her head was swimming and weak with it. 
 She looked round, and saw them all clustered about her. Sydney 
 with his anxious face, and Emma, who had been crying with 
 annoyance at her uselessness, at some failure of tact of which 
 she was conscious, the doctor, who wished he might get back to 
 his tennis, and had harsh thoughts about "hysterical young 
 women"; and the impassive native servants. Sydney took up 
 the parable. 
 
 " Lord Ranmore is very far from dead, I doubt if he is even 
 very ill. He has had slight sunstroke, probably on the top 
 of a touch of malaria. The officer he has with him is young 
 and new to the country." Sydney could not help letting out 
 what he felt was that which Emma was signaling to him not 
 to mention, "I thought you'd want to go yourself." 
 
 She interrupted him. 
 
 "Is it me me, you're meaning? Me to go up and nurse 
 him?" 
 
 "Well, that is what I thought, certainly." 
 
 Of course, it was the Celtic temperament, and embarrassing 
 to an Englishman, although the Englishman was Sydney 
 Biddle, who only lived to do other people kindness, and escape 
 from their gratitude. 
 
 Rosaleen flung herself on her knees before him and kissed 
 his hands. 
 
 "You'll be sending me to him! You'll be letting me go 
 to him?" 
 
 161
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Derry wasn't dead at all, he was only ill, and she it was 
 who might go to him, and nurse him, and be of service to him. 
 The nightmare of it passed so quickly that it seemed as if 
 it could never have been. The whole aspect of the case was 
 altered. Oh! if she could be of use to him! Of course, the 
 doctor was [cautious, and Mrs. Biddle concerned. They 
 had seen her breakdown, but this Rosaleen, pleading to be 
 allowed to go, pleading for haste, asking for directions, was 
 a different creature. 
 
 Emma tried to explain to her that she was taking a risk. 
 They had none of them heard her laugh as she laughed then 
 so gaily, so like a child's laugh. 
 
 "Is it risk you're talking of, and Derry waiting for his 
 nursing?" 
 
 There had never been any real difficulty, this was what 
 Sydney anticipated. There was a great deal of packing and 
 arranging to do, there were medical and other comforts to 
 seek. Mrs. Biddle undertook to put the bungalow to rights 
 the next day. Blankets and linen and perishable things had 
 to be stored away with camphor balls. It is doubtful if Rosaleen 
 knew any of the precautions that would have to be taken at 
 the bungalow lest they should come back to find the insects 
 had devoured it. It was little she cared for blankets or bunga- 
 low. She was to go to Derry, to nurse him through his illness. 
 That night, which passed so quickly for the Biddies, who 
 worked as if they were, not their own native servants, but half 
 a dozen energetic English ones, seemed to Rosaleen to drag. 
 She wanted to be in the train, on her way to him. She would 
 have forgotten the rest she needed so badly, and her own clothes, 
 and everything beside, but for Emma, who never left her until 
 she saw her into the train, having supervised her breakfast, 
 and insisted on its substantiality. The train started at seven 
 in the morning; in less than twenty-four hours she would be 
 with Derry. Was it likely she could think of anything else? 
 It is to her credit that in the end she did remember to thank 
 Sydney, to kiss Emma, to falter out her apologies for her 
 "desperate" bad behavior. 
 
 162
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "And we thought they didn't care for each other!" Sydney 
 Biddle ejaculated, when they had watched the slowly moving 
 train steam out of the station, and turned their faces toward 
 home. 
 
 "But still there is something strange between them," Emma 
 persisted, "or why did she reproach herself, and talk about 
 the other one?" 
 
 "Perhaps there had been rivalry between the cousins, and 
 she only married Derry after the death of the other," Sydney 
 answered, getting unconsciously somewhat near the truth. 
 
 "They must have been married longer than that," Emma 
 answered. "It was only in October he was killed, I remember." 
 
 "Oh! yes, so it was, the first autumn meeting."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 AT Petchaburi, where the great acres of rice-fields, which 
 but a month ago had murmured yellow and wheat- 
 like under the sun, now lay brown and bare in the 
 heat, Mr. Mitchison met her with the good news that her 
 husband was conscious. For the first twenty -four hours he 
 had lain without speaking, there was no doctor within call, 
 but an American missionary had come over from [Ratburi. 
 Mr. Mitchison did not know if he had any medical qualifi- 
 cations, but he knew he had carrotty hair. . . . 
 
 Anything feebler, or more futile, than Mr. Mitchison was 
 never yet designated by the name of man. He was very small, 
 and had pale hair, a retreating forehead, and an underlip 
 that drooped in a half-open mouth. 
 
 "What was a fellow to do, you know?" an observation that 
 he made at least three times, represented not only his con- 
 versation but his actions. He did nothing, ever. But then, 
 as Emma Biddle said, he was very well connected; and when 
 his family had exported him, as a last resource, to Sydney, 
 Sydney was bound to find him a job. He was "attached" 
 to the Survey Department. In what capacity neither he nor 
 anyone else quite fathomed. He rode about a great deal on 
 his pony, and, whatever the pace, he managed to keep his 
 eyeglass in his eye. Perhaps this eyeglass was the most distinct- 
 ive thing about him. It was not on a string, it simply rested 
 in the orbit, and gave him what expression he had. Of course, 
 his name was Augustus, and he was in love with the daughter 
 of the American missionary. But these two things Rosaleen 
 only discovered later on. 
 
 Deny had had a sunstroke, and the missionary had made the 
 long journey from Ratburi especially to attend him, and had 
 stayed up with him for two nights, "just putting wet cloths on 
 
 164
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 his head. I'd have done it for him myself, only, give you my 
 word, I never thought of it. The fellow couldn't speak. My 
 gad! it was awful; thought he was going to die, you know. 
 Kept wondering what I'd do with the corpse on my hands. 
 Brother Whippell, American fellow, calls himself 'brother,' 
 said I wasn't to worry about that. Can't help worrying; what 
 the dooce can a fellow do with a corpse on his hands?" 
 
 Rosaleen was quite reassured by Mr. Mitchison; her natural 
 sense of humor came into play with him, and in the days that 
 followed she grew quite glad of his companionship. He fetched 
 and carried, and his absolute vacuity made him unembarrassing. 
 
 The temple, and the sola that was attached to it, lay just as 
 Emma Biddle had spoken of them. Deny was still in the 
 sleeping-tent, watched over now by his head coolie. The sala 
 was dining-drawing-and-living-room, the food was cooked on 
 the doorstep. The native village was within easy reach, and 
 presently the natives made their presence obvious, they squatted 
 on the step, they looked in at the window, they were ubiquitous, 
 curious, utterly useless, and continuously in the way. 
 
 It was Mr. Mitchison who told Deny that his wife had come. 
 Derry was very enfeebled, he tried to rise to welcome her. 
 Rosaleen had to take her courage in both hands, and go in to 
 him. He was in that stage of physical weakness when nothing 
 seems surprising. The pain in his head that the sunstroke had 
 left kept him supine, the attempt at rising to welcome Rosaleen 
 failed. 
 
 "Is it you?" he asked. 
 
 The true nurse is born, not made. The science of nursing 
 may be taught, but the instinct, the natural gift, is what counts 
 in an emergency. Rosaleen was a born nurse. The moment 
 she saw Derry lying there, all his strength gone, his half-glazed 
 eyes scarcely recognizing his surroundings, the very inertness 
 and position showing how it was with him, it was this instinct 
 that awoke. 
 
 "It's myself," she answered, and straightway forgot every- 
 thing but his illness and need of help. There were bandages 
 on his head, these she renewed, he felt the cool relief of them 
 
 165
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 and murmured thanks. She asked Mr. Mitchison when Deny 
 had had food, and Mr. Mitchison said he didn't know, the 
 American fellow had been over in the morning. 
 
 In the strange solitude of that camping-out station Rosaleen 
 passed the next fortnight in almost complete happiness. For, 
 first Derry grew convalescent under her care, and then Deny 
 grew well, and the development of their daily life proved a sum- 
 mer idyll. Their isolation, save for the coolies, was almost com- 
 plete. As long as Derry needed her she sat with him, doing 
 her needle-work, talking a little, even reading to him now and 
 again. She got used to the coolies clustering and squatting 
 around and about them. She had her own tent, but the tents 
 were hot, and there was little privacy in them. A river ran 
 through the rice-fields, and presently Derry was having his 
 daily swim, then came the time when he was able to mount his 
 pony and get back to his work. 
 
 Something had changed in their relations to each other. 
 In Bangkok Derry had been restless, excitable, full of high 
 spirits, certainly, but high, uneven spirits; here he was quieter. 
 Sometimes, as she sat sewing in those days of his convalescence, 
 and looked up to see that it was well with him, she would meet 
 his eyes intent on hers. If her head drooped quickly he would 
 say nothing, but once or twice she met a smile in his eyes, as of 
 contentment. 
 
 "It is good to have you sitting there," he said. "You can't 
 think what the loneliness was those first few nights. I had no 
 idea what was the matter with me. It was malaria, of course; 
 the sunstroke was nothing, it just came from standing about 
 trying to get warm when I was in one of my shivering fits. 
 You haven't seen Whippell yet, have you? It's a long pull 
 from the Missionaries here, but he told Mitchison he would 
 come over any time he was wanted. It was only quinine and 
 wet rags they could do for me until you came." 
 
 "And what could I do for you?" She smiled at him; it was 
 almost the girl Rosaleen he had got back to himself. 
 
 "Just sitting there." 
 
 "And the broth I've made you?" 
 
 166
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "And the bandages you've put on my head, and the cool 
 little hands." 
 
 "Now it's you that are talking too much." 
 
 "Then you talk to me instead." 
 
 "But what shall I be talking about?" 
 
 "Why, Ranmore, to be sure." 
 
 They were never tired of talking of the great stone house, 
 with its towers and its turrets, of the woods that surrounded it, 
 and the still lake with the taste of the brine in it, where the 
 herons made their nests, and the sea-birds found their way; of 
 the tussocked grass, and the green, lush stretches; of the roses 
 which grew all the year round in the old kitchen-garden, the 
 hazel and birch in the coppice, and the sheep that wandered at 
 their own free will with only Buggins to bark at their thin heels. 
 
 What lay behind all these reminiscences was their one sum- 
 mer there together. A hundred times Deny had it on his lips 
 to ask, what of the morning when they had met before the 
 household was astir, what of their one evening together when 
 all the enchanted wood was bathed in moonlight? Lady 
 Ranmore had sent Rosaleen to fetch a book, and Deny had 
 followed when he saw her slip out. She had heard him coming 
 and fled in caprice, but he had overtaken her. She had been 
 a faun that night, dancing, laughing, evading, eluding him under 
 the shadows of the trees, in the fairy rings, now in the leaflets 
 darkness, now in the patches of the moonlight. Her hair had 
 floated about her. . . . 
 
 "You mind that night ?" he asked her once, and then 
 
 stopped. But she knew which night he meant, and what 
 Derry might have said to her then had she been a woman 
 grown, and ready to hear it, not just a maid who wanted to hear 
 naught, only to dance and to laugh while the big fellow admired 
 and pursued. . . . 
 
 Once, indeed, in those days of convalescence, when she was 
 folding away her work, preparing to leave him for the night, 
 he put a hand on her arm. 
 
 "Rosaleen," he asked, with the note in his voice that went 
 right to the core of her heart, and set it beating wildly. " Rosa- 
 
 167
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 leen! it's not always you'll be mourning for Terence?" But 
 the flush and the flutter and the fear of her, as she dropped her 
 work, as she turned from him, as she answered nothing, silenced 
 him. He could hear his own heart beating, she could hear hers, 
 but they could not hear each other's. 
 
 "It's only good night I'm saying." 
 
 And she, too, said only "Good night," as she passed out of 
 his tent. 
 
 Now it was May, and heavy rains came upon Deny as he 
 rode about his work He would return at three or four o'clock, 
 for she was forever telling him to be careful of his health. She 
 was solicitous for his comfort, housewifely. 
 
 "Then you are caring if I'm ill or well?" was another speech 
 that woke, or shook, them both, since they were not only the 
 words he spoke, but those his eyes spoke, that carried his 
 meaning. 
 
 "You're telling me to take care of myself." 
 
 "And who else have I got belonging to me?" 
 
 "Is it belonging to me you are?" he answered, and for once 
 he laid a gentle arm about her shoulders. 
 
 The sudden stricken look in the eyes raised to him, mournful 
 once again, was the real answer: 
 
 "It's me that's not belonging to myself just now, Deny," 
 she said. The shame flushed in her cheeks, and the words 
 were low and hurried. 
 
 "I can wait." But the flush was on his, too. 
 
 She ran away from him that time. Waiting was the task he 
 set himself, and the conditions now made it easier. 
 
 Berry's recovery from the time that Rosaleen had come to 
 him had been sufficiently steady to make it unnecessary to send 
 for Brother Whippell. But one day, when she was shopping 
 in the market street, she heard a huge rumble, and saw a farm- 
 wagon, with three benches across it, drawn by two small Siamese 
 ponies. This was the missionary family coming to call. They 
 hailed her, and made themselves known, they were not going 
 to be deterred from their call by the mere accident of her being out. 
 
 "I want to see my patient, Lady Ranmore," Brother Ben 
 
 168
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Whippell began. "You'll be going along home, I do think, 
 and you'll just let us hoist you inside, and come along with us." 
 His Americanism was very marked, but the nasal quality of the 
 accent nothwitstanding, Rosaleen found the voice agreeable. 
 It was so human and friendly, there seemed to be an immediate 
 friendship established between them. He helped her into the 
 cart dextrously and cleverly. Brother Ben, who, by the way, 
 was a fully qualified medical man, in addition to being a Prim- 
 itive Methodist preacher, had a shaggy, unkempt, straggling 
 head of red hair, and keen gray eyes. His hands were sinewy, 
 small and capable. He wore a white, or clerical, tie with his 
 khaki-colored linen clothes, otherwise there was nothing to 
 indicate his dual profession. A cloth cap, with a flap that hung 
 down behind to protect his neck from the sun, completed his 
 costume. His placid wife was obviously from the South; her 
 slurred burr contrasted with his nasal tongue. She was stout, 
 and made room for Rosaleen with difficulty. 
 
 "I ought to have been over before," she said, "but there is 
 so much to do." 
 
 "And as Mama doesn't do any of it, it keeps her busy," 
 Aline broke in. 
 
 Having seen Aline, it was not difficult to account for Mr. 
 Mitchison's infatuation She had her mother's dark eyes, and 
 there was enough of her father's coloring in the brown tints 
 of her hair to make the word Venetian appropriate. She was 
 slender of build, graceful of movement, alert, and extraordinarily 
 voluble. Rosaleen heard more about Siam, and, incidentally, 
 more about Aline Whippell, in that half hour's drive than she 
 had learned of the country in four months, or of any human 
 being in a lifetime of acquaintance. 
 
 "My, you should have seen me!" or "My, you should have 
 heard me!" prefaced a dozen incidents in which it seemed she 
 was forever in the foreground. 
 
 "Why, if that ain't Ranmore himself!" Brother Whippell 
 said as they approached the sola on their strange vehicle, and 
 saw Deny and Mr. Mitchison on the road. Derry had on a 
 white linen suit, but poor Mitchison was straight from the 
 
 169
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 river. He wore his under-vest and a sarong, which is a native 
 garment, something between a petticoat and a kilt. He made 
 as if to hide himself behind Deny, but the Americans hailed 
 him as if they noted nothing unusual, and presently the two 
 men, too, were being hauled into the farm-cart. Aline con- 
 tinued talking, and Mr. Mitchison, in the intervals of putting 
 down his sarong and apologizing for it, played a sort of wonder- 
 ing chorus to her monologue. She rallied him, but seemed 
 not averse to his attentions. When they arrived at the sala 
 they all trooped in, and took seats on provision-boxes. They 
 were offered cocoanut milk and water. 
 
 "Waal, I'm glad you took my advice, young man," said 
 Brother Ben to Deny. "I've put your husband on the teetotal 
 ticket for so long as he is up here, Lady Ranmore. And mind 
 you keep him to it, that head of his don't want anything more 
 to carry just now." 
 
 "Brother Benjamin is all for total abstention," drawled 
 Rachel. 
 
 "Papa don't believe in compromises." 
 
 "Ah! curious thing, now you remind me," said Mitchison. 
 "I never met but two sorts of Americans, those who drank 
 like fish, and the iced-water brigade." 
 
 "Is that so, now? Then I may take it from you that the 
 American that travels in Europe is either a teetotaller or a 
 drunkard?" 
 
 "They are the only sort I have met." 
 
 "I shouldn't take Mr. Mitchison too seriously, Papa." 
 
 But "Papa" took everything seriously, and pursued the 
 subject. It was a burning one with him. He spoke with great 
 feeling, he was given to free speech, but had little chance, as he 
 would say, quietly, "when Aline was around." Evidently 
 quite proud of her conversational powers, he himself was most 
 interesting about his missionary work, and, when he talked of 
 the national religion and of Buddhism, of what he was "out to 
 fight," he spoke not only like an evangelist, but like a man of 
 feeling. He made the relation of his spiritual campaign a real 
 and vivid thing. His heart was in his work. 
 
 170
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 The weather helped them out when other subjects were 
 exhausted. Aline asked Rosaleen if she rode, and said riding 
 astride was the only way with the Siamese ponies. She offered 
 to make Rosaleen a pair of khaki trousers, like her own. Brother 
 Ben looked up quickly, and quite authoritatively, without any 
 ceremony, interposed. 
 
 "You'd better not ride at all just now," and excused his 
 daughter's exclamation by adding, "she don't know everything, 
 Aline here," and openly winked at Rosaleen. 
 
 Their plans were discussed, and again Brother Ben put in a 
 warning word, when he heard that in a fortnight they were going 
 up further; camp was to be struck for Wat Poh Pra. Mr. 
 Mitchison was not accompanying them, for the work that led 
 Derry afield was not work in which Mr. Mitchison could even 
 pretend to assist. Brother Ben knew the country well. 
 
 "You can get to the sea in two hours from Wat Poh Pra. 
 And that's the vurry best thing you can do with your wife. 
 Send her to the mission-house there. They'll look after her, 
 and the sea breezes will put color in her cheeks." 
 
 "You don't think my wife is looking pulled down?" Derry 
 asked anxiously. He liked the words on his lips. He said 
 again, "My wife has been nursing me too well. I've been an 
 impatient patient, doctor." 
 
 "I'm all right, Derry, I'm all right!" She flushed quite 
 deeply. "Now be telling us more about the people and the 
 priests, Mr. Whippell." 
 
 "Papa likes to be called 'Brother,'" Aline put in slyly. 
 
 "And it's brothers we all are," Derry put in promptly, "we 
 Westerners out here." 
 
 "Waal, I shouldn't call myself a Westerner," Brother Ben 
 objected. 
 
 They stayed quite a long time, right into the cool of the evening. 
 Rosaleen found herself liking always more definitely the doctor's 
 nasal accents, and quaint turns of expression He gave an 
 impression of solid and reliable strength. Afterward, when she 
 knew him better, and had heard his history, she found her first 
 impression confirmed He was the one of the party that inter- 
 
 171
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 ested her most. Certainly it was to Brother Whippell's sense 
 and promptitude that Deny owed being again in health. Mrs. 
 Whippell was more obese than individual, and Aline too much 
 interested in herself to leave anyone else room for the theme. 
 
 "I came out here with Mama and Papa because I thought it 
 would be a change from school-teaching. There ain't hardly 
 a soul for me to speak to up in Missionary Land. You see, I'm 
 intellectual, and better read than most. There's Schopenhauer, 
 now, there's hardly a book of his I ain't read. You'd be surprised. 
 And these missionaries, why, they never even heard tell of him. 
 And I can play the piano. Mama says it makes her want to 
 cry. You must come and stay with us one while, Lady Ranmore, 
 and just hear me. We ain't got many lords' wives around. 
 Here's Mr. Mitchison, why, his sister is a baronet's wife, but 
 she's in England. Didn't you say she was a baronet's wife?" 
 
 "Ah well did I? Not exactly, you know. She married" 
 he turned to Deny as if he alone would understand "the 
 Master of Fairbank." 
 
 It was difficult to explain the status of a Scotch laird to an 
 American girl, but Deny accomplished it. It was easy to see 
 that Augustus had been exploiting his connections with which 
 to dazzle her, and that he had not been wholly unsuccessful. 
 
 At leaving, Brother Ben said again: 
 
 " Don't you hesitate if you want to get away from that camp up 
 at Wat Poh Pra. They will take you in any time at the Mission- 
 aries'," he said to Rosaleen. His manner gave her a sense of 
 comfort, a sense of security, too, and this she knew was what 
 he meant to convey. She had been living in the present. 
 
 And live in the present she continued to do until two weeks 
 later, when they struck camp. 
 
 Certainly the Americans had quickened the Ranmores' 
 curiosity in their surroundings. Neither Derry nor Rosaleen 
 had explored the neighborhood, and their interest in Buddhism 
 was less than elementary. The priests had followed them some- 
 times to the riverside, but the priests were no less a part of the 
 landscape than the native women, with their burden of double 
 panniers, one containing provisions and the other a baby. In 
 
 172
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 the market street Rosaleen had seen the men from Lao, with 
 their quaint costumes of tightly fitting black jerseys, buttoned 
 with elaborate native buttons right up to the throat, their short 
 trousers and bare legs; the Lao women in their striped petticoats 
 of blue and yellow. Brother Ben told her that when the Lao 
 young couples contemplated matrimony the ceremony of betrothal 
 consisted in their sitting in company under the supervising eyes of 
 both families and many friends, watching while the lover solemnly 
 sewed up his fianceVs petticoat. 
 
 Buddhism was the religion of the country, and all the many 
 Christian missionaries from many lands had made no appreciable 
 difference to it. 
 
 The Siamese New Year fell at the end of March, just before 
 they struck camp, and that was a very festival of Buddha. 
 Their newly awakened interest led them to many an excursion. 
 Less than two miles from Petchaburi were the caves, where in 
 coolness and darkness many hundreds of presentments of the 
 prophet lie in their separate shrines, guarded outside by the 
 wonderful sleeping Buddha, nearly 135 feet long, and more 
 than proportionately broad. He lies on his side within sight 
 of the caves, one gilt arm under an enormous head, covered 
 with spikes representing hair, and a golden flame, like an aureole. 
 All his toes are joined together, and they are all the same length. 
 This worshipful monster has a beautiful mouth, like a Cupid's 
 bow, and his half-closed eyes are mother-of-pearl. 
 
 The caves themselves were pleasant after the heat; cool and 
 dark. Every niche had its gilded Buddha, and no Buddha on 
 the New Year but had its tribute of burning joss-stick This 
 day the natives were clambering up the rocks in shoals, sprinkling 
 their favored gods with scent! The band played, and there 
 were Siamese dances, as at Bangkok, with play of wrists, elbows 
 and head. The music of the band is a drone. Sometimes the 
 pipers joined in the dance with each other, back to back, twisting 
 their limbs. The three days' festival of the New Year, of the 
 Buddhist New Year, is one of the public holidays when the 
 natives are allowed to gamble. And they take full advantage 
 of the permission, sitting at the games with solemn, inscrutable 
 12 173
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 faces, morning, afternoon, and night. They would do no work 
 these three days. Even Berry's head coolie, and Rosaleen's 
 washerwoman, temporarily abandoned their duties. 
 
 Other Buddhist festivals interested them, one occurring 
 shortly after the New Year. The ceremonies took place in 
 Ratburi, but Deny managed to get Rosaleen into the town. 
 The occasion was the return of a Buddha who had been regilded! 
 Two bands went out to welcome him, and a long procession. 
 A fair followed, with more music and dancing, and stalls or 
 booths full of dreadful penny toys and bunches of beads, hailing 
 probably f om Birmingham. A great wheel of bamboo was 
 made in the Buddha's honor, bearing four hammocks. It was 
 worked by hand, and everyone seemed to ride in it, always in 
 honor of the regilded Buddha. 
 
 To each country its religion, but this of Buddhism, the further 
 they penetrated its mysteries the stranger it seemed. They 
 were both of them glad of anything that took their thoughts 
 from themselves just now, subconsciously they both knew it 
 was through a waiting time they were passing. They were 
 prepared to regard any religion with respect, and every supersti- 
 tion, for this is a necessity with Irish Protestants, if they are to 
 live in peace with their Catholic countrymen. But when 
 Derry's tent blew down in the night, and one of the very Buddhas 
 who had been joss-sticked and scented in the day was carried 
 out to act as a weight, the limit of irreverence seemed to have 
 been reached. Certainly the workman saluted the god before 
 tying him up, but this was the only apology for using him as 
 a tent-peg. 
 
 The missionary service they attended together, the last day 
 they spent at Petchaburi, brought home to them the contrast of 
 the story that had moved the world. 
 
 It was held at a little village behind the hills. They drove 
 there in the moonlight, a long, silent drive on a lonely, unpeopled 
 road. Suddenly, and, as it seemed, from nowhere at all, they 
 were among a crowd of natives, silent natives, all converging to 
 one point, a large shed that had been erected; before the wide 
 door, or opening, was hung a white sheet. The little brown 
 
 174
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 people squatted quietly down before the sheet in row upon silent 
 row. 
 
 Rosaleen saw Brother Benjamin, and one or two other dark- 
 coated men, lift up the sheet and pass into the tent. Presently, 
 against the moonlight, half shadowy and wholly impressive, 
 she saw thrown upon the white sheet, in all its simplicity, the 
 first scene in the stable at Bethlehem. She saw the animals 
 feeding at the manger, patient, bovine, unregarding. She 
 saw the Virgin Mother, the babe in her arms with the aureole 
 of light, the wise men from the East kneeling before it in 
 adoration. 
 
 One of the missionaries was telling the story in Siamese. 
 Picture followed picture. Here was the flight into Egypt; 
 steadily the voice explained it. It was gone, and here was Jesus, 
 the Child, rebuking the elders in the Temple, the mother 
 seeking her Son. The answer, "Wist ye not that I must be 
 about My Father's business?" sounded curiously in its foreign 
 expression. The panorama of the miracles culminated in the 
 raising of Lazarus from the dead. Now came the triumphant 
 entry into Jerusalem, and then the Last Supper. Here was 
 Gethsemane, with its sleeping disciples, unconscious of that 
 long hour of agonized prayer . . . the English voice broke 
 a little as it narrated it. The next picture was the trial before 
 Pontius Pilate. One saw, one almost heard, the gibes and 
 jeers of the ribald jailers over the mock crown of thorns. Then 
 there was the weary bearing of the cross which was to become 
 the symbol through countless ages. Now there were sounds 
 from that hushed row of silent people, a wailing sound that 
 was like an Irish keen, for the agony of the Crucifixion was 
 before them. Above the low wail rose those last words: "Father, 
 forgive them, they know not what they do." 
 
 It was the story that had moved the world. It seemed 
 almost new, and strangely vivid to Deny and Rosaleen as they 
 heard it in those strange surroundings; and it gave them some 
 rush or tide of feeling that brought them closer to each other. 
 In the moonlight Deny could see the girl 's eyes were wet. 
 
 They drove back silently to the camp. The moon was 
 
 175
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 steady above the trees, but the fireflies danced like will-of-the- 
 
 wisps among the leaves and branches. 
 
 "You're crying," he whispered. His arm went about her. 
 
 "I can't bear you should cry." 
 
 u But for you, what should I have ever done but cry?" 
 "We'll be happy some day together . . . say you think 
 
 so, too. It's a waiting time we're passing through."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THEY struck camp the next day for the move to Wat 
 Poh Pra. They traveled by ox-cart, and the ground 
 was soft from the heavy rain. The wheels sank inches 
 deep, and the wretched animals strained again and again to 
 move them. The coolies yelled and shouted and pushed. 
 They would have rained blows, but neither Rosaleen nor 
 Derry would permit that. Deny got out and helped to push. 
 Rosaleen, too, insisted on walking some parts of the way. But 
 the tents and the luggage were in the ox-cart, and the animals 
 were inferior to the Kaffir variety, and much smaller. Derry 
 knew, when it was too late, that he ought to have had a team 
 of four instead of two. 
 
 It was a tedious affair, but they got to their destination at 
 last. Rosaleen made light of her fatigue, Derry was not con- 
 scious of feeling any, he was so relieved to have arrived. 
 
 The primitive domestic machinery that had worked so well 
 at Petchaburi broke down completely at Wat Poh Pra. At 
 Petchaburi the coolies had done their work, except on the 
 occasion of the gambling interregnum, with regularity and 
 sufficient intelligence anyway, with apparent interest. The 
 Chinese cook could provide a meal out of any material to his 
 hand, there was a choice of washerwomen, and in any little 
 thing that Rosaleen was bent upon doing herself, for Derry 's 
 comfort, she had the sympathetic assistance of the head coolie. 
 There seemed such a number and variety of natives that they 
 had hardly taken it seriously when, on the eve of their departure 
 for Petchaburi, the Chinese cook refused to stir, and Rosaleen 's 
 little Siamese maid, who had come all the way from Bangkok 
 with her, was nowhere to be found. She had run away with 
 Mr. Mitchison's head boy. They had been amused at the 
 romande. Rosaleen said she had no call for a maid, and really 
 it was little the girl had done for her. 
 
 177
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 The wash-tub is perhaps the most prominent feature of 
 Siamese housekeeping. Clothes are changed daily, or twice 
 daily; everything finds its way quickly to the wash-tub. The 
 absence of a maid was amusing, the desertion of the cook was 
 bearable, but the difficulty of finding a washerwoman was 
 insupportable. They were further from the river here, and 
 the air seemed alive with heat and insect life. The new sala 
 was half the size of the last one. They had hardly been a week 
 at Wah Poh Pra when they found there was a difficulty in 
 obtaining provisions. Chickens were to be had, tough and 
 stringy, and mangoes, but there seemed little else. There 
 should have been eggs, but the chickens failed of their duty. 
 Each chicken they ate might, they thought, have been the one 
 that would have laid had her life been spared! They tried to 
 make light of their inconveniences. This was the time when 
 Rosaleen showed her quality. She cooked and sewed, and 
 even washed! They had taught her to iron in the convent; 
 there she had ironed her own needlework, and the fine lace and 
 embroideries that had been sent to the convent to be mended. 
 Now she utilized her knowledge. Derry sent one of the coolies 
 back to Petchaburi, and one of them up to Ratburi, with orders 
 to find a washerwoman at all costs. But meanwhile Rosaleen 
 could not bear to see him with his linen coats so rumpled, and, 
 oblivious of the heat, and of the curiosity of the natives, who 
 climbed the window to see her do it, she set to work to iron 
 them out for him. This was while Derry was afield, at the 
 work he had been sent here to do. Once, when he arrived 
 home, he found her very white and shaken on the doorstep. 
 She did not tell him that she had fainted at her occupation and 
 been carried out here. She told him that she had found a 
 snake in her sleeping-tent. It was quite true, and it excused 
 and explained her faintness. He did not know that it had not 
 disturbed her in the least, and that it was the previous day 
 the incident occurred. The snake had been killed by one of 
 the boys; it was a very harmless variety. Derry, who had 
 been alarmed at her pallor, found it quite simply explained by 
 the story of the snake. He was sorry for the fright she had had, 
 
 178
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 he began to wonder if he had done rightly to bring her so far, to 
 expose her to all these hardships. She would not let him doubt, 
 she made light of all of them. 
 
 But they were hardships, almost unendurable for white 
 people. 
 
 Derry was at work, he could take exercise, walking, and on 
 his ponies. There was hardly a day when he did not manage 
 a swim, although they were too far from the river for those 
 evening walks that had formed the pleasant termination to so 
 many of the Petchaburi evenings. Rosaleen had nothing but 
 the heat of the sala and the sleeping-tent, the daily struggle to 
 get the washing and ironing done, and as much cooking as 
 was possible. All her days were lived that Derry might miss 
 nothing, want nothing. She worked at stove and ironing- 
 board as none but an acclimatized native could have worked 
 under the conditions to which she was exposed. 
 
 She had fainted the first day she tried the ironing; the ten- 
 dency to faintness recurred, and kept her lethargic and with a 
 feeling of ever-impending illness. She wished sometimes, 
 vaguely, that Brother Ben Whippell was within call; but she 
 wished more definitely than anything else that Derry should 
 notice nothing of her state of health, and miss nothing that she 
 could do for him. She made really heroic efforts to conceal 
 how it was with her. In another month they were to go back 
 to Bangkok. It seemed to her that she could hold out for 
 another month. She knew she ought to be able to, her knowl- 
 edge had taken her as far as that. It did not strike her that the 
 exertion she was taking might interfere with these calcula- 
 tions. 
 
 They managed a little better with the foraging presently, 
 when the news of their arrival spread about. Fish was now 
 to be had, vegetables and fruit and other than the mangoes, small 
 peas, for instance, peas that are cooked and eaten with their 
 pods, and there was sweet corn. There was a market, after all, 
 although it was some way off. And now the new coolies began 
 to wake up to what was needed. Rosaleen might have held 
 out a little longer, it was a man's spirit that was growing in her 
 
 179
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 feminine body, if Derry had not expressed a desire for bread. 
 It was a very idle wish, he was in good health again, and grow- 
 ing used to the life; it pressed so much less hardly upon him 
 than upon her. He said it was a rest-cure he was having. The 
 absence of white people, white faces, that she found almost a 
 nightmare, did not affect him at all. No hideous fear and 
 faintness haunted his waking hours. 
 
 In the convent Rosaleen had also learned to make bread. 
 The coolie brought the material she ordered the next time 
 he went to market, the very day after Derry had expressed 
 his idle wish. The cooking apparatus, a cauldron on three 
 legs, was new to her and difficult to manage, and her first day 's 
 baking was not a success. But Derry was so proud that she had 
 made the experiment what was not burnt was sodden and raw, 
 yet he insisted on eating it that she was fain to try again. 
 His praise was sweet to her, and he was lavish with it. The 
 second attempt was more successful. That several times, 
 while she was kneading, a curious trembling came upon her 
 suddenly, that twice or three times during the baking there 
 was a return of faintness, did not count against the pleasure of 
 hearing he had never tasted such bread in his life. He ate 
 half a loaf with his evening meal, washed down with cocoanut- 
 juice. Exhausted as she was, and fearful beyond consecutive 
 thought or expression, seeing Derry eat his bread brought 
 fresh life and courage to her. 
 
 If only the rain would come, or the nights grow less hot; 
 if only she could sleep, or stand up at her work without the 
 sola growing dark and swaying! She was naturally strong, 
 she held up longer than seemed possible. The change in her 
 came gradually, and Derry, seeing her many times a day, was 
 less likely to notice it than a newcomer. Her face grew preter- 
 natunally thin, and her eyes sunken; there was no color in her 
 thin lips, and it was only when Derry was by that she could 
 hide her languor, not very well even then. 
 
 What instinct, or broad humanity, brought Brother Ben 
 Whippell riding into camp one day she never knew. Derry 
 was afield; she had tried and tried to get through with her 
 
 180
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 bread-making. Now she was lying on the ground, out here 
 in the hot air, she had one of her rare fits of overwhelming 
 physical depression. She could not go on, she did not care 
 what became of her. It was homesickness for Ireland's green 
 lush grass that she had, it was deadly fear of sickness, it was 
 pain in her head, and heat and swelling in her useless hands 
 and feet. 
 
 Ben rode up, the first thing she saw was his shaggy red beard. 
 The nasal accent fell on her ears like music. 
 
 "Anybody in?" He saw her almost as soon as she saw him, 
 and was off the pony and by her side. 
 
 "Well, now, just to think . . . !" For, at sight of him, 
 all at once, her self-control seemed to leave her, and her courage. 
 She just burst out crying, and, when he took her hands from 
 her face to look at her, she went on crying uncontrollably. 
 
 "There now, there now!" he soothed her. "You didn't 
 expect me riding along in this way. It ain't no harm crying; 
 just cry away." 
 
 He seemed to know where everything was to be found. He 
 got a pillow from her sleeping- tent, and put it under her head, 
 for the moment she was beyond effort. His fingers were on 
 her pulse. 
 
 "Lonesome?" he asked. She began to recover herself 
 presently, and sat up. 
 
 "It's foolish you're thinking me?" 
 
 "Now, what put that into your head?" 
 
 "It's so ... so hot!" The weak tears could not be 
 restrained. He did not try to check them, but went on talking 
 as if he noticed nothing. He told her whence he had ridden, 
 of the sea, and the palms that grew close to the place, and the 
 white mission-house with the verandah. The awful sense of 
 isolation and loneliness passed away from her a little as he 
 was speaking. There were cool breezes somewhere. 
 
 "I'll be getting me courage back presently." And now 
 she smiled faintly at him through her tears. They had been 
 friends from the first, these two, although they had spoken so 
 little together. 
 
 181
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "Waal, I guess you've got some things to tell me." 
 
 "Ah! doctor, an' can you keep away the faintness?" 
 
 He got it all out from her gradually the weakness and the 
 trembling, the fainting and her fears. 
 
 "Make me well enough to go on just this one bad month 
 we're here. It's missing me he'd be; and him that has to 
 work in it all." 
 
 He could see it was only of Deny she was thinking, and 
 Derry's need of her. He did not tell her she had come to the 
 end of her strength, there was time enough for that. But 
 what he saw made him remember. This was a common thing, 
 this sacrifice of one human being to another. He had made 
 his offering on the altar many years ago, he knew all about 
 sacrifice, and the strength it spent, and gave. 
 
 "How is Derry?" he asked. "Any more headache? That's 
 a fine man of yours, Lady Ranmore." 
 
 "Ah, and he is that!" 
 
 He knew the way to her confidence, and to her heart. He 
 talked a little of Derry, and Derry's illness. By the time Deny 
 himself came home, vociferous in his welcome, Ben Whippell 
 knew all that he needed. 
 
 "You wait until I get through with my bath," Derry said, 
 after his first burst of greeting. "We'll keep him to dinner, 
 Rosaleen; he must taste that bread of yours. I hope you've 
 got plenty of it, by the way. It will get the chicken down, 
 and the mangoes. There's fish coming, unless it's here. I 
 sent it on, just out of the river it is, lying on its belly in the 
 basket, with its eyes turned up. I don't know the name of it, 
 but it will taste of the water perhaps. And that's what we're 
 all wanting. It's rain, doctor, I wish you'd brought with 
 you." 
 
 Deny 's bath was something new in ablutions, he had invented 
 it himself. He stood outside his tent, talking all the time, just 
 as he had come in from riding, fully dressed, in his thin white 
 vest and linen trousers, but with his hat off. He was a fine 
 figure of a man beside the coolies, not one of them reaching 
 higher than his shoulder He had grown lean, and while, 
 
 182
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 under his directions, the men swashed bucket after bucket of 
 cold water at, and over, him as if he had been a horse, and this 
 his grooming, one saw beneath the wet and clinging vest the 
 muscular deep chest, the sinews of the arms, the long flank. 
 
 "It's my own idea; you get the freshness of the water when 
 it's flung at you like this. Will you have one, doctor ? There's 
 time before dinner. And I can lend you a change of clothes." 
 
 But Brother Ben declined. He was quite ready to stay and 
 dine with them, having come over for that purpose, in fact. 
 His instinct had led him right. They were young things, not 
 fit to look after themselves, far less each other. He would 
 have to make an opportunity to see Deny alone. She had 
 begged him not to tell Deny there was anything amiss. But 
 the tact that comes from the heart is less likely to err than the 
 tact that comes from the head, and Brother Ben Whippell had 
 both. He would retain Rosaleen's confidence, and he would 
 not unduly alarm Derry. But he knew the girl was very near 
 the end of her endurance; there is a moment when the fretted 
 string gives way. Where were Derry 's eyes what he had not 
 seen? The answer to that was easy. Derry's eyes were 
 blinded by his admiration. 
 
 During dinner Ben heard all about the bread and the ironing, 
 and the fine manager she was. And he saw the lines go out of 
 the white, tired face, and the softening that came into the 
 sunken eyes. This was her hour; it was for this she worked. 
 
 "It's Derry that's making the fuss about the little I do," 
 she said. "You'll tell him it's not much for a girl to be able 
 to cook." 
 
 "Waal," said Ben, holding up the bread, "I ain't going to 
 tell him anything against this. We've nothing better than this 
 up yonder." 
 
 "And it's herself that made it all," Derry began again. 
 
 It was after dinner, when the heat grew more bearable, that 
 Ben suggested Derry should ride with him a little of his way. 
 Rosaleen gave a quick suspicious look at the doctor, and he 
 nodded his reassurance. He would tell Derry nothing. She 
 was feeling ever so much better to-night, there was no need to 
 
 183
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 say anything. She had let herself get low and frightened, it 
 was the solitude, and all those brown faces. 
 
 "You'll not be saying anything to Deny?" she said to Ben the 
 moment Derry had gone into his tent to get his hat, and exchange 
 canvas slippers for boots. 
 
 ''Just you let me fix it up," the doctor answered. "Derry 
 wants a change quite as much as you do. Two or three days by 
 the sea would set him up fine. I guess I'll make him take a day 
 or two off. There ain't the hurry about this railway they're 
 prospecting, that it need prevent him having a holiday. Don't 
 you worry about anything I may tell him. I'm just as close as 
 wax. You get to bed, and have all the sleep you can. You 
 take that cachet I gave you, and don't hurry to get up in the 
 mornings." 
 
 He did not advise her to give up cooking, or any of her house- 
 hold work. But, when he was with Derry, under the stars, 
 riding through the night, he asked him, casually enough, how 
 long he'd been married. 
 
 "Only just as long as that!" he said, in surprise, when he had 
 his answer. Then he rode on silently a few paces, thinking. 
 In the end he put it to Derry just as he had outlined it to 
 Rosaleen. 
 
 " I want you to come up to us for a few days. The sea-bathing 
 will do you good." 
 
 "Whew! but I'd like a taste of sea-breeze." Derry took off 
 his hat, but there was not enough wind to ruffle his hair. "It's 
 not myself, though, that matters. I could get away all right, 
 but it's Rosaleen that . . . that can't ride just now." 
 
 "Waal, fix up that she can drive." 
 
 "She doesn't feel the heat as much as I do, she tells me it 
 hardly affects her at all. It's wonderful how well she feels, 
 but for the snake they found. Did she tell you about that 
 snake? she was as fit as anything up to then." 
 
 "Oh! that's what she tells you?" 
 
 "I'd dearly like a swim in the sea; it sounds too good to be 
 true. But I can't leave her in that beastly camp alone. ..." 
 
 Ben wheeled round and looked at him. 
 
 184
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "No, you can't!" 
 
 Rosaleen's confidence was not violated; but Deny was made 
 aware in some indefinite, but very practical way, that Ben 
 Whippell had made up his mind they were both to come to the 
 mission station for a few days. It was not Ben's way to look 
 too far ahead. Lady Ranmore must be moved at once; he would 
 know presently whether she would be able to return. Ways and 
 means for the transport were discussed. That Derry should 
 ride and his wife should drive was inevitable. Ben lost no time 
 over his job. He made it his job, which had become even more 
 vital than saving these Siamese souls. With a pulse at 
 130 and a history such as he had taken from her lips, he knew 
 every hour was of importance. 
 
 The ox-cart that fetched Rosaleen the next day was a tiny 
 thing, about two feet wide by six feet long. Two chairs were 
 placed in it, with a Chinese mattress, some straw, and all that 
 was possible for her comfort. But the roads were bad, and the 
 oxen shook from their heaving flanks. The tracks through 
 the rice-fields could hardly be called roads; the high banks, the 
 intersecting waterways, all contributed to the unevenness of the 
 ground. At first, the mere fact of moving, of being on the way 
 to the sea, of leaving the camp behind them, kept her up. Derry 
 had ridden on in advance, there was only herself with the drivers. 
 But the bumping grew worse and worse, and the day was torren- 
 tially hot. Not all the prospect of coolness brought coolness to 
 her. The horrible, incessant bumping jarred her nerves, her 
 head, her back. It was only a three hours' drive, but it seemed 
 endless, unbearable; the pain every fresh rut brought began to 
 tear through her. . . . 
 
 The Rosaleen that was lifted out of the ox-cart and carried 
 into the missionary house was very near the end of her troubles, 
 however. And there were kind hands about her, white women's 
 hands, Christian women's helpful hands. There was no doubt 
 how it was with her. They got her into bed. 
 
 The missionary house lay white above the sea. From her 
 windows Rosaleen could see the water, through the palms, blue 
 and moving. The murmur of it came to her ears while she lay. 
 
 185
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 There was a cooling breeze, too, for it was evening here. She 
 heard kind, pitying voices, saw white faces. She had not much 
 strength, but her courage held. When he was wanted Ben was 
 there, too, and every fear seemed to go with his coming. It 
 seemed long to the women who watched. Brother Ben and the 
 women grew more and more anxious for her. But there came 
 never a murmur from her lips, save a murmur of thanks, a word 
 of gratitude, a wish "they'd not be tiring themselves." All 
 there was to be borne she bore with a great and wonderful 
 patience. More than once she said how good it was to be here, 
 and that she heard the sea. All through that night the murmur 
 of the sea was in her ears, and the breeze came through the 
 open window. When the whiff of chloroform was given her, 
 for Ben knew that her strength was failing, although her courage 
 held, it was back in the convent she thought herself, and called 
 the Sisters by their names. For the convent, too, had lain 
 within sound of the sea. 
 
 It was morning before the baby lay beside her, and then she 
 had passed into sleep, a sleep so like death that those about her 
 held their breath. 
 
 That was how Deny came to see the baby before she did. 
 He had walked about through the whole long night, full of fears, 
 self-reproaches, now shaken with anxiety, now desperate lest 
 enough should not be done for her. There was something 
 stronger, that fought with all the other feelings. Was it jealousy ? 
 Was it rage ? No! not rage; he could not let it be that. ' Terence 
 had never meant to be aught but good to her. He had only 
 loved her too much, and who was it that would not love her ? It 
 was Terence that didn't know the meaning of self-denial. 
 
 Then he thought of all her brave comradeship to him during 
 these past months. Ah! it was a fine legacy Terence had left 
 him. It was she that was more than estate or title. 
 
 But Ben would not let him stay too near the sick-room. 
 Brother Ben Whippell thought of everything. He sent Derry 
 for a swim in that early morning hour, toward the end, when he 
 himself hardly dared to think what the end might be, so worn 
 out was she and exhausted. Ben met him when he came out of 
 
 186
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 the sea, the towel about his loins, his eyes alight with anxiety, 
 but with health and vigor in his step as he strode up through 
 the palms. 
 
 " Good news?" he called out, for Ben had waved to him. 
 
 " There's a son for you," he said simply. He had been through 
 a strenuous time, and he had no words to waste. 
 
 And then it came about that Terence's son was put into 
 Berry's arms. An indescribable feeling seized him as the bundle 
 stirred, and was warm and alive in his hands. Strong man as he 
 was, he trembled ; but B en saw nothing strange in his emotion. B en 
 was an emotional man himself, and that made him sympathetic. 
 
 "Why, man, don't you know better than that how to hold 
 him?" was all he said. 
 
 Berry's eyes were full of tears. It was to hide the knowledge 
 of them that the doctor spoke, more nasally than ever, it seemed, 
 and made as if to take the bundle from him. It was so small, 
 so puny a thing. Ben pulled the flannel aside. Two eyes as 
 small as a kitten's opened they were blue eyes. Berry saw that 
 the down on the small head was red, as red as Terence's had been. 
 
 " What do you think of it ?" Ben said. " It's a very fine child. 
 I shouldn't be surprised if it weighs up to eight pounds. And 
 look at his arms. He'll be a prize-fighter. Look out, he's 
 going to hit you! See him doubling his fists." 
 
 If Berry could have put his thoughts into words he would 
 have answered that a tenderness like pain had come into his 
 heart; it was so small and fragile a thing that he held. A gener- 
 ous great rush of feeling came over Berry when the blue eyes 
 had opened under the red down. He had had some feeling that 
 was anger, jealousy ... he knew not what. Now it passed 
 away from him, passed away from him forever. There was only 
 pity left, pity for Terence, who had died without knowing what it 
 was to hold a son in his arms. But he, Berry, would father it. 
 
 He put his head down to it a moment, how small it was, how 
 small and weak! He was ashamed of his emotion, but he vowed 
 that never, never again should anger come into his heart. 
 Terence's boy should be welcome with him. 'Twas the head 
 of the family he was, a red Ranmore again. 
 
 187
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 IN the weeks that followed Rosaleen lay on her bed and 
 dreamed, while Deny went back to his work and dreamed. 
 But the dreams of neither of them showed what was in the 
 heart of the other. And Ben Whippell, to whom the human 
 heart was well known, found these two were locked against him. 
 
 He did not understand why, when she had awakened from 
 her first long sleep, and they laid the baby in her arms, she first 
 looked at it, and then piteously, fearfully at them, and then had 
 broken into sudden tears, and turned away her face. He did 
 not know why she drew the flannel hurriedly over the child's 
 face, and then turned hers away from it. Motherhood seemed 
 to come to her as a shame, not as a joy, Ben thought, as he 
 watched, saying nothing, understanding less. She did not want 
 to nurse or hold the baby; she trembled, and her eyes were 
 averted when they laid it in her arms. 
 
 Ben had no clue to the feeling that made her beg him, in a 
 broken voice, not to let Derry come near her, to keep Derry out 
 of the room. He was too good a doctor to cross her wishes, but 
 it was hard to get at the root of them. It was difficult, too, to 
 comprehend why Deny took so quietly this prohibition of the 
 sick-room to him. 
 
 "Tell her I understand," was all his message. 
 
 It was strange how Deny understood he must leave her alone 
 just now, but he did. He saw the child again; again he made 
 his silent vows that it should be as a son to him. The likeness 
 was more pronounced as the features grew clearer, and he knew 
 that Rosaleen must be alone with this Terence come to life 
 again. He would not be intruding on her. "Tell her I under- 
 stand," was his message. He could not trust himself to say 
 more. If there was jealousy in his heart he smothered it. 
 
 He went back to the camp, and to his work. However it 
 was at the moment with her and with the child, he knew the 
 
 188
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 time would come when she would want a man beside her. 
 They were both so frail, she and her boy; and it seemed to him 
 they were both so helpless. It made him glad in his strength, 
 for they had no one but him to shelter them. His love went 
 out to them both, and made a man of him. That new manhood 
 yearned for his mate, and his dreams were full of her. He 
 dreamed that her eyes would lighten at his coming, had he not 
 already seen them lighten at his coming? And sometimes, 
 in those hot, lonely nights, he saw great welcoming eyes, and 
 felt the touch of timid lips. In his dreams during these tropical, 
 restless nights, he heard her whisper that she needed him, even 
 as he needed her, that she had done with grieving, that now 
 she knew he had loved her all the time, that she had done with 
 grieving for the dead, that she was very young, and needed 
 love; and ... in his dreams she nestled in his arms. His 
 spirit and his flesh leaped to her, and yearned for her. She had 
 suffered, it was healing she would find in his arms. He had 
 always loved her; and what could come between them, since 
 Terence's son should be his son? Already he loved him for 
 his father's blue eyes and sunny hair. 
 
 But Rosaleen's dreams were different. She turned her face 
 from her baby, up there in her bed at the mission house, always 
 her eyes were averted from him. And when perforce they fell 
 upon him, they saw through tears. Deny might have forgotten; 
 that was what she had thought. He might have forgotten, for- 
 given . . . but here were the blue eyes and red hair to re- 
 mind him. Now Derry could never forget. 
 
 They were not blue eyes and sunny hair, that had won her 
 heart in that summer past. She knew it now, if she had never 
 known it before. It was not the young sun-god, with his 
 gaiety and wheedling ways, that she had loved. It was gay he 
 was, and masterful, and at Ranmore no one could deny Ran- 
 more's lord. She had seen his mother's eyes strain after him 
 
 " When his foot went forth at morn, 
 Like a dancer in his Uitheness" 
 
 But she had never strained her eyes to see him pass. What 
 13 189
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 had come upon her through him had come in ignorance. In 
 her wild weeping now she said that he had been selfish and 
 cruel, and her thought of him was one burning flush and agony 
 of resentment and shame. She clenched her hands and set 
 her teeth when she thought of it, burying her face in the pillow, 
 writhing from her memories. Terence was not like him who 
 had chased her through the woods on that moonlight night. 
 Derry, with his long limbs and his great shoulders, and his 
 gentle, halting tongue; him that she knew now was all the 
 lover or husband she had wanted. She was slow to take her 
 baby to her breast, she came reluctantly to her motherhood. 
 
 Ben watched and wondered. If, now, he would force her 
 confidence it was because her strength was not returning to her. 
 
 "You ain't doing me no credit, and that's about the size of 
 it," he told her one day. "You're fretting. You wouldn't 
 like to tell me what you are fretting about, I suppose?" 
 
 He was sitting by her bedside, and he laid his hand on her 
 wrist when he asked it. His nasal voice was surprisingly gentle. 
 His practised eye, no less than the hand on her pulse, told him 
 that all was not well with his patient. She flushed under his 
 eyes, a delicate rose-tint of a flush spread about her paleness; 
 then she turned her face away from him. 
 
 "I guess Derry is lonely, back there in the camp, without 
 you? If you don't get better quicker than this I shall have to 
 order you right away to Bangkok, without seeing him at all. 
 Or shall I send for him here, and see if his treatment would 
 be better for you than mine?" 
 
 He waited for his answer. The baby was nearly three 
 weeks old, and all that time Derry had not once ridden the two 
 or three hours that lay between him and his wife and child. 
 Brother Ben could not understand it at all. It was not curi- 
 osity he had about it, only the knowledge that there was some- 
 thing amiss, and a beautiful desire to help. He had been sent 
 into the world to help his brothers and sisters; that was his 
 whole creed. 
 
 "I'll send right along for him if you say the word. You are 
 crying in the night, and sometimes in the day. It ain't good 
 
 190
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 for you, and it ain't good for the baby. I 'm Brother Ben Whip- 
 pell, I went through deep waters before I came out here, I'll 
 tell you about it some day, if ever you care to hear. I 'd like 
 to lend you a hand to get through, if you are in the floods. 
 Hold on to my hand, if it is any good to you; pull yourself on 
 your feet through holding on to me. There ain't no saying 
 what a friendly hand can do, until you're holding on to it. 
 I'm talking in the dark, since you're keeping me there" 
 he kept his hand on her wrist "but I'm a man that's been 
 through ..." 
 
 She was not crying now, although the eyes she turned on him 
 were wan and sunken with tears. 
 
 "I guess Derry's lonesome up at the camp, waiting for your 
 message." 
 
 "It's not Derry will be wanting to hear from me." 
 
 "What makes you think that? I guess you've made a bad 
 hit this time; you're wide of the bull's-eye. 'Just let me know, 
 and I'll come along the moment she sends for me,' that was 
 what Derry said, and he said that 'he understood.' ' 
 
 "He said that?" 
 
 "He did indeed, he said just that. I'm Brother Ben Whip- 
 pell, ain't he been good to you?" 
 
 At that she turned to him wildly. 
 
 "Good to me! Good to me! It's an angel Derry's been 
 to me! It's a saint of a man he is!" And then burst out 
 crying again. "It's me that's ashamed!" 
 
 Ben thought he had the cue. The best of men make their 
 mistakes, but when good men make mistakes, they do little 
 harm with them. 
 
 "If" his voice was gender than any woman's "if he loved 
 you too much . . . too soon, and now that he ain't here, 
 and you've had pain and suffering through it, you're bearing 
 him malice; just think what it must be to him, up there, 
 alone, thinking of it. He is sorry, I'll bet he is sorry. He 
 walked up and down all the night, he never went to bed, he 
 could not rest." 
 
 "Oh, don't, don't!" She covered her ears. 
 
 191
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "Don't be thinking all the time about yourself, now. Think 
 of that time you were with him together in the camp, killing 
 yourself that he should miss nothing. You love him, you 
 know you love him." 
 
 "Ah!" she burst out crying: "I love him . . .it's him 
 that ..." The sobs interrupted her; but Ben finished her 
 sentence. 
 
 "That loves you. Don't doubt it. 7 know. When you've 
 been through waters, you get to know things ..." 
 
 "But when he sees him?" she said wildly, she sat up in bed, 
 and her eyes and voice were wild. " When he sets his eyes on 
 him, and remembers ... All the time we 've been together lately, 
 he 's forgotten. But what '11 he say when he sees him? . . . ' 
 
 "What is it you are talking about? Don't you know he has 
 seen him?" 
 
 Less and less Ben understood, more and more he wanted to 
 help. He could see fear in her wild eyes, but love was there, 
 too; surely love was there. 
 
 "Has seen him?" 
 
 "To be sure. Held him in his arms, kissed him." 
 
 "Derryr 
 
 "That's so. Why, it was when he held him in his arms that 
 he sent you that message. Tell her 'I understand,' he said." 
 
 "The saint of a man!" she gasped out. But now there was 
 no longer fear in her eyes, they glowed with some emotion 
 he could not understand. 
 
 "The saint of a man he is! Tell me all he said, every word; 
 and how he looked tell me! . . ." 
 
 She was so agitated, excited, insistent, Ben began to fear 
 for her. She turned quite white, he thought she was going to 
 faint. He took the pillow from under her head and made her 
 lie quite flat as he went on talking. 
 
 "I'll tell you every word. You're scaring me with your 
 dough face. I wonder what you've been conjuring up. Now, 
 what made you think he would go away without seeing his 
 son? . . .I'll leave off talking if you don't lie still! Did 
 you think he would be ashamed of him then, a fine, great boy 
 
 192
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 like that?" The painful flush that spread over the pallor, 
 confirmed him in his mistake. He went on, "If he has come 
 a little before his time, Berry's welcome had to be warmer. 
 I guess he thought you might chill him. Deny just gathered 
 him up in his arms, and warmed and cradled him there." 
 
 "Is it truth you're tellin' me? Is it truth?" 
 
 "He cradled him there in his arms, I've never seen a man 
 handier. I pulled the flannel off his head, so that he should 
 see him properly, and the young flapper opened his eyes. 'It's 
 heaven he's got between the lids of him!' Deny whispered. 
 He knew Who had sent the child to you," Ben added softly. 
 It was so easy to forget he was a missionary, it was only Ben 
 himself who never forgot he had a message to give, even 
 although he knew, too, that there were times and seasons for 
 delivering it. Rosaleen only said feverishly: 
 
 "Go on, go on! Tell me everything he said and did." 
 
 "After he had said it was heaven he'd got between his lids, 
 he stooped and kissed him." 
 
 "Kissed him?" Now, for the first time, it was the mother- 
 look that came into her eyes. Ben got up and took the sleeping 
 bundle from the cradle, laying it beside her. She turned over 
 on her side, and gathered it in her arms. "He kissed him!" 
 she said, wonderingly, under her breath. 
 
 " That was the first time he saw him. The second time . . . " 
 
 "Derry saw him twice?" 
 
 "Waal, there ain't nothing out of the way in that, is there ? 
 The last time he saw him was the day before he went away. 
 'Ain't he just growing?' he said. Then he took him over to 
 the window and looked at him quite a long time. He ain't 
 ashamed of him. 'He's a red Ranmore,' Derry said. 'They 
 say up at Ranmore it's the sun shines brighter when a red 
 Ranmore is born.' 'You're proud of him?' I asked. 'It's 
 proud of him I'll be,' he answered simply. Then he laid him 
 on the pillow in the easy chair, as if he'd been used to handling 
 babies all his life. And I saw him kneeling down ... I 
 didn't stay after that. If he was putting up a prayer for him, 
 if he had any cause to reproach himself. ..." 
 
 193
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "Oh, no, no, no! not him, not Deny!" 
 
 "I left* him on his knees by the boy. That's when we don't 
 want no doctor. I guess if he puts up a prayer it's going to be 
 answered. When I came back he had him in his arms again. 
 Nurse Ward said you were stirring, and we did not want you to 
 wake and find him gone. Deny had him up against his face. 
 He kissed him before he gave him back to me. ' It's proud and 
 fond of him I'll be,' he said, almost as if to himself. ..." 
 
 It was the doctor, not the missionary in him, that watched the 
 color returning to lips and cheek. If all the time he was talking 
 under a mistake, he was effecting all the good that would have 
 been done had he known the facts. 
 
 "You've brought me life," was what she said when he rose. 
 He knew it was time to go. She seized his hand, and would 
 have kissed it. "It's life you've brought me," she said as he 
 drew it away, patting her shoulder instead. 
 
 He never knew the truth, but then he had no curiosity. The 
 spirit that moved him was truly the spirit of Christ, and it was His 
 work of healing he tried to do in the world, healing of both body 
 and soul. Some day the life of Brother Ben Whippell will be 
 written, but the writer worthy of the task will have to be found. 
 
 After he had left her, Rosaleen lay conscious of nothing but 
 a rush of thanksgiving. All that dreadful time at Wat Poh Pra 
 she had been upheld by Derry's words, "We'll be happy together 
 some day . . . Say you think so, too." But, after she had seen 
 Terence's child, she could not think so. Surely he would always 
 be between them. But now that cloud had passed away. It 
 was her weakness that had brought it about, perhaps. Now 
 her tears were tears of thanksgiving. What a man Deny was! 
 What a saint among men! And he had kissed the baby, and 
 said it was heaven he saw shining through his eyes. Rosaleen 
 could see it now now the mother in her was awakening. 
 
 From that day Ben began to see the improvement in his 
 patient, and once begun it made quick headway. He did not 
 ask her again whether he should send for Deny. That could 
 wait. If there had been a flaw in the understanding between 
 them, and he was shy of coming to her, or she of sending for 
 
 194
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 him, time would be the best mediator. Ben did not know exactly 
 what he had said, or how it had affected her, but he knew that 
 once again it had been vouchsafed to him to be of service. Ben 
 Whippell was quite happy as he saw Rosaleen growing stronger 
 day by day, and the baby thriving, too. He could go about his 
 Master's business again; there was no young thing lying, broken 
 and unhappy in his house. He heard her singing to her baby 
 now, sweet Irish lullabies. It gladdened him in his work. 
 There was nothing more to be said between them. 
 
 The young mother that was waking in Rosaleen was very like 
 other young mothers. The baby's eyes were still a miracle of 
 blueness, but he had nibbed off some of the red down, and the 
 soft head was almost bald. There was no doubt his hair would 
 grow again, Nurse Ward assured her. She was anxious about 
 it, it seemed so strange it should have disappeared. She was not 
 satisfied without consulting Ben, and getting Ben's grave re- 
 assurance that he was not always going to be bald, and that the 
 occurrence was not unusual. Of course, already he was unlike 
 any other baby, and she had a surprising knack with him. 
 She was singing lullabies to him, but she and her heart were 
 singing low. It was still a waiting-time with her, although now 
 it was a glad waiting-time. She was shy of sending, but she 
 knew Derry would come to her. It was the first time she had 
 ever sought her glass. Now she thought about her looks. She 
 had not much reason to be dissatisfied, for, as soon as she was 
 strong enough, Ben made her spend all her days in the open air, 
 most of them by that unfamiliar, tideless sea. Unfamiliar and 
 tideless it was, though the wind, that stirred it so gently, kissed 
 her lips to coral, and turned the eggshell white of her skin 
 to fine ivory. All nature came to her aid to prepare her for 
 Derry's coming. 
 
 For, of course, Derry was coming. Mysteriously he knew it 
 was time, there is no saying how the knowledge came to him, 
 but certainly it was there. He rode up, and she saw him while 
 he was still a long way off. She got out of the house, and ran 
 down to the sea. It was there he found her, an hour or so later, 
 when he had had his bath, and changed his clothes. He was 
 
 195
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 quite excited, and the blood rushed to his head, for everything 
 had changed between them, he did not know how. His dreams 
 had led him a long way; he went to meet her with outstretched 
 arms. But they fell to his side again. She looked so beautiful. 
 Her eyes fell before his, and he could not see the gladness in 
 them, and now he was afraid. Neither of them had words for 
 greeting. 
 
 " You've been up to the house ?" She spoke first, as a woman 
 will. 
 
 " Yes. They told me I'd find you by the sea." 
 
 "It's rare and pleasant by the sea." 
 
 "It's made you look fine." 
 
 They walked up to the house side by side, hardly speaking 
 together more than that; the silence of deep feeling was on them 
 both. And yet they did not understand each other well enough 
 to be quite silent. They were shy of what was between them, 
 unconscious what it was. Deny was tongue-tied and stammer- 
 ing; more than once he said she looked fine. And his eyes said 
 it oftener, and more eloquently. He could not keep his eyes 
 from her, not during that walk up to the house, nor after- 
 ward. 
 
 Ben was waiting for them on the veranda, and his welcome 
 was not wanting in warmth; he saw they were shy with each 
 other, and through that evening meal, when he was talking, and 
 making his effort to release Derry's halting tongue, he noted 
 that her eyes were averted, and her color came and went, that 
 her husband's eyes were never off her, and the flush rose some- 
 times to his forehead. But presently they were all talking 
 together, notwithstanding, for Ben had the gift of being host. 
 Rosaleen's spirits rose with Berry's account of the troubles 
 there had been in the camp since she left, of how he had eaten 
 the last chicken and been eggless ever after; of the famous effort 
 of the coolies to make the bread the "mem" had made; of the 
 state in which it had been served up to him; of the cook "boy" 
 who had given notice, but been forbidden to leave; and of how, 
 while the rest of the servants were sleeping or eating, he had 
 lifted up a plank in the sala, when he was supposed to be prepar- 
 
 196
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 ing the evening meal, and had slipped through, disappearing 
 from under the piles. 
 
 There was talk of the state of the roads, and of the native 
 methods, and of the rice crops. The talk came easily, then with 
 difficulty; and there were intervals of silence which even Ben 
 Whippell found it difficult to bridge. Three was an awkward 
 number. Yet they both seemed to prefer it to a tite-b-tete. 
 He said it was a wonderful night, the moon would be lying like 
 a silver net over the tree-tops and on the surface of the sea, he 
 would go to the veranda for a smoke after supper. But Rosaleen 
 made a quick excuse to slip up to the baby. Deny joined him 
 on the veranda immediately and pulled out his pipe. Derry 
 said he must be riding back soon. He and Rosaleen had said 
 *'good night" at the door. 
 
 Ben thought the time had come when he must cease to be 
 hospitable. 
 
 "When are you taking them away from us?" he asked Derry, 
 carelessly, when he gave him a light. "You've finished your 
 job here, ain't you ? You'll be going back to Bangkok, I surmise. 
 Why don't you take them both up to the Missionaries at Petcha- 
 buri for a few days? Make a sort of second honeymoon of it?" 
 He was holding the match for Derry; he saw that the hand that 
 held the pipe was not quite steady. "You'll have the place to 
 yourselves for the best part of a week. They are all going 
 up to the Congress. You'll find everything very com- 
 fortable. ..." 
 
 "If she'll come with me," stammered Derry, with the flush 
 mounting, never stopping to query what Ben would make of 
 the doubt. Ben had no doubt she would go with him. He 
 thought it well they should be alone together. 
 
 Two or three days more Rosaleen stayed here by the sea, 
 while Derry went back and finished his work. On Saturday 
 they would make the first stage of their journey to Bangkok, 
 halting for a few days at the Missionaries'. Both of them he 
 at Wat Poh Pra, and she during long days by the sea, long nights 
 lying tremblingly awake were facing the prospect of being 
 alone together. Both of them were facing it with shifting color 
 
 197
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 and unsteady pulses. Everything would be different from what 
 it had been before. What would it be now, that life they were 
 going to face together? Deny knew what he hoped it would 
 be, what he meant it should be. Rosaleen did not allow her- 
 self to think over much. She only knew the world was 
 beautiful. 
 
 An hour or two before they started Deny knocked at Rosa- 
 leen's bedroom door. 
 
 "Can I come in?" 
 
 "Come in!" She was standing at the window, with the baby 
 in her arms, saying good-bye to the palms and the blue sea 
 beyond them, a silent good-bye. She turned her face to him 
 when she saw him enter. If she blushed he did not notice it; 
 she was always beautiful in his eyes. The room was in some 
 disorder, for she had been packing up, and now boxes were 
 corded and everything was ready. He was in a hurry, and 
 what he wanted to say had to be said in a hurry, with no signifi- 
 cance in it. He was acting on impulse again, quick 
 impulse. 
 
 "Brother Ben wants to christen the boy before we start. 
 You don't mind, do you? He asked me what name we'd be 
 calling him by. I said there had been Terences at Ranmore 
 before Saint Patrick. We'll be calling him Terence, I told him. 
 Will you bring him down? Nurse Ward wants to be godmother, 
 and then there's Brother Ben and myself . . . " 
 
 Derry was breathless and hurried, holding the door open. 
 He wanted to get the naming over. He hated to see the fear 
 come into her eyes when he spoke Terence's name, so he avoided 
 her eyes. But had he not avoided them, and had they not been 
 downcast, he would have seen there was no fear in them, only 
 hope. 
 
 "It's Terence then we'll call him," she said, as she went by 
 him to the door. Her color was high as she passed him, but 
 there was no sorrow in her eyes, and her voice was quite steady. 
 He put out an arresting arm, and the flush deepened. His 
 voice went hoarse; he did not know what to say to her when she 
 was standing near him like this. 
 
 198
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "You're not sorry to be going away with me?" 
 They were such beautiful eyes she raised to him, and the 
 flush made her face like a wonderful flower. He could only 
 say again, "You're not sorry?" It was all so wonderful. 
 
 She gave him a quick look. No! she was not sorry. Then 
 she was out of the door. They must not keep Ben waiting.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THEY stood side by side while Ben read the service and 
 Deny made his responses. Possibly his mind was not 
 concentrated on what he was saying. This was the 
 beginning of his love story, he had seen the light in her eyes. 
 It was a girl she looked to-day with her star-centered eyes, and 
 the flush on her cheeks, and his heart leaped to her. While he 
 was saying his responses, and hearing Ben's voice, he felt the 
 flush of his manhood upon him, and his pulses rose and 
 fell. They were going away together, and it was love that lay 
 before him. The whisper of it went through him like the whisper 
 of spring at Ranmore, when the brown trees put forth the crum- 
 pled green of the first young leaves, when the water rushes down 
 from the mountain to the welcoming lake, and daffodil and violet 
 push their way through the ground to meet the sun's first wooing, 
 when the lush grass waves like corn in the soft April breezes, 
 and the clambering rose trees throw out their eager shoots. 
 
 "And He took them up in His arms, put His hands upon them 
 and blessed them." 
 
 These were the words that he heard, but he was thinking, as 
 she moved across the room, of the buoyancy and spring in her 
 walk, and the new young slenderness. She had run from him 
 down the stairs with the old swiftness of foot. This was the 
 girl he had wooed. 
 
 They took leave of Ben, and of Nurse Ward. Rosaleen 
 would have kissed Ben's hand, so grateful was she to him, but 
 he kissed her cheek instead, and Deny envied him! Yet he 
 knew his time was coming. Every moment his spirits rose. 
 He told Ben how grateful he was for all his goodness to his wife 
 and child. He watched Rosaleen out of the tail of his eye when 
 he said it, and rejoiced at the pink embarrassment he saw. He 
 kissed Nurse Ward, saying he did not see why Ben should have 
 
 200
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 all the privileges. And all the time he was watching Rosaleen. 
 She was going away with him. They were at the beginning of 
 everything. He was like a man starting on his wedding journey. 
 Even Ben was startled at his spirits, and her silence, and the 
 happiness that seemed to illuminate both of them. They did 
 not look upon each other, although their supreme consciousness 
 of each other's presence was so patent throughout that leave- 
 taking. 
 
 Again Derry rode and she drove. This time the road seemed 
 less uneven, the heat was not so trying, and through the sun and 
 the heat of that new day happiness drove with her, seeming to 
 ease the heavy wheels with rubber tires, and changed the wooden 
 supports of the wagon into C springs. He rode by her side, 
 behind or in front of the wagon. But a dozen times that day 
 he asked if she were comfortable, if she wanted anything, if she 
 would get out and walk a space with him. 
 
 The house in Missionary Land near Petchaburi was empty, 
 and awaited their coming. Ben's wife and daughter had gone 
 home for a while, back to Tecsumah; the rest of the mission 
 party were at the Congress in Bangkok. Derry and Rosaleen 
 had the place to themselves, not only the house, but the generous 
 garden, and practically the whole small mission station. From 
 the very moment they arrived there, from the very first night, he 
 began to woo her. Perhaps the wooing had begun before, but 
 now it was conscious wooing. Both of them were conscious of 
 it all the time. She was his wife, had nursed him through 
 illness, shared solitude and hardship with him; yet never a 
 touch had he laid upon her lips, nor had his hand sought her 
 waist. 
 
 The first day or two here he was a little humble, as befits the 
 perfect lover, and a little bold, as befits him, too. And when 
 he was humble, and pressed his suit lightly, thinking to give her 
 time, and not play the tyrant with her, she thought she had been 
 mistaken, and held herself more aloof. And when he was bold, 
 with his eyes, or, perhaps, with a hand on her shoulder, or a 
 quick arm about her waist, she was off and away from him, full 
 of fear. Sometimes the old pain throbbed in her, lest he be think- * 
 
 201
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 ing lightly of her. Always she knew she would give her life, 
 and her immortal soul for him. The trembling at the touch 
 of him, that he, or she, mistook for fear, was more of the nature 
 of an ecstasy. It was something beyond happiness that was 
 coming to her, the exquisite joy of it touched pain. Always she 
 ran away from it, but it was not far that she ran. 
 
 That was how the first two days passed. This house, too, 
 had a veranda, the very pattern of the one at Bangkok, where 
 she had sat quietly by Derry's side and done her needlework. 
 But she did little needlework these two days. It was she who 
 was restless now, more restless than he. She was forever 
 avoiding these ttte-a-Utes, or seeking them. There was a ham- 
 mock on the veranda. Deny said it was too high for her to 
 get into unaided. 
 
 "Let me swing you up." 
 
 "I'm too heavy for you." 
 
 "Why, it's no weight at all you are!" 
 
 "I can get up by myself. Let me be." 
 
 She fluttered like a bird between his hands. He held her the 
 tighter. 
 
 "I never thought you were so light." 
 
 "Let me go, Derry." 
 
 All the ivory and white of her skin were flushed with the wild 
 blushes that came and went. 
 
 "I like to be holding you," he whispered. "I like to be 
 feeling you in my arms," 
 
 But she escaped from him that time. She made him set 
 her down. It was seldom afterward that she found herself 
 safe; his arms were so long. 
 
 "It's needing support you are . . . you are not strong 
 yet," he told her. It seemed to her that she was always blush- 
 ing. To him there was nothing sweeter than the confusion he 
 could bring upon her. Now he began to tell her about her 
 looks, about her gray eyes that had stars in them, about the 
 pink, thin lips, that smiled until the dimple came and played in 
 the corners of her mouth; of her eyebrows that were like little 
 dark feathers, moved by her changing expressions as feathers 
 
 202
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 in the wind. Then he thought that was a bad simile, and 
 sought for another. They were like a delicate etching. He 
 must lay a finger on them to see of they would rub out. Her 
 face went down, and he made it shelter on his shoulder. 
 
 "And the hair of you," he whispered, "is like the trees at 
 Ranmore." 
 
 He put his face down upon it, it was soft hair, he could bury 
 his face in the abundance of it. It was loose, and waved back 
 from her face, the great knot at the back seemed as if no hair- 
 pins could hold its weight. "You remember that night in the 
 woods, when it was all about you like a shawl? You'll let it 
 down one day, and let me see. . . ." But she wrested herself 
 from him. 
 
 That evening Derry said he was too far off from her if he 
 faced her across the table for dinner. Nothing would serve him 
 but to bring his chair beside hers. 
 
 "You may be wanting something passed to you," he said, 
 coolly, although he was not cool at all. "It's over-exerting 
 yourself you are with that great dish in front of you." With 
 the coolies in the room she could say nothing, but only make 
 way for him beside her. Her quickened heart-beat, and the 
 feeling she had that there was storm in the air, took away her 
 appetite. All that evening was full of thrills and excitements, 
 of sudden flushes; every word he said had subtle meanings. 
 She felt the storm that was in the air, and that there was some 
 strange glory of sunset beyond it. When she was a child she 
 had heard of the pot of gold that lay at the end of the rainbow. 
 After dinner the storm came. He put both those strong arms 
 about her, and swore he could not let her go. He said her cheek 
 was as soft as a baby's. Can a man taste and not hunger? 
 His lips lingered, and now it was hers they had found and 
 forced. He let her go before he had done more than know how 
 they trembled and grew hot beneath his own. 
 
 Afterward they sat in a new silence. Surely, it was no 
 longer dark. Surely, they were in the arc of the rainbow, and 
 all the lights and colors lay about them more beautiful than 
 gold; it enwrapped them with its radiance, and it was they 
 
 203
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 that were part of it She did not know how it was she found 
 herself in his arms again, but she was trembling there, held 
 close and exquisitely afraid. 
 
 "Are you frightened of me for long?" he whispered. "You've 
 need to be. I can't wait longer." His breath was in her 
 ear, and the whisper went through her. They were unknown 
 feelings he stirred with that warm breath that she felt tingling 
 in the crown of her head, and in the soles of her feet. "It's 
 hungry for you I am. I want my wife my wife, Rosaleen. 
 I've been so patient. ..." 
 
 It was such a short week they passed together at that little 
 isolated Missionary Station, but the emotions of a lifetime were 
 concentrated in it. Even now she could hardly believe that 
 Derry cared for her. Expression was always rare and difficult 
 to her, but feeling deepened, and deepened, until it was the 
 spring from which life itself was fed. Derry accepted what 
 had come to him more lightly, there was so much of the boy 
 still in him. He had come into his own, and that was enough. 
 But he would not let her be out of his sight, nor out of the reach 
 of his arms for very long. He was boyishly in love with her, 
 and patently happy, bubbling over with good spirits and easy 
 talk, always a wonder to her with his exuberance. 
 
 They had to return to Bangkok at the end of the week, but 
 were loth to go. 
 
 "Our honeymoon is over," Rosaleen said, as they watched 
 the stars together on the last night here. 
 
 "And that's what it will never be ... all our life is going 
 to be honeymoon." She was never beyond reach of his arms, 
 and now her cheek lay against his. 
 
 "It's all our life will be honeymoon," he repeated. His 
 breath was soft on her ear, and his lips on her cheek. 
 
 "You're meaning that?" she whispered. 
 
 "An' you're knowing it as well as I do." 
 
 \
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 EMMA BIDDLE had done all and more than she had 
 promised in protecting the bungalow at Bangkok 
 from the native servants, and the native vermin. The 
 veranda was gay with flowers and Chinese cushions. There 
 were white curtains up in the windows. Emma had neglected 
 nothing for their home-coming, and, of course, she and Sydney 
 were their first visitors. Never had there been so successful an 
 experiment, the Biddies thought. 
 
 "They might have been married yesterday for the way he 
 looks at her, and she at him." So Emma told Sydney after the 
 visit was over. "It was the best idea we ever had, to separate 
 them for a bit, and then send her up after him." 
 
 She took to herself the entire credit for the happiness that 
 was so unmistakable about both of them; and certainly, if 
 intention were to count, she deserved the pleasure she got out 
 of the supposition. She was delighted with the baby, too. 
 Derry and Rosaleen had to school themselves not to mind the 
 exclamations of wonderment that it should be so fair. That 
 red fairness was the shadow on the horizon of Rosaleen 's happi- 
 ness. She could not credit all at once that Derry had no retro- 
 spective jealousy. She was jealous for him, of him. Already, 
 in these first weeks after the return to Bangkok, she began to 
 doubt whether he loved her with one tithe of the love she felt 
 for him. He could talk of it so easily; she could hardly talk 
 of it at all. The past, of which neither of them spoke, seemed 
 to Rosaleen to be with them all the time in the house. Derry 
 played with the baby, and her own love for the child grew with 
 its growth ; but the likeness to its dead father was as an accusing 
 finger, pointing scorn at her. She would cover his face some- 
 times, then snatch him to her in remorse. She was a gentle 
 mother, but wifehood was her crown and glory. 
 14 205
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Notwithstanding the shadow, she was more able now to play 
 her part in the social life at Bangkok. Derry taught her tennis, 
 and she was an apt pupil. She could dance as lightly as the 
 rest. Flirtation she never learned, and she was always a lit'tle 
 shy of compliment, and chary of intimacy. She had no con- 
 fidant, she could not gossip as the other women did. The 
 misconception which had grown up about her, that she was 
 proud, that she gave herself airs, had just this much foundation 
 for it. Emma and Sydney Biddle were the only friends she had, 
 the rest were acquaintances. And, as she was Lady Ranmore, 
 and titles were scarce, although snobs were always plentiful, 
 the suppositious exclusiveness created a certain amount of 
 enmity; although perhaps, enmity is too strong a word. She 
 stood a little aloof from these people, and they from her. She 
 was invited to functions, but not to intimate parties. As she 
 was so much happier alone with Derry than in any society, 
 large or small, it never hurt her to hear she had been left out. 
 That was the only effect of her so-called exclusiveness until Mr. 
 and Mrs. Frederick Huxted came from Turkey to Bangkok. 
 
 Of Frederick Huxted little need be said, except that he had 
 been unfortunate in his marriage, as all the men might con- 
 sider themselves unfortunate who had married one of the 
 Ayscough sisters. Mossy Leon up in London, who had married 
 Ethel Ayscough, knew how to find compensations for any 
 deficiencies in his married life. Frederick Huxted, who was 
 in the Consular Service, had no compensation. Every appoint- 
 ment that he had was inferior to the last. His wife's tongue 
 rasped his chances, it left some unhealthy places on his character, 
 and the character itself had weakened and deteriorated under 
 its wounds. Frederick Huxted expected Yokohama, but was 
 given Siam. At Bangkok Mrs. Frederick Huxted began to 
 have grievances. One of her greatest grievances was that 
 Lady Ranmore had not called upon her, as she should have 
 done. 
 
 The transcription of part of a letter received by Mrs. Mossy 
 Leon will give the gist of the matter: 
 
 "Ellaline wrote me an awfully funny account of your aristo- 
 
 206
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 cratic dinner party last year, and of Lady Ranmore, who drank 
 her soup out of her plate, or something like that. Well, strangely 
 enough, the first people we came across up here were these 
 very Ranmores. I told Mrs. Biddle she is the wife of the head 
 of the English Survey Department, rather a commonish person 
 that Lord Ranmore had married beneath him. But, at a place 
 like this, one cannot afford to be as particular as one could be 
 at home. Of course, dear, it is not quite the same with you, 
 having married a Jew, and all that. I didn't mean that you 
 should be more particular. In fact, I told Ellaline, when I 
 answered her letter, that although it must have been a great 
 shock for you, and quite spoiled your party, she ought not to 
 twit you about it. I think it is wonderful who you get to come 
 to your house, considering. But about these Ranmores: I called 
 upon them because I feel that in my position I am bound to 
 show a certain amount of civility to all the English colony. 
 Lord Ranmore is in the Survey Department. She has not 
 returned my call yet, but what can one expect from that sort 
 of person? I hear, by the way, that they were living on very 
 bad terms before Sydney Biddle contrived a sort of separation, 
 and sent them up to Petchaburi. They are the talk of the 
 place now for the way they flaunt having made up their differ- 
 ences. They've got a little carroty baby, to whom he is quite 
 devoted. But what I want to know about it is, who she was, 
 and why they are so poor. They have quite a small bungalow, 
 less than half a dozen coolies, and he works at the drawing 
 office of the Survey Department as if he really had his living to 
 earn." 
 
 Ethel, who received the letter on the eve of a new campaign 
 in the London season, quite appreciated its sisterliness; but she 
 was too much occupied for resentment. Ethel Leon pursued 
 the "Season" as Lancelot the Holy Grail. She was often in 
 sight of the treasure, but never quite came up to it. In April 
 the menservants had fresh liveries, the carriages new varnish, 
 extra horses were bought. In May she complained to her 
 West Kensington acquaintances, whom she invited to meet 
 each other, that "people came back so late from the Riviera 
 
 207
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 now." The private view at the Royal Academy gave her 
 some opportunity for seeing Society people, and she had just 
 imagination enough to think that she knew the well-known 
 people she saw. In June she complained of the new habit 
 of "week-ending" that kept people out of London. In July she 
 would announce to her sisters that there was a positive rush 
 of engagements, and that she was beginning to feel over-tired. 
 At the end of July, however, and during the whole month of 
 August, her prospects always improved. Mossy was able to 
 bring quite smart men to the house men whose wives and 
 daughters had already left town. Ethel's real London Season 
 was in August. But she never ceased to hope that her parties 
 would be chronicled, and her dresses described in the papers. 
 
 Bianca's letter reached her in May, when expectation was at 
 its highest, and her good temper represented her hopes. Mossy, 
 too, was at his best in his home-life just then, for he had dis- 
 covered the most wonderful little dancer in the world, and the 
 wonderful little dancer was accepting diamonds, rings, and 
 bracelets from him. At such times Mossy was always most 
 liberal and most amiable to his wife. 
 
 They were dining alone when Bianca's letter came from 
 Siam. Ethel said she was always glad of a night off. She 
 had many of these nights off, and spent them in the sedulous 
 exercise of massage, in the care of her complexion, in going to 
 bed early. Mossy generally went out after dinner. Having to 
 see Nat Simons on business was a convenient excuse. 
 
 There had been no subject for dispute between them this 
 evening. Even for Mossy, he had been exceptionally generous 
 to her this season. She had not been presented at Court, but 
 she had a beautiful new brooch from Carrier's. They were at 
 their domestic best. 
 
 "I had a letter from Bianca to-day," she began. "They 
 don't seem to know what to do about recognizing the Ranmores." 
 
 "Why on earth shouldn't they recognize the Ranmores? 
 What's the matter with the Ranmores? He is a charming 
 fellow. I don't know when I've taken such a fancy to 
 anyone." 
 
 208
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Ethel had an unfortunate harsh note in her laughter, a high, 
 cultivated note that had come in when it was the fashion to 
 shake hands in imitation of the village pump. She did not 
 know that the laughter and the hand-shake were both out of 
 date. 
 
 "You did not take a fancy to her, did you? She must have 
 been a servant, I should think, she had absolutely no style at 
 all!" 
 
 "Good God! Style! What rot you talk. She was abso- 
 lutely one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen. As for 
 being a servant, she is the daughter of the Ranmore land-agent, 
 who was shot when collecting rents. I heard all about it the 
 other day. She became companion to Lady Ranmore. The 
 trouble with the family was that she and Derry did a bolt. It 
 was immediately after the cousin's funeral, when the Dowager, 
 his mother, thought that everyone should have been wailing 
 and keening for Terence in chorus, thinking of nothing else but 
 him. I suppose it's just possible they had no choice about it. 
 But that view of the case does not seem to have struck anyone 
 else. ..." 
 
 "I wish you would not be so coarse." 
 
 "Oh! coarse, is it? Well, perhaps you're right. Nature is 
 disgustingly coarse, too, sometimes; that's why I hate the coun- 
 try. Anyway, he married her as soon as he was able. I expect 
 ours was the only house in London open to them then. But 
 if what I am working at comes off, there won't be anywhere 
 they can't go when they come back." 
 
 "What are you working at?" 
 
 "There is a fortune down at that place of Berry's. There 
 is coal enough to warm the whole country. I can't get a scut- 
 tleful out without the old dowager's consent, confound her! 
 But Carruthers can't checkmate me for ever." 
 
 "Then they'll be very rich some day? Bianca writes to 
 know why they are so poor." 
 
 "They are so poor now because Derry is Don Quixote, and a 
 damned clever woman has got hold of him." 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 209
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "Ask Lady Carrie Carthew what becomes of half Derry's 
 money to-day, what will become of it when he gets hold of some 
 more." 
 
 "Lady Carrie!" 
 
 Mossy was always a little incautious in his talk. He had 
 no idea of making mischief when he told his wife about Derry 
 and Carrie Carthew. If he expatiated on the theme it was only 
 because he was so fond of talking, and forgot to take into con- 
 sideration the character of his audience. The Ranmores were 
 away, and he never dreamed of his wife writing to Bianca, 
 betraying the secret he had let out. Still less did he think to 
 what use Bianca would put her knowledge. It is difficult for 
 a man to gauge the length to which a malicious woman will go 
 to revenge a slight, fancied or real. 
 
 Once Ethel had started him on the subject, Mossy had gone 
 on talking about the Ranmores. It was very rarely that she 
 listened when he talked; perhaps that made him incautious. 
 Ethel was generally thinking about herself when Mossy talked 
 to her, it was the only subject upon which she could ever really 
 concentrate her mind. His wit never amused his wife. She 
 found it difficult to follow, and she was never sure it was quite 
 good form to be amusing. But she listened when he talked 
 about Lady Carrie and Lord Ranmore. She was glad she would 
 be able to impress Bianca with her knowledge of the Ranmore 
 affairs. She heard, too, from Mossy, of the ramifications of 
 the Ranmore estates, of the widow's jointure that "bled it." 
 He talked of the enormous claims that were being put forth by 
 Carruthers on behalf of the Dowager Lady Ranmore. The 
 estate was not entailed, and little but the castle went with the 
 title. It seemed Terence had been in the habit of signing 
 anything that was put before him. Carruthers, under the 
 pretense of protecting his client, had so complicated matters 
 that a lawsuit was almost inevitable. 
 
 "I'm damned if she isn't claiming against us for every stick 
 that has been stuck into the ground to strengthen a sapling, and 
 every nail that holds up a rotten beam. It seems that for years 
 her one hobby was to improve the estate. Now, I suppose 
 
 210
 
 because of this marriage, her one hobby is to ruin it. I can't 
 prospect for coal because she has sunk a shaft and done a few 
 hundred pounds' worth of work, getting a paper from her son, 
 her own son, mind you, giving her exclusive rights. We can't 
 collect the rents until we have settled her claim, because Car- 
 ruthers has issued a caveat, and every tenant has had notice that 
 there is an action pending, and they are not to pay to Derry's 
 representative. The place is falling again into rack and ruin. 
 She has stopped all the work that was being done. She is living 
 in Dublin, where she has some crack-brained scheme on hand 
 for endowing an orphanage to bear her son's name. Mean- 
 while, the only offer I can get from her is to rent the place for 
 a week in every year. They 've got a sort of mausoleum in the 
 woods there, and she wants to go and pray for her husband and 
 son. I'm going to stick out about that; it's the only lever I've 
 got. If she won't give up the coal concession, I'm damned 
 if she shall pray. They have not got Deny to deal with now." 
 
 Ethel had a gleam of intelligence. 
 
 "But you can't act for Lord Ranmore?" she asked. 
 
 "Why can't I? I've got his power of attorney. You don't 
 suppose I took a hand in the game without knowing that the 
 chips would be paid for, do you?" 
 
 When the brougham was announced, and Mossy had explained 
 the exigencies of a billiard handicap at his club Mossy was 
 always most explanatory when he was least candid when the 
 butler had helped him into his satin-lined overcoat, and the 
 footman had found him a light for his cigar, Ethel composed 
 herself to answer Bianca's letter. 
 
 Incidentally it is worth noting that, when this letter reached 
 Bangkok, Rosaleen had still not returned Mrs. Frederick 
 Huxted's call. 
 
 "My dear, I've had such a rush of people this week, it has 
 been difficult to find a moment to myself in which to answer 
 your letter. People are back later than ever from the Riviera 
 this year; but Lady Cowper is in town, and the Duchess has 
 passed through. I saw the Lonsdales the other day, and the 
 Albemarles ..." 
 
 211
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Ethel rarely told untruths, she had seen them all. 
 
 "Nearly all my own friends are back." 
 
 This non sequitur she easily permitted herself. "My friends" 
 were words that were often on Ethel Leon's lips, and on the 
 point of her pen, but she had really only acquaintances, and of 
 these she shed many annually, ridding herself of them as crus- 
 taceans of their worn-out shells. 
 
 "And, by the way, Lady Carrie Carthew is in London. How 
 funny of you to ask what becomes of the Ranmore rents. I 
 thought everybody knew about Lord Ranmore and Lady 
 Carrie. But then, dear, you are a little out of the world at 
 Bangkok, are you not ? How dreadful it must be for you to be 
 without any fixed home; I should simply hate it. I had my 
 drawing-room done over again for this season, the walls hung 
 with vieux-rose silk, set into white panels, carton pierre decora- 
 tions, and the floor parqueted. It's enormously admired, it 
 was done by the best firm in London; they have a Paris 
 house, too. Mossy has given me some wonderful new jewelry. 
 Not large stones large stones are quite out of fashion, the 
 setting is everything this year. My parure is all from Cartier 's. 
 I'm longing to show it to you. But apropos of the Ranmore 's, 
 if you can get them to know you, I strongly advise you to do so. 
 He will have quite a large fortune one day, and then she will be 
 received everywhere. Of course, if ever you get back to Lon- 
 don I shall do what I can for you, and introduce you to some 
 really nice people. But it would be so much easier if Fred 
 had been in the diplomatic service. I saw Ellaline this week. 
 I am so sorry for her; her menage is so impossible altogether. 
 People simply won't meet stock-brokers. I can't think why. 
 There has been a "slump," as they call it, and Tom is very 
 nearly ruined; they are talking of living in the country altogether. 
 In a way, I rather wish they would. Of course, I should miss 
 Ellaline, but I hate leaving her out of everything, and I can't 
 face that gray panne of hers. No one wears panne any more. 
 Dresses date so this season. ."
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THERE is a comparatively large English colony at 
 Bangkok, but almost every nation has its consular 
 representative. A babel of polyglot tongues is heard 
 in the streets, not only by the side of the mud-banks, the wharves, 
 and the jetties, where the floating Asiatic population of Chinese 
 and Malays, Annamites and Siamese dominate the river, but 
 up in the town, where there are Javanese, Singalese and Ben- 
 galee, men from Bombay, and gem-dealers from Burmah. 
 
 There are flagstaffs of many nations in so-called Consular 
 Bangkok. Consular Bangkok is distinguished by its veran- 
 dahed houses, its club, and tennis and cricket grounds. The 
 palm and the bamboo dominate the gardens, and the note is 
 of the higher civilization, the civilization of hot and cold baths 
 and electric light. Here the Stars and Stripes are conspicuous, 
 and the Tricolor floats in the breeze. The Union Jack is 
 unfurled side by side with the national emblems of Denmark 
 and Germany; Italy runs up its red, white, and green in friendly 
 rivalry with the yellow of little Holland. 
 
 Many people had called on Rosaleen when she first came 
 to Bangkok, and she had done as little as possible toward 
 returning their civilities. Her health, however, then made a 
 certain excuse, and, if she made no way socially, she cannot be 
 said to have excited any active animosity. That she was 
 "exclusive," that she "kept herself to herself," that she "gave 
 herself airs," had been the worst charges leveled against her, 
 and even from these she had been protected in a measure by 
 the Sydney Biddies. As far as it is possible for there to be a 
 head to such a heterogeneous colony, the Sydney Biddies may 
 be said to have occupied that post in Bangkok. Their house 
 was the largest, they practised the most lavish hospitality. 
 
 213
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Sydney's position was better established than that of any 
 Englishman working under the Siamese government. 
 
 Unlike the Japanese, the Siamese show little fidelity, and 
 less gratitude, in dealing with the Europeans who, in subordinate 
 or superior positions, assist in the administration of customs, 
 education, or survey. They tire quickly, as children tire, of 
 anyone who possesses a shadow of authority, a suggestion of 
 superiority. The King of Siam has great qualities, but his 
 wife is the gray mare. Novelty is what she looks for from 
 the representatives of a new and strange civilization, and to 
 this end all the short contracts, or engagements without con- 
 tracts, are freely and admittedly adapted. Sydney Biddle is 
 perhaps the one Englishman for whom an exception has been 
 made; but both the King and Queen have a genuine affection 
 for him. He has a large stake in the country, and his appoint- 
 ment, although ex-official, is in the nature of a permanency. 
 
 This habit of the Siamese Government, however, is necessary 
 as an explanation of the shifting character of the European 
 colony. When the Ranmores left for Petchaburi, there was 
 one set of faces to be seen in the tennis court, and the cricket 
 ground, the Sports Club, and the United Club. When they 
 returned, there was quite another. And the personnel of the 
 English Consulate, at least, had certainly not been improved by 
 the advent of the Frederick Huxteds. 
 
 Emma Biddle had been anxious, when she first began to 
 interest herself in the Ranmores, that Rosaleen should return 
 the cards that were left upon her, join in the gaieties, and take 
 her place in the society which at that time, at least, was fairly 
 pleasant and congenial. But Rosaleen had failed, at first, to 
 respond to Emma Biddle 's anxiety. Emma had forgiven her, 
 and perhaps been a little flattered at her failure, which yet 
 meant a personal success. After the return from Petchaburi 
 everything was easier. The great social function at Bangkok 
 is the tennis. Rosaleen, no longer standing aloof, now took her 
 place in the team, playing in tournaments and gymkhanas. 
 There are dances given at the Club, and now Rosaleen also 
 danced. The people she had hardly known, but who had been 
 
 214
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 there on her first arrival, accepted her> as it were, on her own 
 terms. If she would play games with them now, they were 
 quite satisfied that she had not meant to snub them in the 
 past. And Deny remained as popular as ever. 
 
 Among the new-comers the same tolerance was generally 
 observed, but the Frederick Huxteds complicated the position. 
 Mrs. Huxted had expected everyone to call upon her, and in 
 this semi-colonial milieu her pretensions were accepted without 
 any very close scrutiny. 
 
 The Ranmores were the only English, or Irish, titled people 
 settled in Bangkok at the moment. After waiting a month or 
 so for Lady Ranmore to call upon her, Mrs. Frederick Huxted 
 had summoned her supposititious reminiscences of Court 
 etiquette, and made the first visit. 
 
 Rosaleen had not meant to snub Mrs. Frederick Huxted. 
 She hardly knew the meaning of the word, and, notwithstand- 
 ing the erroneous opinion that had got about, she had, of course, 
 no social pretensions at all. She had, however, predilections 
 and superstitions. Unfortunately Mrs. Huxted antagonized 
 her in both. She met her at the Club, at some amateur the- 
 atrical performances got up by the Biddies, and at dinner, 
 before the visit was paid which was fated never to be 
 returned. 
 
 Mrs. Huxted was the only one of the Ayscough sisters whose 
 pretentions did not include beauty. She was the eldest of the 
 family. Having lived since her marriage in hot climates, she 
 had developed angularity of figure, and sallowness of complexion. 
 In addition she had prominent teeth, and a high aquiline nose. 
 She was proud of her aristocratic appearance, and had no doubt 
 of her manners. But she was really an ill-natured woman who 
 would have set any provincial, or cathedral, English town by 
 the ears, and who seemed to have missed her vocation in life in 
 not being given this opportunity. She had a way of querying 
 people's position, means, and conduct. Her own alone seemed 
 to her to merit no animadversion. When she called on Rosa- 
 leen, she found fault with the approach to the bungalow, and the 
 bridge that connected it with the highway; and she wondered 
 
 215
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 that Lady Ranmore could content herself in such a poky place. 
 Rosaleen loved her home, and thought it very beautiful and 
 perfect. She was sorry her vsitor did not like it, and thought 
 it strange that she should mention it. 
 
 Mrs. Huxted, who was a childless woman, dogmatized as to 
 how children should be brought up. She asked to see the baby, 
 but when it was brought in by Agnes, the Siamese convert who 
 had been recommended to Rosaleen from the Missionaries, she 
 found nothing to say but that he looked delicate, and would 
 probably prove difficult to rear. 
 
 "You ought to have a Chinese nurse. The only servants 
 that are any good out here are the Chinese." Although she 
 had been at Bangkok less than a month, Mrs. Frederick already 
 considered herself an authority on the complicated, curious 
 country. 
 
 "The Siamese are sweet and kind to children," Rosaleen 
 answered. "Look at them with their own!" 
 
 And, indeed, one of the sights of Bangkok, in the streets, and 
 on and near the river banks, are the swarms of brown-eyed, 
 chubby, well-nourished, native youngsters. The ill-treatment 
 of a child is unknown among the Siamese; fathers as well as 
 mothers take a share in carrying and tending the babies, their 
 affection to their offspring being one of the most prominent 
 national characteristics, and dominating all classes. But Mrs. 
 Huxted said: 
 
 " You may think so! Perhaps you haven't seen them give 
 their babies cigarettes to smoke? I have. I saw a boy, who 
 couldn't have been four years old, toddling down the streets on 
 his little fat legs with a great brown cigarette in his mouth that 
 made me sick to look at. But perhaps you don't mind your 
 boy learning to smoke early ?" And the laugh came again. 
 
 Rosaleen was too full of all her happiness just now to take 
 Mrs. Huxted very seriously. 
 
 "Oh! Agnes won't teach my baby to smoke just yet," she 
 answered quickly. "He is only eight months old, not four 
 years." 
 
 "And the native servants are such terrible liars. He will 
 
 216
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 have hardly learned to speak before she will teach him to tell 
 untruths." 
 
 Rosaleen had a secret sympathy with the Siamese natives. 
 She had found great happiness at Bangkok, and perhaps that 
 softened her judgment. What Mrs. Huxted called lying, she 
 and Derry had agreed to regard as merely a habit of circumlo- 
 cution. And the natives were only idle when they were not set 
 to work. Derry had two Siamese clerks under him in the 
 office, and could not speak sufficiently highly of them. She did 
 not think they were vicious. As for being irreligious, never 
 were people so indefatigable in doing honors to their gods. 
 The Buddhists' festivals were innumerable; and neither a 
 Siamese gentleman, nor a working man, would omit to join in 
 them. Mrs. Huxted attacked, and Rosaleen defended, with 
 warmth and growing spirit. 
 
 "Ah, well, have it your own way," said Mrs. Huxted at last, 
 turning from the subject as if it tired her, and she really could 
 not condescend to argue on it any further. Among her other 
 agreeable ways, she had the habit of inferring that any subject 
 under discussion was so much better understood by herself than 
 by her companion, that it was idle and waste of time, to go into 
 detail concerning it. "We won't talk any more about the 
 Siamese. When you've lived in the East as long as I have, 
 you'll begin to understand the Oriental character. How do 
 you get on with the people here ? As far as I have seen of them 
 they are not very interesting. Mr. Mitchison is a gentleman, 
 of course. His sister, Lady Fairbanks, was in India when we 
 were there. I saw a great deal of her." 
 
 Rosaleen could have forgiven her visitor's remarks about her 
 house, her baby, and the native servants; but, when she attacked 
 the Biddies, she found forgiveness more difficult. Rosaleen's 
 loyalty was a part of her nature. 
 
 "Then, there is that vulgar little woman, Mrs. Biddle," Mrs. 
 Huxted went on. "I can't think how she has got such a hold 
 here. She can never have been in any society at all. Colonial- 
 born, I suppose. Do you know, I met her this morning without 
 any gloves on, carrying a basket, and no end of parcels! I 
 
 217
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 wonder what the natives think of her?" Mrs. Huxted laughed. 
 "I hear, too, that she has Madame de la Poer at her house. I 
 suppose she doesn't know any better. She is an acquaintance 
 of yours, isn't she?" 
 
 "She is my friend," Rosaleen said, with heightened color. 
 "And it's proud I am to call her my friend. All day long she 
 does kind things, and thinks kind thoughts." 
 
 "Oh! well, everyone to their taste. For myself, I like to 
 associate with ladies and gentlemen. I was brought up that 
 way, you know." 
 
 Rosaleen could not control her indignation during the rest 
 of that visit. She took a real dislike to her visitor. There was 
 no question of snubbing her. It was simply a case of personal 
 antipathy, and this was nothing unusual where Mrs. Huxted 
 was concerned. But, of course, she never recognized the cause 
 of the treatment she received. 
 
 Because Mrs. Huxted had spoken disparagingly of the Biddies, 
 Rosaleen told Deny she would not return her call. Deny said 
 she was quite right; but then, Deny said everything she did was 
 quite right! It was inevitable they should meet at the Club and 
 elsewhere. But Rosaleen avoided these meetings as far as 
 possible; although she was habitually reticent, she was not an 
 adept at concealing her feelings. 
 
 Long before Ethel's letter reached Siam, a positive dislike 
 had sprung up between the two women. As far as Rosaleen 
 was concerned, she merely wished to avoid the other. But 
 Bianca Huxted was really of a malevolent disposition. It was, 
 however, Rosaleen herself who made the malevolence active. 
 Emma Biddle was standing with Rosaleen on one occasion, and 
 it seemed hateful to the girl that Mrs. Huxted should greet Mrs. 
 Biddle as if she had never spoken disparagingly of her. She 
 resented that Emma, or Sydney, should waste their smiles or 
 their kindness on such a woman. 
 
 "I suppose one must not expect punctuality in social obser- 
 vances in these wilds, but it is more than three weeks since I 
 left my cards, and surely it's almost time that they were 
 returned ?" Bianca began with an ?2ectation of careless geniality. 
 
 218
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "You can have them back," Rosaleen said, shortly, turning 
 away from her. 
 
 Even Emma was shocked at her, and stayed to explain away 
 the words. Mrs. Huxted was quite ready to be superficially 
 convinced, and to accept Emma's explanation. But, of course, 
 she stored it up against Lady Ranmore. 
 
 "How could you say such a thing?" Emma asked Rosaleen. 
 
 "She is a hateful woman. I can't bear to see you and Mr. 
 Biddle so good to her. Look, if he isn't takin' her out! And 
 she with the bitter tongue ..." Rosaleen could not control 
 her indignation. 
 
 "Mrs. Huxted certainly does contrive to make herself ex- 
 traordinarily disliked," Emma answered; "and she seems to 
 possess as much ill-feeling as she inspires. She is for ever calling 
 upon Sydney to complain of something or somebody. But it was 
 a dreadful thing to say, you really will have to call after that." 
 And then, for she was compact of charity, Mrs. Biddle added, 
 "I see you have taken a dislike to her. But don't you think we 
 never know what other people's troubles are? Perhaps her 
 temper has been spoiled by some personal or private worry, 
 and if we knew everything we should only be sorry for her. 
 What has she been saying that annoyed you?" 
 
 "She warned me Agnes would give Sonny cigarettes to smoke 
 when my back was turned." 
 
 "Or betel-nuts to chew!" Mrs. Sydney's laugh was a very 
 different affair from that cackle in which Mrs. Fred, was wont 
 to indulge. It cleared the air. Rosaleen laughed, too, a little 
 doubtfully. 
 
 "I know I ought not to allow myself to get vexed with her. 
 If I had the second sight, I should say I feel as if she had 'ill- 
 wished' me, or would do so. For, sure I've an uneasy feeling 
 when she is at the Club." 
 
 "Call on her, and get it over." 
 
 "I don't mean to go at all, and that is the truth of it." 
 
 " She is very punctilious about that sort of thing. One should 
 never make an enemy of a woman with a bitter tongue." 
 
 Emma's worldly wisdom was a very shallow affair, represented 
 
 219
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 by a few cliches such as this. She sympathized with Rosaleen's 
 desire to avoid Mrs. Fred Huxted; that particular feeling was 
 so very general. 
 
 She did not press the point of the visit, beyond offering to call 
 for her one day if she meant to make it. 
 
 Rosaleen changed the conversation. She went home quite 
 early. 
 
 The first few months after their return to Bangkok, Rosaleen 
 was living in the effulgence of a rainbow. Mrs. Frederick 
 Huxted's malevolence could not really obscure it. All the days 
 were rainbow-tinted for Rosaleen. What clouds lay on the 
 horizon were clouds that had blown over. Would they ever 
 gather again now that the arc of many colors was set as a promise 
 in the sky ? Meteorologists know, but Rosaleen was no weather 
 prophet. She disliked, and avoided Mrs. Huxted, but saw no 
 menace in her. 
 
 Nor did she see menace in the English mail which brought 
 that letter from Ethel to her sister, and to Deny a big square 
 envelope with a scrawling handwriting, and the crest of a red 
 eagle with a fish in its mouth. He had had such letters before, 
 but he never showed them to her. Once he had said carelessly, 
 " Oh! that's from Lady Carrie." He had torn it open, and read it 
 with perturbed brow. Afterward he had never read similar letters 
 in her presence, but, if one came, he would separate it from the 
 others and put it in his pocket, to read at leisure, she supposed. 
 Once she asked him who was Lady Carrie, and he had answered 
 hastily: 
 
 " Oh, Lady Carrie Carthew. She was an old friend of . . ." 
 And then he had stopped abruptly as if he did not care to pursue 
 the subject. If she had curiosity, she never showed it until she 
 heard the name on Mrs. Huxted's lips. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the English mail had little interest for 
 Rosaleen. She was too happy to be curious. She knew, of 
 course, that affairs were not yet settled at home, that Deny was 
 Lord of Ranmore, but was being kept out of his own. But, 
 like the Lady of "Burleigh Hall by Stamford town," she rejoiced 
 in his present lowly estate. To share his cottage, represented 
 
 220
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 in this instance by the squat little bungalow, to work for him 
 in the home he had given her, was happiness enough. She 
 was very vague about everything that stood between him 
 and his occupation of Ranmore. Material things become 
 vague when one is living in the arc of a rainbow. Mrs. Huxted, 
 however, was one of the material things that refused to remain 
 vague; she made quite a little round of visits on the strength 
 of her letter from Ethel. She dropped a careless hint here, 
 and a careful one there. Several people learned, or thought 
 that they learned, through these means, what was the nature of 
 the entanglement that kept Lord Ranmore from his native 
 land. Of course, it was interesting gossip. Ill-natured gossip 
 is interesting to ordinary minds; and the large majority of 
 minds are very ordinary. Gossip, before Mrs. Huxted embit- 
 tered it, had said Lord Ranmore 's sojourn here was due to the 
 want of money, that the estate had not come to him uninvolved. 
 Now they heard that this was not the whole truth, that there 
 was a woman in the case. Was it something in the nature of 
 blackmail? It really sounded interesting. Mrs. Huxted made 
 the most of it. She derived no personal benefit from her 
 mysterious hints and innuendoes; but then, the women who 
 disseminate ill-natured gossip never do derive any personal 
 benefit from their hobby. They are like the pariah dogs who 
 nose out offal, and feed on it. They are just doing what their 
 temperaments demand; it is the call of nature they are obeying. 
 
 It was on the Premane grounds, where Rosaleen had taken 
 her baby to see the kite-flying, that Mrs. Huxted found her 
 great opportunity. 
 
 Kite-flying is one of the many Siamese national pastimes. 
 The Siamese are really a nation of children. Historians have told 
 us of a Cabinet Meeting being deserted, and finally abandoned, 
 when a Minister exhibited a new toy that had just been sent out 
 to him. The interest in the new toy quite superseded the affairs 
 of state. First one, and then another, member of the Cabinet 
 began to play with it. There was no business even attempted 
 that day, and the representatives of foreign governments went 
 away wondering. This nation of children flies kites from Feb- 
 15 221
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 ruary to April, when the strong south wind helps the game, 
 and makes it irresistible. As well expect an inhabitant of the 
 fen country to abandon skating on the rare occasion of a frost, 
 as the Siamese gentlemen to abstain from kite-flying when the 
 south wind blows over the Premane grounds. This kite-flying 
 is a more elaborate affair than our poor English imitation. It 
 is no question of how high the kites can go, or how long they can 
 stay in the air. It is a contest between kite-fliers, a chase for 
 supremacy. The endeavor is to entangle, and bring to the 
 ground, the kite of an antagonist. Immense ingenuity and 
 skill are employed, and thousands of spectators assemble to 
 watch the mimic battle. For hours at a time the game pro- 
 ceeds. It is impossible, watching the Siamese gentlemen at 
 play, to realize why they should be accounted indolent; they 
 certainly spare no energy on their favorite pastime. 
 
 Rosaleen and her baby watched the Siamese gentlemen 
 flying their kites, and the crowd following them breathlessly. 
 She was so happy that it seemed natural other people should 
 be happy too. She had never seen a football match at the 
 Crystal Palace, nor International cricket at Lord's, and the 
 kite-flying held her spellbound. One or another of her acquaint- 
 ances came up and spoke to her, but she did not detain them. 
 Watching baby watch the kites, and following them herself 
 with her eyes, proved sufficiently absorbing. 
 
 It was not until Mrs. Huxted deliberately stood by her side, 
 and began to talk to her, that she woke up to her annoyance at 
 the interruption. Mrs. Huxted began the conversation char- 
 acteristically. Long before this she had made up her mind to 
 ignore the unreturned call, and the attitude of Lady Ranmore 
 toward her. She made a point of speaking to her in public. 
 Rosaleen had grown used, although never reconciled, to that. 
 But Rosaleen had usually Emma Biddle with her, or Derry. 
 To-day she was alone here with the baby in her arms. She 
 was holding him up to see the kites, when Mrs. Huxted came up 
 to her. Mrs. Huxted rejoiced in her opportunity. There was 
 no one to protect Rosaleen, and from women like Bianca Hux- 
 ted the whole world needs protection. 
 
 222
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 She opened her attack by commenting upon Rosaleen having 
 the baby in her arms while the native nurse stood by, enjoying 
 the show unburdened. 
 
 "Turning nursemaid, Lady Ranmore?" she began with her 
 hard laugh. "I should have thought the heat was enough, 
 without doing servant's work. I'm sure I'm almost over- 
 powered with it. It's a disgusting climate! Not that he can 
 be much of a weight. He is beginning to look a little peaky, 
 I see? It is quite impossible to bring up European children 
 in the East, the mortality is enormous." 
 
 Rosaleen held the baby close in her arms. He was really 
 a beautiful baby, without a trace of delicacy about him. He 
 wore no hat, and he held his little head, running over with red- 
 gold curls, as erect as if he had been an Irish king. That is 
 what Deny said about him, and the description was good. 
 For his head was set royally on his shoulders, and from under 
 the wide baby brows the blue eyes smiled confidentially at all 
 the world. Little Sonny, as they called him, did not know how 
 to be shy with strangers, all the native servants were his subjects, 
 everybody brought him offerings of toys and sweets. He even 
 smiled on Mrs. Huxted, and would have made to kiss her but 
 that Rosaleen clasped him jealously and quickly in her arms. 
 
 "It's not delicate he is at all. He sleeps the night through, 
 he hardly ever cries. He's his mother's pet, that's what he 
 is." She rubbed her face against his. 
 
 "I wonder you don't dress him in the native dress. All 
 that white embroidery must help to pull him down." 
 
 Rosaleen made his white silk pelisses herself, daintily setting 
 them with lace and embroidery. 
 
 "It's Chinese silk," she said. "Mr. Biddle got it for me, 
 and it's floss silk I use to sew it; it's no weight at all." 
 
 "I suppose you are thinking of taking him home soon?" 
 
 "We are not making any plans." 
 
 She could not move away, there was not excuse. She could 
 not refuse to answer when she was spoken to. She had no 
 legitimate quarrel, or cause for dispute. She could hardly 
 even actively resent that Mrs. Huxted found Mrs. Biddle com- 
 
 223
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 mon, for the Biddies themselves were on quite friendly terms 
 with her. 
 
 They stood and watched the kite-flying together, but Mrs. 
 Huxted contrived to take all the amusement and gaiety out of 
 the scene. Standing there, unwelcome, she poured into Rosa- 
 leen's reluctant ears that the Siamese were all liars and thieves, 
 idle, vicious, and irreligious. She jeered at their many festivals, 
 exaggerated their passion for gambling, spoke of their decaying 
 buildings, and decadent spirit. 
 
 "Ah, well, I see you don't agree with me. You never did, 
 I know. But I am so much more experienced than you, my 
 dear. You think that child is looking well, for instance; while 
 I know that it is probably fever makes his eyes so unnaturally 
 bright." 
 
 Here rang out her harsh cackle of laughter. 
 
 "But I'll leave you with your illusions." The note of the 
 laugh held mischief, it was as the cry of the hawk when it 
 swoops; the swoop came swiftly. She made as if she would say 
 good-bye and be off, but she had her arrow to plant; that object- 
 ive had never been out of her sight. "And, after all, I don't 
 wonder you want to make out the child is not suffering from 
 the climate. Lord Ranmore had much better be kept out of 
 Lady Carrie Carthew's way for the present. I heard he was 
 being blackmailed, but one never knows the whole truth in 
 these cases I suppose he was very infatuated? That is the 
 worst of these society women; once they have established a hold 
 they are so impossible to shake off. Why, my dear, you are 
 looking quite pale! I hope I have not been indiscreet. I thought 
 it was such an open secret. ..." 
 
 Rosaleen was a little too young to be a match for such an 
 enemy, and in the immediate first moment she was too stricken 
 to be able to act. She had so much imagination, that the very 
 moment the words were spoken she could see the letters that 
 came to him by the English mail; she could envisage a lady, 
 noble and high-born, with all the graces she lacked; she could 
 even remember to have heard the name. Yes! Derry had 
 visited a Lady Carrie while they were in those lodgings in Albany 
 
 224
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Street. Mrs. Leon's dinner-party, too surely she had some 
 association there! Yes! At dinner Mossy had asked her if 
 she knew Lady Carrie Carthew. She turned pale as she stood 
 there in the sun, her eyes still mechanically following the kites. 
 
 "My sister you know my sister? wrote me she supposed 
 it was on account of Lady Carrie Carthew you were staying 
 away. But I would not allow any woman to keep me out of 
 my own country!" Here came in again that hard cackle of 
 laughter. "And in the interests of the child, I really should 
 advise you to reconsider your decision to stay on. I must be 
 going now. Fred is waiting for me. Good-bye, dear Lady 
 Ranmore." 
 
 The child in her arms prevented the necessity of shaking 
 hands. 
 
 "Ta-ta, baby! Don't let your mother sacrifice your health 
 for any woman." 
 
 She made a peck at the baby, but Rosaleen drew him back 
 quickly. 
 
 "Don't be afraid, young man, I'm not going to kiss you. 
 He has a little temper of his own, hasn't he? You have not 
 paid me that visit you owe me, by the way. But I suppose I 
 must not expect Mayfair manners in Siam." 
 
 The last word or two were hardly heard. All the gaiety and 
 laughter had gone from the scene. Now the south wind carried 
 sorrow, and the brown native faces were as clouds before the 
 sun. Rosaleen had answered nothing. In truth, she no longer 
 saw Mrs. Huxted standing there. It was not the woman 
 behind the words, but only the words themselves, that remained, 
 like mosquitoes. Rosaleen heard them as one hears the winged 
 insects of the night, the precursory tingle before the inevitable 
 sting. She felt all that when she fled the Premane ground, 
 bearing the boy lightly on her arms. She wanted to run away 
 from those poison laden words, but they pursued her, pursued 
 her all the way home while she sat by the syce's side, trying to 
 avoid her thoughts and memories being stung. Her mosquito- 
 net was Derry's loving looks; she was hurrying back to them; 
 but it was beneath the net the mosquitoes had lodged. 
 
 225
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 ROSALEEN saw Deny watching for her from the ve- 
 randa as she approached home. His long legs covered 
 the ground quickly. He lifted the boy from her arms 
 and gave him to Agnes. , 
 
 "How late you are! Here have I been all alone by myself 
 for the last ten minutes. I'd begun to think it was deserting 
 me you'd been for some fine Siamese gentleman. But it's 
 tired you're looking and hot." His tone was solicitous, his 
 arm went around her waist. "I shan't let you go about by 
 yourself if you come back to me like this. Does anything ail 
 you, mavourneen? or is it only your tea you're wanting?" 
 
 What was the use of telling him she had been stung? Was 
 not his solicitude a cure for her wound? She did not know 
 then that mosquito bites have a tendency to re-inflame and 
 fester unless radically cured. Candor might have helped to 
 that radical cure, but the Celt in her prohibited candor. 
 
 "I'm only tired. I'll be myself again when I have had my 
 tea. I held him up to see the kites. ..." She told Deny 
 all about the kite-flying. 
 
 "And did you meet the Biddies?" 
 
 "No, but I met the Carews and the Fotheringays." Now 
 she remembered all those who had spoken to her before Mrs. 
 Huxted had darkened the day. 
 
 Afterward, when she was completely rested, had had dinner, 
 and was sitting beside Deny again on the veranda in the cool 
 of the evening, when it was dark, and he could not see her face, 
 she said, "Mrs. Huxted came up and spoke to me." 
 
 "And you did not appreciate the attention," Deny interjected, 
 laughingly, taking his pipe from his mouth. "It isn't like you, 
 Rosaleen, to dislike anyone as you dislike that woman. It's 
 
 226
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 surprised at you I am for taking her so seriously. What did 
 she say to you to-day?" 
 
 Rosaleen waited a minute or two before she answered. She 
 wanted to tell him what Mrs. Huxted had said about Lady 
 Carrie Carthew; but it proved impossible. She only said: 
 
 "She was telling me of the letters she'd had from her sister, 
 Mrs. Leon; it seems they are wondering why you are staying 
 on here that is what Mrs. Huxted told me. And she said baby 
 was looking thin and peaky, and she was sure the climate didn 't 
 agree with him, and that there was a great mortality among 
 English children here." 
 
 Derry laughed again before he replaced the pipe in his mouth. 
 "She seems to have been bent on making herself thoroughly 
 agreeable. But you know the boy's as fit as a fiddle, so she 
 didn't vex you, did she?" 
 
 Rosaleen answered shortly, "Yes, she vexed me." 
 
 "And it's you that's foolish, then," he said very tenderly, 
 drawing her closer to him, in spite of the pipe, and making her 
 rest her head on his shoulder. "It's very likely she has her 
 own troubles, and that makes her spiteful." 
 
 "That's what Emma Biddle says." 
 
 "It's only people like you and me, and Sydney and Emma 
 Biddle, who are happy ourselves, that like everyone else to be 
 happy." 
 
 "That Mrs. Leon you know in London, where I dined with 
 you that night, she's Mrs. Huxted 's sister. Now, are she and 
 her husband happy together, or is she just a spiteful woman, 
 too, like her sister here? And truthful is she truthful ?" 
 
 "I think she's all right," Derry, as will have been seen, was 
 not a good judge of character. "I never heard her say anything 
 unkind about anybody, except, perhaps, Lady Carrie. ..." 
 And then he broke off abruptly. 
 
 Rosaleen wanted him to go on, but hardly knew how to ask 
 him. 
 
 "Lady Carrie Carthew, it's she that writes to you by the 
 English mail, isn't it?" her breath fluttered in her throat. 
 
 It was Derry now who relapsed into silence. 
 
 227
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Those letters of Carrie's, comparatively infrequent as they 
 were, had bothered Derry a great deal. He had done the right 
 thing by her, and she had been very kind to him in London. 
 He was still sorry for her, he still wished he had been able to 
 do more for her. She was a poor little woman whom life had 
 treated hardly. She had managed to convey this idea of herself 
 to him, and it remained in his mind, but there was an occasional 
 touch of sentiment in her letters, and it was this that bothered 
 Derry. Sometimes her letters left him with a vague sense of 
 disloyalty to Rosaleen. Sometimes the vague sense was of 
 disloyalty to Carrie. He could tell Rosaleen nothing about 
 Carrie's letters, and so was silent now. For it was Terence's 
 secret. He could never judge Terence, nor criticize his con- 
 duct, he had only to protect his memory. What Terence had 
 done for Lady Carrie, and why, and what Derry was continuing 
 to do, must, at all hazards, be kept from Rosaleen. 
 
 That was why he broke off abruptly after he had mentioned 
 her name. It was perhaps but natural that Rosaleen should 
 misconstrue his silence. 
 
 " What made you ask about Mrs. Leon?" he asked presently. 
 
 Rosaleen had no answer ready. 
 
 There should be no hiatus in the confidence between husband 
 and wife. Mischief is sure to breed in the empty space. 
 
 More than once after that evening in a tentative way, Rosaleen 
 approached the subject of Derry's English correspondent, but he 
 never told her anything. In truth, as the time wore on, Derry 
 found it no easier to speak to Rosaleen of Terence. Jealousy is 
 hardly the word, yet no other describes it. Her thoughts must 
 not wander back, he wanted her to be entirely his own. His 
 very delicacy of outlook toward her made it impossible to think 
 of her as callous to the dead man's memory. Yet Derry could 
 not bear to think that she should remember Terence. And how 
 could he breathe word to her that there was another woman, too, 
 who had the right to remember Terence. Silence was best, 
 Derry thought. 
 
 It was a great wife she made him, surely. No English girl in 
 Bangkok was as active as she. He was proud of her cooking 
 
 228
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 and sewing, of the way she managed the polyglot servants, and 
 of all her swift grace and charm, that were handmaidens to the 
 comfort she brought around him. 
 
 There is something in common between Irish servants and 
 Siamese, some common quality of good-humor and incapacity, 
 of loyalty to the household they serve, and inability to serve it 
 straightforwardly. It was on this likeness Rosaleen built. 
 She knew when to coax and when to command, when to tolerate, 
 and look the other way on misdemeanor, when to rage out, or 
 pretend to rage out, and clear the air with domestic storm. The 
 native servants simply worshiped the ground upon which she 
 trod. They came to her for advice and medicine the Siamese 
 are great lovers of medicine they carried out the majority of 
 her orders, they stole from her as little as they could help. 
 
 For a time, life went on in the bungalow much as it had been 
 before Mrs. Huxted had set those mosquitoes flying. If the 
 rainbow had faded, if Rosaleen was less happy, less certain, 
 Derry never knew it. He thought her prejudice against Mrs. 
 Huxted too strong, for now Rosaleen would go nowhere the 
 Huxteds went. She could not bear to be in the same room with 
 the woman, nor even on the tennis-ground at the same time. 
 She shrank back into herself during these months. That was 
 the way the poison worked with her. She was afraid; afraid 
 of her happiness, and her worthiness of it. In the background 
 of her life now, instead of the rainbow, there were again clouds 
 there was a doubt. Already there had come into her mind the 
 question whether Derry had ever cared for this woman with 
 whom he corresponded. Was it out of pity he had married 
 herself? That was the dreadful question by which she was 
 haunted. It was never answered; it could never be answered, 
 because it was never put. Only now she watched for the English 
 mails, and suffered when one of those letters came, and Derry 
 put it in his pocket unopened, and told her nothing of its 
 contents. 
 
 He told her all about Mossy's letters, which were full of the 
 obstructions Carruthers was for ever raising between Derry and 
 his rights in Ranmore. Derry was never at his best on mail- 
 
 229
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 days. He was happy out here with his wife and his work,' 
 work that Sydney Biddle said he did better than any other 
 European in the whole department; but every mail-day brought 
 him an attack of homesickness. He would not talk about it to 
 Rosaleen; he would go out and take long walks; or go down to 
 the racquet or tennis court. The more violent the exercise, the 
 more likely it would be to blot out from his eyes the green glory 
 of pasture and wood, the sun and the shadow as it played on the 
 surface of the lake, the birds that carolled and sang, the towers 
 and turrets of Castle Ranmore, the broken masonry with the 
 clinging ivy. At these times he was desperately homesick for 
 them all, and for the word of kindness that had never come to 
 him, or to his wife, from the Duchess, or the Dowager. Home 
 was no home if they would not have him there willingly. Palm 
 and coconut must take the place with him of willow and hazel. 
 Mail-days were black days with them both; with Derry because 
 it brought him that spasm and passion of homesickness, with 
 Rosaleen, because of those scented letters that came, or did not 
 come, and over which there was for ever silence between her and 
 Derry. 
 
 As time went on, there was another little hiatus, or halt, in 
 their talk. There was no homesickness about Rosaleen, it was 
 in Siam she had found her happiness. And by some instinct 
 Derry grew to know that she was hurt at his longing for the word 
 of kindness from his people, for the blue mountains, and the 
 green woods of Ranmore. She had had so little part in his life 
 there; here she could feel she was all in all to him. But, after 
 Bianca Huxted had loosed her words, Rosaleen was never 
 without a little sting of shooting doubt. 
 
 Derry's contract with the Siamese Government had been 
 made for two years. The time was fast approaching when he 
 had to consider whether it was to be renewed, and all Rosaleen's 
 secret heart was longing that the answer should be in the affirm- 
 ative. She had been so happy here. Was happiness waiting 
 for her in the gray cold London? It was the lady who was 
 writing to him he'd be seeing there, no doubt. Was she any 
 fitter to meet Derry's grand friends now than she had been when 
 
 230
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 she came out ? Would she be any helpmate for him in the new 
 surroundings he would have? Here she knew she had been a 
 helpmate to him. It was that which gave her any confidence 
 and courage she had; but neither of them was very firm once she 
 allowed herself to think that there was someone else for whom 
 Derry cared. 
 
 It wasn't as if they would be going back to Ireland, to Ranmore. 
 Always it seemed there were more difficulties about Berry's 
 inheritance, and more delay in his prospect of being allowed to 
 take possession of the home that belonged to him. She could 
 not resent it, and Berry's resentment, too, was not personal. 
 He was sore and hurt at the way he had been treated without 
 ever quite understanding the genesis of it, but resentment, in 
 the ordinary sense of the word, was the one feeling of which he 
 was absolutely incapable where his aunt or the Buchess were 
 concerned. 
 
 As for his aunt, his heart went out to her. It was so natural 
 she should resent his standing in Terence's shoes; try as he 
 might, Terence's shoes would never fit him. For ever, in 
 retrospect he saw Terence through the eyes of Terence's mother. 
 The young sun-god that he was! She had mothered him, too, 
 in his boyhood, and all his heart was soft when he thought of 
 her, not hard, although she was standing between him and 
 Ranmore. It was for her, as well as for Ranmore, that he was 
 homesick. 
 
 Mossy had not reckoned on this when he made his plan of 
 campaign, the plan of campaign he had outlined to Ethel, and 
 on which he was now prepared to act. 
 
 It was on one of those dreaded days when the English mail 
 was due that Rosaleen, from the veranda, saw Berry come 
 tearing over the bridge with a pale face. She knew the day it 
 was, half the night she had been lying awake, wondering if one 
 of those letters would come. But it was not a letter from Carrie 
 Carthew that Berry held in his hand. Her heart, which had 
 begun to beat quickly, quieted down when she saw that. 
 
 "What is the matter?" 
 
 "The matter!" he could hardly get out what it was; but he had 
 
 231
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 come straight to her for sympathy. Straight, at least, after 
 having answered the letter with a telegram. 
 
 "The matter! We are just going home, that's what it is. 
 I can hardly wait to tell you. What do you think he's done? 
 Him that I thought was my friend." 
 
 "Going home! Who . . . what! ..." But at least the 
 letter he had in his hand was not one of those big square envelopes 
 with the crest. 
 
 " Why! Mossy, Mossy Leon, him that has my affairs in hand." 
 
 "And what has he done?" 
 
 "Read it, just you read it!" He thrust the letter into her 
 hand, but could scarcely keep silent or still while she obeyed 
 him. He strode about, and made his indignant comment, while 
 Rosaleen read, only half comprehending: 
 
 "I've come to the end of my patience with Carruthers," 
 Mossy wrote. "And, as for the Dowager, I went over to Dublin 
 to see her, and she practically turned me out of the house! So 
 I've no choice but to put on the screw. I've only waited all 
 this time because, when I first suggested it, you kicked at it. 
 They are making arrangements at Ranmore for a week of 
 mourning; the mausoleum has been repaired, and there's a 
 temporary erection being run up to the chapel, where I hear there 
 is to be High Mass or some of that sort of thing. The Pope, or 
 one of the Cardinals, or some big pot in the Church, is going to 
 conduct a sort of sing-song." Mossy's knowledge of Roman 
 Catholic rites was on a par with his ignorance of how Deny felt 
 about his family. " The Dowager is going to build an orphanage 
 in memory of her son, and the ceremonies at Ranmore, I believe, 
 are a preliminary canter. She is using the money for it that 
 ought to be yours. Well! that just gives me my chance. They 
 can at least, they have stopped the rents, but there is no 
 denying the Castle is yours. I'm going to wait until the last 
 possible moment, fool them to the top of their bent, and then 
 come down with an ultimatum. The rents released, and a 
 settlement favorable to us of all the questions in dispute, or 
 mausoleum barred, and a posse of constables to hold the Castle 
 and the chapel against all comers." 
 
 232
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "Did you ever hear of such a thing? The scoundrel, the 
 villain! To think I'd be a party to it, barring her from her own 
 house, saying the prayers for him where he lies. An' it's her hus- 
 band lies there, too." A spasm of the throat seized him, and he 
 could hardly go on. He forgot all about Rosaleen for the moment, 
 although he was talking to her. He meant to protect her from 
 reminiscences, but he had forgotten that. "I'd rather starve 
 all my life, I'd rather cut my right hand off, than do such a 
 thing! It's they that are the Ranmores, her husband and him, 
 and all the dead that lie there. And me to bar her out from 
 Ranmore ..." 
 
 "He didn't know how you felt about it all." 
 
 "Then he ought to have known. How else should I feel? 
 To think I should be the one to stand between her, and honoring 
 his memory. Me! that would spend my life, a dozen lives, if 
 I had them, in keeping it green." 
 
 "What will you do?" 
 
 " I didn't wait. I cabled him not to dare to interfere. Sydney 
 worded it for me, I could not collect myself to write; I'm going 
 home as quick as I can get there. There's no saying what he'll 
 be up to. I'm just on fire to be off. You don't mind?" 
 
 " Of course, it's just as you wish." 
 
 " Sydney talked about the cost of cables. I don't know how 
 we're off for money, but I'd have pawned me clothes rather than 
 have stinted a word. How dare he think of such a thing!" 
 
 "It will reach him in time?" 
 
 "It's only October now." 
 
 Then, suddenly he remembered he ought to be saving her, 
 and he went over and put his arms about her. 
 
 " You must forgive me, darling. I ought not to be going on 
 like this. But I'm half mad over it." She could see that the 
 sob was still in his throat. "Me, that loved him, to prevent 
 her saying her bit of prayer for him. ..." 
 
 His generous great indignation choked his speech. Rosaleen, 
 who loved him so much more than she loved herself, or cared 
 for her memories, could do nothing but try to help him. All 
 the help he needed was to get home quickly. He did not know 
 
 233
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 what he would do when he got there, nor did he pause to con- 
 sider. The passion of homesickness had risen to its height, and 
 overflowed in unnecessary haste. To be moving, to be traveling 
 homeward, was the idea that possessed him entirely, he was on 
 fire with it. 
 
 Rosaleen could do only her small part, in packing, and 
 facilitating their departure. If her heart ached at giving up 
 her home, it ached dumbly. For the moment, Deny was giving 
 her no thought. All his thought was at Ranmore, in the 
 mausoleum, in the chapel. It was a month before the anniver- 
 sary of Terence's death would come round. Would his cable 
 be in time to stop Mossy 's proceedings ? That was all he could 
 think, or talk about. A cruel, damnable, dastardly thing it was 
 to do. And to think it was being done in his name! To bar 
 the mother from praying by the tomb of her son, to keep Ran- 
 more from the Ranmores, to add anything to the sorrow that 
 had fallen upon her! He really lost both his sleep and his 
 appetite. Him to do it! him who loved her almost like a mother; 
 though it was a stepmother she had been to him since Terence's 
 death. But small blame to her for it, poor thing! And now, 
 if Mossy carried out his plan, and if she thought he had a hand 
 in it . . .It was unbearable, unthinkable. He raged over it. 
 Even Rosaleen had none of his thoughts during the week that 
 followed the sending of the cable. After the first two days he 
 simply haunted the telegraph office. He made poor Sydney 
 Biddle's life a burden to him by cross-examining him as to how 
 long a telegram generally took to get from Bangkok to London 
 and back again, what was the shortest time on record, what 
 were the circumstances that expedited it, and whether they 
 could not be repeated? 
 
 The telegram came at last, and proved satisfactory. It was 
 in cipher. Sydney read it out to him. Deny had cabled: 
 
 "Absolutely forbid interference with memorial service. 
 Castle and contents to be left at Lady Ranmore's disposal 
 without restriction or proviso. Reply confirming. On my way 
 home." 
 
 Mossy answered: 
 
 234
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "Glad to hear of your return. Impossible raise money or 
 avoid proceedings if you persist in your instructions." 
 
 "Damn the fellow!" Deny was not given to swearing, but 
 Sydney was his only audience, and Sydney would not score it 
 against him. "Be damned to him! Does he think he is going 
 to threaten me? As if I cared for his dirty money! Here, I'm 
 going to cable him again, plain English for me." 
 
 He wrote out a flaming tirade, but Sydney ultimately reduced 
 it to something like reasonable dimensions. Deny would have 
 expended forty pounds' worth of indignation, but Sydney 
 reduced it to under five. It was not the moment to tell him so, 
 but Sydney thought, from what had been told him of the Ran- 
 more finances, that Deny would want all the forty pounds he 
 could save. And, after all, the object in view could be achieved 
 without desperate extravagance. 
 
 "Do nothing until I arrive. Instructions must be strictly 
 observed. No interference with Ranmore ceremonies under 
 any circumstances." 
 
 Nothing remained to be done, but to help them to get away. 
 It was not without a pang that Emma did her loyal part. She 
 had grown attached to Rosaleen, and Sonny might have been 
 her own for the love she lavished on him. She had grown, too, 
 to some understanding of Rosaleen, and she knew there was no 
 joy in her outlook toward that home-going. But Deny's 
 impatience to be off never abated, and both of them were loyal 
 to him, and did their best. 
 
 The day of their departure seemed to be upon them before 
 Rosaleen had fully realized that she must uproot herself. It 
 seemed years since the day they had first crossed the mud-bar, 
 with the dim lighthouse on Kaw Chuen facing them beyond 
 the brown and ugly waters. Now she could hardly bear to look 
 at the mangroves, and the white buildings with their flat roofs, 
 the pagoda in the river, and the betel and cocoanut palms, the 
 riverside cottages, the yellowing padi, the floating houses on the 
 rafts, the mud-banks, and rice-mills, the lorchas, the steam- 
 launches, the crowded rows of native rice-boats, empty now, 
 and the tall-masted junk-rigged lighters. She saw them all 
 
 235
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 through a mist of tears. What had she not found here ? Peace 
 and home at first, love and happiness afterward. What was 
 she going back to, save unrest and doubt? But she did not 
 want him to see her depression; his whole mood was so different. 
 
 They had passed the mud-bar and the river, they were in the 
 Gulf, and clear of shipping, before he could begin to rest. 
 
 "I thought we should never get off. Up to the last moment 
 I was afraid something would occur to prevent us starting. It 
 seems too good to be true," he said to her. 
 
 Was it possible for her to say she wished they had never started 
 at all, she, who wanted his happiness so much more than her 
 own! Later on, it was the day they were approaching Colombo, 
 when the evening gathered in the wind-swept sky, he seemed to 
 wake up to the difference in her moods. 
 
 "You're not sorry to be going back?" he asked. She was 
 standing on the deck, when he joined her, watching the waves 
 as they scudded under the keel, and at first it was difficult to 
 answer him. She had been thinking of her happiness at Petcha- 
 buri, and in the bungalow, of services she had been able to 
 render him at Wat Poh Pra. What use would she be to him 
 when they got home ? And what of the lady that wrote to him ? 
 Her heart was very heavy and sad as she watched the scudding 
 waters. 
 
 "I'm wondering what we will do at first," was what she 
 answered when she could bring her thoughts to answer at all. 
 
 "Oh! we'll have great doings," he answered vaguely, but 
 happily. "And isn't it together we will be anyhow?" 
 
 "But it's not me you'll be wanting when your grand friends 
 get around you." 
 
 "It's no grand friends I've got at all. And there'll never be 
 a moment I'm not wanting you." 
 
 She had Lady Carrie Carthew's name on her tongue, but 
 could not utter it. 
 
 "I'm thinking it's a great deal I found in Siam," she said in 
 a voice so low that it might have been part of the sough of the 
 sea, lost in the wind and the wave. How the waters were scud- 
 ding, how fast they were steaming! 
 
 236
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "And isn't it home we're taking with us," he answered gaily, 
 with an arm flung over her shoulder. "It's you that will make 
 home for me, Rosaleen, wherever I go." The deep breath was 
 as a sigh of relief. "Oh! but I'm tired of the palaces, and the 
 pagodas, and all the brown faces. You felt it up in Wat Poh 
 Pra when I hadn't a trace of it, nor a thought for anything but 
 you. But it's meself that's been feeling it all these months in 
 Bangkok; at times it's been little but a prison to me." 
 
 16
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 IT was February when they reached London; a treacherous 
 month, when the wind was high, with cold showers abun- 
 dant, the sun fitful and rare, and the change from the East 
 trying to the travelers. 
 
 It seemed to Rosaleen that, from the moment they sighted 
 land, she no longer held the first place in Berry's heart, if indeed 
 she had ever held it! She could torture herself that way, too. 
 Now he was thinking and talking of nothing but Ranmore, 
 wondering what had been done, or left undone. He was in the 
 woods, or on the lake; memories crowded upon him, and set 
 rare melancholy in his dark eyes. But it was only of Ranmore 
 she was jealous during these last few days of the journey. Even 
 then, she found all her courage was needed to face the uncertain 
 future. 
 
 It had been easier to make a home in the Bangkok bungalow, 
 a sola at Petchaburi, or on the environments of a rice-field in 
 Wat Poh Pra, than it was in the dismal Strand Hotel, to which 
 Deny brought his family. A man they had met on the steamer 
 had recommended this hotel to them, and they went there direct. 
 The recommendation must have been for economy; other 
 advantages were all to seek. Their bedroom was noisy, with 
 ill-fitting windows. The first night, the roar of the Strand 
 seemed to interrupt any attempt to talk, filling their life with 
 discord; at least, that is how it appeared to Rosaleen. Derry 
 wanted to see Mossy Leon immediately. He was aching for 
 news. He said so that night, and he said little else, he was so 
 conscious of the aching. 
 
 But the interview had perforce to wait. Derry, fine strong 
 fellow though he was, had contrived to catch cold. He meant 
 to have seen Mossy the next day, but his night was feverish 
 
 238
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 and restless, and when he tried to get up, to throw off the feeling 
 of illness, to assure himself that there was nothing at all the 
 matter, influenza urged its unanswerable argument, and drove 
 him back to bed. A doctor, recommended by the hotel pro- 
 prietor, and acting solely in his interest, found that Lord Ran- 
 more was suffering from "malaria" and would be well in a few 
 hours. He assured Lady Ranmore that there was nothing 
 infectious in the illness, and he prescribed drugs to reduce the 
 fever. He reduced the patient's strength at the same time, 
 but this was a detail. In twenty-four hours he was able to 
 verify his prophecy that the temperature would be normal. 
 Rosaleen ought to have taken another room for herself and 
 little Terence, but it never struck her to do this, and the doctor 
 never suggested it. 
 
 They had brought no nurse with them from Bangkok, a 
 Siamese woman would have been only an obstruction, and 
 there was no European to be had. Little Terence had been no 
 trouble at all on the journey, he had been on deck all the time, 
 everybody's playmate, and playmate, too, of the sun and the 
 air. He missed his companions here in this close room. During 
 the first day or two of Derry 's illness he was as good as gold, and 
 played quietly with his toys in a corner of the room. It seemed 
 possible to make him understand that "poor daddy had a toos- 
 ache." The struggle through of those dilatory teeth had been 
 the only discomfort he knew. He wanted to "tomfort" Daddy, 
 to pat his mouth. Rosaleen had her work cut out with both 
 of them. The first day Derry was restless, thirsty and in high 
 fever, the second day he was only drowsy, and she was able to 
 take the baby out for an hour or two. He was used to air, and 
 quickly languished without it, but the compressed air of the 
 Strand is unnutritious. Therefore, long before Derry had 
 thrown off his illness, little sonny had sickened of it. Night 
 and day Rosaleen nursed them both. The baby had the com- 
 plaint mildly, but it left him fretful and difficult. 
 
 As for Derry, to the one day of high fever succeeded nearly 
 a fortnight of headache and lassitude, with pains in his head 
 and a great unwillingness of movement. 
 
 239
 
 .LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Rosaleen walked the room hour after hour with the boy, 
 singing low to him to keep him quiet, for Deny needed sleep. 
 It was little sleep she got herself that first week of her home- 
 coming. She did not know what Berry's plans were. She 
 could not look forward, and the four walls of that bedroom 
 seemed as the estoppel of her vision. But those four walls held 
 her dear ones, and night and day she nursed and tended them, 
 happier in her mind than she had been since the intrusion into 
 it of Lady Carrie. 
 
 When Derry awoke to what was going on, he missed the 
 geranium from her cheeks, and some of the light from her 
 eyes. 
 
 "You're pale," he said, looking up at her from his pillow. 
 His headache had gone, and the power of thinking had evidently 
 returned to him. "What's come to you?" 
 
 "It's not my looks you have got to be thinking of, but your 
 own," she answered, smiling on him. "You are better this 
 morning?" 
 
 She had been up a long time, had washed and dressed the 
 boy, and given him his breakfast. Now he was drowsing off 
 to sleep again in her arms. 
 
 "I'm well. What has been the matter with me? Why is 
 it so dark?" 
 
 "It's a foggy morning. You have had high fever and head- 
 ache; malaria, the doctor calls it." 
 
 "Have I seen Mossy Leon? How long have I been here? 
 I don't seem to remember anything." 
 
 "You have not seen anyone but me. You were taken ill the 
 night you came." 
 
 "And how long ago was that?" 
 
 "More than a week." 
 
 "You've been nursing me again?" 
 
 "It wasn't much nursing you needed. Just a drink of milk 
 and soda, and the medicine." 
 
 He was eyeing her solicitously: 
 
 " You have been losing your looks. I am ashamed of myself 
 to have been lying here like this. But I'm all right this morn- 
 
 240
 
 ing, I'll just have a bath and a shave, and I'll be as right as rain. 
 We must be getting those roses back for you. ..." 
 
 But, when he tried to get out of bed, he found the doctor and 
 his drugs had been too much for him. His legs refused their 
 office, and were like drunken servants who could not do their 
 duty. He collapsed on the floor, and lay there a moment, 
 feeling very shaky and dazed. 
 
 "That's a nice thing to have happened," he said. She put 
 the boy into his cot, he was fortunately asleep. Then she tried 
 to help Derry, but getting him back on to the bed again was by 
 no means easy. 
 
 "I've done a nice thing for you, bringing you here, and me 
 like this," Derry said breathlessly, when he was back in bed. 
 "What's to be done now?" He felt utterly helpless and depend- 
 ent on her. "I am only a log; and no use to you at all." 
 
 She tried to comfort him. 
 
 "You will be well in no time at all. It's only your breakfast 
 you are wanting now. Wait till I ring and get it for you. You '11 
 feel stronger after that. ..." 
 
 But Derry 's spirits had collapsed with his legs. 
 
 "I believe I'll never be any better. I don't know what's 
 going to become of you in this great wilderness of a 
 town . . . ? 
 
 She had to laugh at him, as she coaxed him to a cup of coffee 
 and a little toast. He did not want to eat or drink, it seemed to 
 him that he was very ill, and would never be better, a black 
 wave of depression struck him, as it were, full between the eyes. 
 It was Rosaleen who would not let him shut his eyes, and be 
 submerged. He muttered that he had brought her away from 
 her friends, that they were all alone in this great city. 
 
 "It's not alone at all I am, with you and the boy," she said 
 gently. She had a great deal to do for both of them, and no 
 work was too much for her. Only Derry 's depression worried 
 her. She could not satisfy herself that its source was illness 
 only. She was so little used to him, and the mosquito stings 
 revived. Was it something or somebody he was missing, and 
 if so . . . who? Of course the depression was due to the 
 
 241
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 influenza and the drugs, and, although some instinct told her 
 this, and that feeding up was the panacea, she tried to find other 
 causes. She thought perhaps he was fretting over what might 
 be going on at Ranmore. It was her sudden idea that instead 
 of waiting until he was able to call on Mossy, he should send to 
 him. 
 
 "It's him that you're looking to for news. He won't have 
 done what you told him not. Let me write to him, and tell him 
 you are in London. Then you will hear what is going on," 
 she urged. 
 
 "How can I sit up and write?" 
 
 "And why should you sit up and write? It's meself that will 
 write." 
 
 "What can you say? You can't tell him he is a murder- 
 ing villain to think of disturbing them." 
 
 "I can tell him you're wantin' to know what's been done." 
 
 "Oh! Do what you like." Berry's face was turned to 
 the wall. Hadn't he tried to get up, and hadn't his legs failed 
 him? And wasn't he no use at all? Now he only wanted to 
 be left alone and sleep. The noise of the hotel, and the roar 
 from the Strand, were both at the worst this morning. The 
 state of their finances made it difficult for her to decide a move 
 on her own responsibility. Her recollection of Mossy was that 
 he had tried to be kind to her. Derry had always liked him 
 until that unfortunate suggestion. And there was no one else. 
 . . . She had another name in the background of her mind. 
 Derry was not friendless, he had a friend in London; but it was 
 not to Lady Carrie Carthew she would be writing. She made 
 up her mind quickly while Derry slept: 
 
 "DEAR MR. LEON, Derry took a chill the very first day 
 he got to England, and has had to stay in bed. He is uneasy 
 in his mind, and is wanting to hear all about Ranmore. It 
 would be kind if you would send me a letter that will ease him 
 when he wakes up." 
 
 She went softly out of the room, so softly that she woke 
 neither of them, and gave the letter to a boy. She knew the 
 address of Mossy 's office, and said it was to be taken over at 
 
 242
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 once, it was but a step. Then she went back into the darkened 
 room as softly as she had left it; she was a born nurse. 
 
 Mossy had been expecting to hear from Lord Ranmore for 
 some days now. He knew he was due in England, and there 
 were bills to be renewed, and sundry matters to be gone into. 
 Rosaleen 's letter was brought to him when he was in the middle 
 of his post. Mossy Leon's habits were luxurious, and he did 
 not arrive at his office until eleven. When he had read the note 
 he was in two minds about bundling all his other correspondence 
 back into the basket, and dashing round at once to the hotel. 
 He could not understand why Lord Ranmore had chosen such 
 a domicile. But he remembered Albany Street! 
 
 "He was always a queer fellow about diggings," Mossy 
 thought. He did not understand Berry's desire to be econom- 
 ical. Deny had come nowhere near the end of his borrowing 
 powers, and Mossy only understood economy when it was 
 obligatory. He had no horror of debt. Quite the contrary. 
 It was one of his aphorisms that creditors were tradesmen, to 
 whom bad debts were a necessity, in fact an integral part of 
 their balance-sheets. When his own tradesmen became im- 
 portunate, which his improvident habits brought about frequently, 
 and threatened him with a writ, or other proceedings, he would 
 pay under protest, and say they were blackmailers. Another 
 of his aphorisms was that a man who, having ready money, 
 parted with it, did not deserve to be trusted with it at all. 
 
 He did not know of any reason why Rord Ranmore should 
 be economizing, for he had hardly touched the edge of his credit. 
 The hotel was so near that he could put off going there until 
 after lunch, which he could enjoy at Romano's, in the cheery 
 company of chorus-girls, and their admirers; the semi-theatrical, 
 semi-Bohemian atmosphere suited him. He knew most of the 
 habitue's, and it was usually the pleasantest hour of the day 
 for him. 
 
 Everybody in the theatrical world knew Mossy Leon, not only 
 because he was part author of the libretti of many musical 
 comedies, but because he was also legal adviser to the most 
 famous entrepreneur of them all. He enjoyed his unique position, 
 
 243
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 and no one was better up in the gossip of the coulisses. He 
 had helped a good many famous, or infamous, artistes into con- 
 tracts, or out of them. Here at Romano's he was in the thick 
 of his clients. He forgot Deny while he was going from table 
 to table, to this group and the other. He settled down finally 
 with three young ladies who had been rehearsing, and in their 
 giggling society he discussed his excellent luncheon over a bottle 
 of champagne. 
 
 It was half-past three before he remembered he was on his 
 way to see Derry Ranmore, and he was feeling mellow and well 
 content. He walked from Romano's to the hotel; the very 
 entrance offended his senses. 
 
 " Good God! what a hole for a man to stay in!" he exclaimed, 
 oblivious of the feelings of a German waiter who was sauntering 
 from the table d'hote room to the hall, carrying a table-napkin 
 as soiled as himself. 
 
 "Here, you! find me someone to take my card to a gentleman. 
 Isn't there a hall porter or something? Where the dickens can 
 I find someone to take a message?" There really was no one 
 about but the German waiter. "Lord Ranmore is staying 
 here, isn't he? Can I see him?" 
 
 The waiter saw no reason why not. Meinherr Ranmore 
 was on the second floor Number Eighty-four. No, there 
 was no lift, aufzug, the stairs were not steep. 
 
 Mossy went up. The shabby stair-carpets, and the smell 
 of food positively distressed him. One has to recollect he liked 
 Derry, and was never more than half a business man. The 
 rest of him was made up of inconsistencies, the chief of which 
 was a desire for everybody's well-being. "What the devil 
 made him come to a hole like this?" was all he was thinking. 
 His conscience did not distress him at all in having essayed to 
 prevent the Dowager Lady Ranmore from occupying the Castle 
 without giving any equivalent to Derry. Mossy 's conscience 
 was a very easy and adaptable friend to him. A keen sense 
 of humor helped, too, to keep it always in good subordinate 
 mood. He knew it had been a very clever idea to close the 
 mausoleum against the Dowager, and he thought, at the time, 
 
 244
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 that Ranmore had been a fool to stop him, but so many things 
 had intervened that he had forgotten this one. The things 
 that had intervened were chiefly chorus-girls. All he remem- 
 bered very distinctly just now was that Deny Ranmore was 
 a nice genial fellow, and Flossie Delaporte would like him. 
 
 He knocked at the door of Room 84, and being bidden in 
 Rosaleen's clear accents to enter, he found himself in a close 
 atmosphere. Derry had once more essayed to rise, but had only 
 got to the easy-chair, and into a dressing-gown. Rosaleen, of 
 whom Mossy 's only remembrance was her incongruous appear- 
 ance at his dinner-party, and her abrupt and inexplicable flight 
 from it, had a baby in her arms. 
 
 The walls of the room were papered with horrible yellow 
 chrysanthemums, and there were no pictures or prints to relieve 
 this; but there was a square of green carpet, with a maple- wood 
 chest of drawers, washing and dressing-table, and Terence's 
 cot. Berry's easy-chair was of basket-work. Mossy had an 
 immediate sensation of acute discomfort. 
 
 "My dear fellow! Why didn't you send for me before? 
 I've been wondering what the deuce had become of you. But 
 what a ghastly hole to be in!" 
 
 He gave Derry no time to remember that he was a villain. 
 With an eye on Rosaleen, rather a bold eye, by the way, he took 
 a seat by Derry, and plunged at once into talk. 
 
 "I'm awfully sorry to see you like this. What doctor have 
 you had ? Some damn fool of a general practitioner, I suppose. 
 You ought to have the best man in London. There's Tanner 
 now, he's a very clever fellow. ..." 
 
 "I'm not requiring a doctor. That was a nice thing you 
 wanted to be doing at Ranmore," Derry began. But he was 
 glad to see Mossy, he knew it, even while he started to abuse 
 him. Mossy Leon took the bull by the horns. 
 
 "My dear fellow, you don't mind my saying you made a 
 damn fool of yourself with that cable? By now everything 
 "would have been straightened out, and you'd have been at the 
 Ritz, with money to burn, instead of in this dog-kennel. But 
 we won't discuss that now. You are not fit for it. I don't 
 
 245
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 believe you ought to be out of bed." He turned again to 
 Rosaleen. 
 
 "Who has been attending him?" 
 
 He looked at her, and now he really did not want to look 
 away again. 
 
 "It's the malaria he has had; and the sunstroke he took out 
 at Petchaburi has left him subject to headaches. But he's 
 better to-day. You are better to-day, aren't you, Deny? 
 And talking to Mr. Leon will do you good." 
 
 "I should think if you have not done him good, no one 
 could," Mossy said this with his wandering eyes still following 
 Rosaleen as she moved about the room. 
 
 Mossy was straight from Romano's, where all the girls, 
 with peroxide heads and advertised smiles, who danced and 
 sang in musical comedy, and drew London by their beauty or 
 agility, had been lunching and talking. To look from the 
 garish, gilded beauties he had left, into Rosaleen 's pale face, 
 gray eyes and wealth of black hair, was like coming from the 
 decorative atrocities of a modern Alhambra into the broad 
 calm of a Venetian lagoon. He would not have been Mossy 
 Leon if he had not felt immediately that she was a factor in 
 the situation. She was beautiful, this wife of Derry's, unques- 
 tionably beautiful. There were a dozen things to talk to Derry 
 about, the bills that must be renewed, the action that ought to 
 be taken with regard to the rents and leases; but Mossy did not 
 want to talk of any of them, he wanted to look at Rosaleen, 
 and indulge himself with that little thrill of appreciation. 
 
 Rosaleen, however, thought the men would want to be left 
 alone. 
 
 " I 'm going to wrap the boy up, and take him out for a while," 
 she told Derry. "Mr. Leon will be company for you while I'm 
 gone. He'll tell you all you want to know." 
 
 "Don't leave us, Lady Ranmore," Mossy said. 
 
 She smiled at Mossy because already she saw that he was 
 going to do Derry good, and the smile completed her conquest. 
 
 "Can't talk about Flossie in the same breath," was Mossy 's 
 inward comment when he opened the door for her. 
 
 246
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "What a beautiful boy!" Mossy was fond of children, and 
 knew by instinct what to say to them. 
 
 "He has not been well these last few days." 
 
 "You all want looking after, that's what it is." Mossy 
 liked the idea of playing providence to Rosaleen and her belong- 
 ings. He went back to Deny after she had gone out. 
 
 "Tell me about everything," Derry said, rather feebly. 
 
 "You know Flossie Delaporte is to play 'lead' in the new 
 piece at the Pantheon? I suppose I mustn't smoke here? 
 Your wife's a beauty, and no mistake. I'd like Nat Simons 
 to see her. What a place to have brought her!" Mossy was 
 quite restless for a few moments after Rosaleen had left them, 
 and walked about the room, talking spasmodically. Then, all 
 at once, he recollected Berry's needs. 
 
 "Have you seen any of them, there at Ranmore?" Derry 
 asked him. Again and again during his illness the passion of 
 desire for Ranmore, and for his people there, had surged hope- 
 lessly over him. 
 
 "I went over. What a cursed crossing it is! ... I saw 
 the old lady in Dublin." 
 
 "She is not old at all," Derry interposed. "Go on." 
 
 "And I told her what I thought of her, but she began by 
 abusing me. She said you had put yourself in the hands of a 
 low attorney, and you had forgotten what she and Terence were 
 to you and a lot more." 
 
 "You didn't let her think you came from me?" 
 
 "What the deuce did it matter what she thought? The 
 woman's a perfect vixen." 
 
 "She used to be so good to me." 
 
 "Well! She doesn't seem to feel that way now. She called 
 you all the names she could lay her tongue to, from interloper 
 to abductor. I suppose it was a bit hot, you bolting with the 
 girl that was engaged to your cousin, before he had been buried 
 eight-and-forty hours! I say ... do you really think a 
 cigarrette would matter? I believe it would be better for you 
 than the atmosphere of this room." 
 
 "Oh! smoke if you like," Derry said impatiently, "but go 
 
 247
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 on with your talking. What else did she say? And did you 
 see the Duchess, or hear of her? What has become of her? 
 Are they both deserting me entirely?" 
 
 With a cigarette hanging on to his lower lip, Mossy grew 
 more definite. Derry heard about the interview in Dublin. 
 It was obvious that Mossy had widened, not lessened the 
 breach. 
 
 He had seen the Dowager Lady Ranmore in her own house, 
 in Merrion Square. He had not waited to be announced, 
 but had followed his card into the drawing-room, and com- 
 menced at once by saying he represented Lord Ranmore. 
 
 The Dowager, who was sitting gazing into the fire, seeing 
 nothing but a lonely old age reflected there, seemed at first 
 too dazed to realize who he was, or what he wanted. Then, 
 when she began to understand, her desolation broke over her 
 like a cold and devastating wave, and she could only breath- 
 lessly splutter out the anger that was another name for shock. 
 Was this Derry 's emissary Derry, who hadn't so much as 
 asked if she was dead or alive, but only that she should give 
 up Ranmore to him, with all she had done there "for her lost 
 darling." Dry sobs had contended with incoherent grief as she 
 talked. Wasn't it her husband's cousin's son, and had not she 
 been a mother to him all the days he was an orphan? And 
 hadn't he left them alone in the house directly trouble had 
 come to it, clearing out when the black sorrow came? And 
 now it was money he wanted, and only money. Ranmore was 
 not for such as he. And the girl, who had professed to care 
 for Terence, her angel son, had gone with him! It was the heir 
 she had wanted, and never cared which of them it was; but it 
 was heir to nothing Derry would be, and heir to nothing she 
 had married. She would pull Ranmore down on both their 
 heads if she could, and it was little short of it that she was able 
 to do, Mr. Carruthers told her, if she exercised her rights, and 
 she had instructed him to waive none of them. So, he, Mossy, 
 could go back and tell that to his client. 
 
 Mossy had hardly recovered from his sea-sickness, and he 
 was never at his best out of London and his familiar haunts. 
 
 248
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 He had retorted that it was a "dirty trick" to claim against 
 Derry for the improvements she had put in to please herself, 
 and he did not suppose for a moment that she could legally 
 maintain her position. She had replied that she did not want 
 to be told her duty by a low attorney engaged by her ungrateful 
 nephew to turn her out of her home. 
 
 "But, damn it, it is not your home, it's his." 
 
 "Well, let him try and get it," she had replied, ending the 
 interview. 
 
 In the result Mr. Carruthers' claims had become more 
 exorbitant. Mossy knew he had failed, and he wanted the 
 Dowager to suffer for his failure. He had not gone over to 
 Dublin to soothe. Lady Ranmore's exacerbated feelings, he had 
 gone there, to use his own expression, "to try to collect some 
 oof for Derry." The idea of barring her from Ranmore and 
 the mausoleum was the outcome of this state of feeling. Fortu- 
 nately, it had not occurred to him until his return to England. 
 Derry had prevented his carrying out the scheme, and by this 
 time, as was Mossy's way, he had forgotten his irritation. 
 
 He told Derry all about it, sitting there by his side in the 
 dingy Strand Hotel. 
 
 It hurt Derry horribly, the more so because Mossy conveyed 
 it badly. Of course he did not intend to hurt, but he really 
 thought Lady Ranmore's feelings against Derry and his wife 
 were as strong as she had talked them, and this was the im- 
 pression he conveyed. Mossy said authoritatively that any idea 
 of reconciliation was quite hopeless. 
 
 "What you have got to do," said Mossy, walking up and 
 down the room, the inevitable cigarette hanging 'from his lip, 
 "is first to get well, and out of this filthy place, and then to make 
 up your mind you have got to fight." 
 
 "But, Margaret did she say nothing about Margaret? The 
 Duchess, I mean. Does she feel like that about me?" 
 
 "Never said a word about her, never mentioned her name 
 besides, what has she got to do with it ? She has renounced any 
 claim." 
 
 "It is not a question of claim," Derry answered forlornly. 
 
 249
 
 It was not possible for Mossy Leon to understand that Berry's 
 depression had nothing to do with the money, or the possession 
 of the Ranmore rents. 
 
 "Well," said Mossy, when he had done a little more talking, 
 "I am going to bring Tanner to see you this afternoon, because 
 that's the first thing to do, to get you well, and out of this place. 
 I will see Levy for you and get your bills renewed. You will 
 have to sign another, but there is no difficulty about that By 
 the way, Lady Carrie has been asking after you, and when you 
 are coming back. She is in the devil of a hole; I've spent half 
 my time the last few weeks staving off Lady Carrie's creditors. 
 I don't know what the deuce she expects you to do for her, or 
 why you should do it, but her instructions have been to stave 
 them off until you came back." 
 
 That was the unfortunate moment Rosaleen chose for her 
 return, and the first words she heard as she re-entered were 
 Berry's: 
 
 "Is Lady Carrie wanting money? Well, bring me the bill 
 to-morrow, and I will sign it."
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 ROSALEEN stood a moment, hesitating, on the threshold 
 of the room. 
 "Come in, come in," Mossy said. "We've done our 
 talk. By Jove, that boy has got quite a color from his outing. 
 But surely he is too heavy for you." Rosaleen had gone very 
 pale, and the intentness of Mossy's look discovered it. "I'm 
 going to send Tanner up directly I get back. I believe you all 
 want change of air." 
 
 "Come in and shut the door," Deny called out, almost 
 impatiently. He had the invalid's premonitory shiver, and dread 
 of draughts. But Rosaleen thought he was vexed at her entry, 
 at her having overheard his last sentence. 
 
 "Give him to me, I like kids; he's a little ripper, isn't he? 
 Funny thing, he's much more like Terence than he is like you," 
 Mossy said to Derry. 
 
 " Oh! put him down, we hadn't half finished our talk." Now 
 it was for Rosaleen, Derry was impatient and irritable, but she 
 did not stay to consider that. 
 
 "I'm taking him out again. I only came in for a moment, 
 to see if you wanted anything." 
 
 "I'm just going. I only stayed until you came back, so that 
 he shouldn't be alone. I'll come round again to-morrow, and 
 hear what Tanner says. My business with Derry can wait. 
 I don't consider him fit for business. Can't you take him off to 
 Brighton?" 
 
 "Why Brighton?" This from the invalid. "I'll be all 
 right in a day or two. I should have been all right before, if I 
 could have got out." 
 
 "That's just my point. How can you get out here ? Unless, 
 of course, you only want to get as far as Romano's. Let me 
 arrange something for you." Now it was to Rosaleen he was 
 
 251
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 speaking. "I know some awfully nice rooms on the front at 
 Brighton. I went there last week with ..." 
 
 But he did not finish his sentence. Mossy was an unaccount- 
 able person, and for the moment could think of nothing but the 
 extraordinarily clear softness of her porcelain skin, the little trick 
 of eyebrow, and the upward curve of the bow of pink lips, the 
 way her head was set on the graceful slope of her shoulders, 
 the slender perfection of her figure from rounded bust to waist, 
 and the length from hip to foot. 
 
 "I'll come round again to-morrow, after you have seen 
 Tanner," were his last words; and he did not part with his 
 cigarette when he said them. 
 
 "I'm sorry I interrupted you in the midst of your business 
 talk," Rosaleen faltered out to Derry when he had gone. Derry 
 noticed the falter in her voice, her pallor. He put it down to 
 those words of Mossy about the boy. She could not even bear 
 Terence's name mentioned, Derry thought, and he had that 
 little spasm of retrospective jealousy. It altered his manner 
 to her for the moment, in some subtle way, not easy to convey. 
 Poor Rosaleen thought the alteration was due to an allegiance 
 revived. This dreary London was perhaps full of happy 
 reminiscences for him, but he meant her not to know; she felt 
 that now. If he had only married her out of pity, he never 
 meant that she should know there had been anyone else, anyone 
 whose place she had taken. She went on tending him as if 
 nothing had occurred. 
 
 Dr. Tanner, sent by Mossy, came in later on. He was a big, 
 fine Scotsman, the last man in the world, one would have 
 imagined, to be spending his life writing certificates for leading 
 ladies. And he knew his work well, too; only an unfortunately 
 active thirst kept him from the position to which his talents 
 entitled him. 
 
 He overhauled Derry, and found nothing the matter with 
 him but treatment, and he duly admired Rosaleen, about whom 
 Mossy had raved to him. 
 
 He sat talking with them quite a long time, and the upshot 
 of his talk was that they were to take the eleven o'clock train 
 
 252
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 for Brighton to-morrow morning, and to stay there until the 
 sea breezes undid the work of the sudorifics. 
 
 "And I'm going to get me strength back entirely, and be able 
 to look after this poor girl who has exhausted herself with 
 nursing me?" 
 
 "I don't think you need worry about Lady Ranmore," Dr. 
 Tanner answered, regarding her with an expression of solicitous 
 interest, really thinking that for once Mossy had not exaggerated. 
 "To-day is Thursday, isn't it? I venture to think that by 
 Sunday you will both of you have forgotten there has ever been 
 anything the matter. But don't be too sparing with the food"- 
 this was to Rosaleen as he shook hands with her "and mind 
 you see that he gets his tonic. Good-bye. I shall not even 
 come in and see him again. So that tells you what I think 
 about him. He doesn't want a doctor. You will be the best 
 doctor for him." 
 
 "And it's nurse and doctor she has been to me," Deny called 
 out from the bed. He was very affectionate to her and apprecia- 
 tive, not at all different from what he had always been. But 
 she saw the difference that was not there; and, lying by his side 
 that night, little stings and fears kept her awake. What was it 
 he and Mr. Leon had been saying about Lady Carrie Carthew 
 when she came into the room? And why had they stopped 
 abruptly? He had been impatient to her about shutting the 
 door, him that was never impatient with her. 
 
 The next day saw them installed in those rooms at Brighton 
 recommended by Mossy. These were in every way an improve- 
 ment on the Strand Hotel. Deny and the child began to regain 
 their health almost in a few hours. 
 
 Mossy ran down for the week-end. 
 
 "It's all right," he told Deny. "Levy will let you have 
 another eight hundred pounds; you will have to give him a bill 
 for twelve hundred pounds, but you won't mind that. He'll 
 renew the others. I've seen Carrie, and told her you were here. 
 She wants to see you. I suppose that's all right?" 
 
 "I'll see her directly I get back. I don't like this borrowing, 
 but I suppose there is no help for it." 
 17 253
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "My dear fellow, what does it matter to you? You'll be 
 very rich one day. There's any amount of coal at Ranmore, 
 I'm told. Your title is clear. It's only a question of the money 
 that has been spent. If I'd started first, or been allowed my 
 own way earlier, Carruthers would never have got that order 
 for the rents to be paid into Court." 
 
 Mossy came down ostensibly to talk business to Deny. In 
 reality Rosaleen was his objective. Why not, since Derry had 
 an affair on with Lady Carrie? That was the way matters 
 ranged themselves in Mossy's eyes. He did not understand 
 any other relations between men and women. Lady Carrie 
 had corresponded with Derry; now she was looking forward to 
 his making some arrangements with her creditors. What was 
 the obvious conclusion? Of course, it was the one at which 
 Mossy had arrived. It was hard lines on his wife. Mossy 
 Leon, for whom the word morality had no meaning at all, but 
 who was soft-hearted, and a good fellow all round, had sympathy 
 with Derry, and thought he could do him a good turn by occupy- 
 ing his wife's attention. He also had sympathy with Rosaleen, 
 and from Saturday to Monday, for two or three consecutive 
 weeks, he left Flossie Delaporte to her own devices, and on the 
 promenade by the sea, or in the drawing-room of the house in 
 the King's Road, he devoted himself to the consolation of young 
 Lady Ranmore. His sudden infatuation would have been 
 patent to anyone who knew him. Mossy was transparent when 
 such an attack came to him. Derry, of course, saw only friend- 
 ship for himself in Mossy's appearance at Brighton, and Rosaleen 
 saw nothing else. She thought Mossy Leon was very kind and 
 attentive; he had brought them all here to this sea and sun. It 
 was through him Derry was himself again, and little Terence 
 gurgling with laughter in the day, sleeping through the night. 
 Sitting on a chair by the window, with the inevitable needlework 
 on her lap, listening while Mossy talked, or half listening, she 
 smiled, now softly, now gaily, at Mossy's stories. Mossy had 
 no end of stories. Some of them made Derry glance askance 
 in her direction, some of them she could not understand at all, 
 but many of them made her laugh. Mossy, as he talked, could 
 
 254
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 watch the dimple play in the corner of her mouth, and the way 
 one eyebrow would move whimsically up. He found her brogue 
 delicious. 
 
 When a girl's heart is as full of one man as Rosaleen's was of 
 Derry, it takes a long time for her to understand that another is 
 making love to her. It seems so patent to her that there is only 
 one man in the world, that she expects everyone else to see eye 
 to eye with her. Then, there were many other reasons why 
 she should not suspect Mossy of entering the lists for her favors. 
 She was a married woman, come of a class for whom the sanctity 
 of marriage vows have a peculiar significance, and Mossy was 
 a friend of Berry's. To glance, too, from one man to the other 
 made the idea absurd. Derry had gained in good looks since 
 he had married, his face had become more set, instinct with 
 character; it was the face of a man who had done good work, 
 and was conscious of it; who had carried out a vow, and was 
 full of the quiet content of it; who had won a good woman's 
 love and knew how to keep it. He was not, perhaps, handsome; 
 the nose was too broad and the chin too square, he was too 
 swart of skin. His straight hair fell untidily about his rugged 
 brow; but his figure was magnificent. And now he carried his 
 six foot two as if the world belonged to him. When they walked 
 along the King's Road, or up the Parade, Rosaleen thought 
 there was neither woman nor girl who did not look at Derry as 
 he went by. She was never without her fulfilment of pride in 
 him. It would have been impossible for her to imagine Mossy 
 Leon, or anybody else, thinking to make love to her when she 
 had Derry. 
 
 Mossy was definitely Semitic, and already, at five-and-thirty, 
 his indulgence in the pleasures of the table had given him a 
 somewhat gross appearance. His black eyes were bright and 
 sharp; he inclined to baldness, and he was an indefatigable 
 talker. He was always elaborately dressed, glossy, and brilliantly 
 manicured; on one hand he wore two gipsy rings, on the other 
 he disported the family seal. This had been Ethel's wedding 
 present; it bore the crest of her family, of course. Mossy's 
 family crest would have been three hats rampant, he said, or 
 
 255
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 three balls pendant. His sense of humor did not fail when he 
 talked about himself, but it certainly stayed in the background 
 when he could contemplate Lord Ranmore's wife reciprocating 
 his admiration. 
 
 He tried very hard. He told her all about Iris Maclntoy's 
 turquoises, and May Ferrand's comments upon them, about 
 both their salaries, and how Iris made nine shillings a week the 
 first year she was on the stage, and 500 a week the third, and 
 was no more solvent in the third than she had been in the first. 
 He spared no detail of Lord Ramkelley's recklessness with 
 Ellaline Gavin, and was eloquent of dinners at Taplow and 
 jaunts to Maidenhead, and confidential as to what Jenny said 
 to Zena, and what Lily said to Maud. Rosaleen did not 
 listen to him very attentively; she was generally wondering 
 whether the new nurse remembered that Terence liked a sponge- 
 finger with his milk at eleven, or that it was time for Derry to 
 have his tonic. 
 
 Mossy's infatuation lasted over three week-ends, and he never 
 succeeded even in making her understand what he was trying 
 to tell her. Mossy's temperament required encouragement 
 and he was used to receiving it, having both influence and 
 diamonds to give away. He began to think Rosaleen, although 
 so beautiful, must be stupid; but, after all, he was a clever man, 
 and he noted the direction of her eyes, and gradually began to 
 understand the position. By that time, however, he had, quite 
 without knowing how he got there, or at what exact period he 
 had fallen out of love and into friendship, arrived at a very 
 genuine appreciation of her character, and he thought Derry a 
 very lucky fellow, contrasting his own lot with something 
 perilously like a heartache. If he had had a wife who adored 
 him, and a kid like theirs, probably there would have been no 
 Flossies, nor interests apart from Grosvenor Square. One of 
 the strange things about Mossy was his appreciation of domes- 
 ticity. Another that he was never entirely disillusioned about 
 Ethel. He always thought there was good in her, and that it 
 was something of his own fault if it had never flowered. She 
 could not help being a snob, or having no sense of humor. If 
 
 256
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 she had only known the right people! He spent these few 
 week-ends watching Rosaleen waiting upon Derry, playing with 
 her baby, working for both of them. Then he thought it would 
 be a capital idea if she and Ethel made friends. He had 
 forgotten the fiasco that had attended his first attempt in this 
 direction. 
 
 Ethel had not forgotten it. It was just the sort of thing that 
 would have dwelt in her memory, even had Ellaline forgotten 
 to remind her of it, or Bianca had not written. 
 
 "The Ranmores are coming to town at the end of the week," 
 Mossy announced, when he got back to Grosvenor Square one 
 Monday. Ethel knew that they were at Brighton, and that 
 Mossy was visiting Lord Ranmore on business. She did not 
 go beyond this. If she ever suspected Mossy of being unfaithful 
 to her, it had no effect upon her except to make her more extrava- 
 gant. She had no capacity for jealousy; but she resented his 
 spending money on anybody but herself. Mossy had been for 
 many week-ends to Brighton before the Ranmores had gone 
 there; and business was always his excuse. 
 
 "Coming back to town, are they? I suppose I shall have to 
 call! Rather a bore, isn't it? I suppose she hasn't improved 
 at all ?" 
 
 "What the devil do you mean?" Mossy's manners retro- 
 graded under Ethel's superior airs. 
 
 "I mean that I suppose she still dresses like a housemaid, 
 and drinks out of the finger-glasses." 
 
 "She dresses a damn sight better than Mrs. Jobson, or any 
 of that crowd! As for her behavior, I wish to God any of your 
 friends were as well-mannered!" 
 
 "There is no use getting into a rage about it. If they are 
 clients of yours, of course I shall call." Ethel was quite willing 
 to be a helpmate to her husband in this way, when his clients 
 wore titles. 
 
 "Much good your calling will do her!" Mossy was irritable 
 this evening; he was fresh from that domestic interior, those 
 modest apartments, where love dwelt. And Grosvenor Square, 
 the men-servants, the elaborate dinner, the bills that littered 
 
 257
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 the hall-table, gave him an uneasy sense that he was getting 
 little for his money. 
 
 "And I suppose you'll get Mrs. Streeter, or Mrs. Jobson, to 
 go with you. I wish you'd go alone, and give yourself a chance. 
 Get to know her." 
 
 Ethel laughed. 
 
 "Oh! I got to know her well enough at the dinner-party I 
 gave for her. She told me she had been maid, or housemaid or 
 something. No, thank you; I don't want to know any more 
 about her than I do. But I'll call, of course. Where are they 
 staying? Not in Albany Street still, I hope?" 
 
 "I wanted you to look up a furnished flat for them. I 
 suppose that won't be too much trouble? They will have to 
 stay in London until we get nearer a settlement, I know what 
 Carruthers is playing up for, of course, but I'm not going to 
 oblige him." 
 
 "Mrs. Persian wants to let her flat. She has taken a cottage 
 on the river." 
 
 "Mrs. Persian? That's the woman with a sweet smile and 
 a bad word for everybody, isn't it? Another of your Jobson 
 lot. What's her flat like?" 
 
 "It's in Westminster. I don't think it's anything out of the 
 way. She isn't at all well off, but her husband was one of the 
 De Clintons." 
 
 " Oh, yes! I remember. She tried to get her marriage annulled 
 the case was heard in camera. She did not succeed, and has 
 behaved ever since as if she knew he could get no redress either. 
 A well-matched pair! What does she want for her flat?" 
 
 "Very little, I think. Six or eight pounds a week." 
 
 "I'll see it myself in the morning. You've got the address. 
 Is it empty?" 
 
 "Yes, she went away last week." 
 
 "They could get in by Friday, then? What twaddle it is to 
 talk of the way Lady Ranmore dresses! She is one of the most 
 beautiful women I have ever seen. You can take it from me 
 she's going to make a sensation." 
 
 "A sensation!" Ethel pricked up her ears. 
 
 258
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 ''That's exactly it. As soon as ever they are settled, I'm 
 going to give a party for them. Not your sort of party, that she 
 bolted from before and no wonder! all buckram and boredom. 
 But just the right people, the people she'll like to meet." 
 
 Mossy had fallen out of love and into friendship ; now he would 
 relegate Rosaleen into the background where he kept his instinct- 
 ive connoisseurship of pictures and French furniture, cinquo- 
 cento work and enamels. But it was Mossy's way to feel 
 tenderness for any woman on whom he had looked with an 
 amorous eye; such a one was never the same again as other 
 women to him. He wanted to do things for her. Some instinct 
 told him Lady Ranmore was not a completely happy woman, 
 notwithstanding her undisguised devotion to husband and 
 child. He wanted her to be happy. Mossy's strange panaceas 
 for any trouble were all to be at her disposal, Deny must buy 
 her some jewelry, Ethel should make friends with her, and he 
 would give a theatrical party for her. 
 
 He talked to Ethel about the party he would give as soon as 
 the Ranmores were established in town, and he asked her to 
 see about the flat for them the first thing in the morning. 
 He could talk about nothing but the Ranmores that 
 evening. Ethel was full of misgivings; the title allured her, 
 but her last fiasco obscured it. It was finally agreed, to the 
 satisfaction of both, that none of Ethel's friends should come to 
 the party. She would first see if Lady Ranmore had improved. 
 
 The flat in Westminster was duly inspected and taken. In 
 the end Mossy left that in Ethel's hands. Once it had seized 
 upon his imagination to give a theatrical party in Rosaleen's 
 honor, this absorbed him entirely. 
 
 It was very rarely Mossy gave a party in Grosvenor Square. 
 The Savoy, the Ritz, or the Carlton was generally the scene of 
 his hospitalities. Grosvenor Square was his wife's department. 
 But he had a genius for entertaining, and when he took in hand 
 a thing of this kind it was apt to be well done. When Ethel 
 selected her guests she showed the quality of her mind. The 
 choice fell upon the inferior pseudo-smart, the admiring acquaint- 
 ances from the suburbs, the combination of dull respectability 
 
 259
 
 and snobbery which really constituted her ideal society. Mossy's 
 ideals were different. He was quite frank about it. 
 
 "I don't want your West Kensington crowd at all. I hate 
 'respectable' people! They are a damn sight more disreputable 
 than the others, and not half so amusing. Do you think that 
 Irish hog Mrs. Jobson drags about with her is different from 
 any other man who goes about with a woman? And she jaws 
 about Svespectability!' Give me a good-hearted, good- 
 natured, and, above all, a good-looking woman, and what do 
 I care what she does with her spare time ? I '11 show you how 
 to give a party." 
 
 He grew quite excited about it as the time went on. He 
 would have it on a Sunday night. Then he could get a real 
 good entertainment all the music-hall people, as well as the 
 others. He decided he would have quite a small dinner-party, 
 only eight or ten, then as many as he could get in the evening, 
 and a big supper. 
 
 Mossy had taste. When he began to visualize his entertain- 
 ment, he execrated Ethel's upholstery, the carton pierre, the 
 vieux rose walls and furniture. He had so little interest in it 
 that he had left it to her. Now he could comfort himself only 
 with the knowledge that there were no bad pictures on the 
 walls. The few water-colors by David Cox, Varley, Copley 
 Fielding, and Crome were of his purchasing, and would have 
 redeemed any less ostentatious hangings. 
 
 It was the list for the dinner that bothered him. Lady Carrie 
 wanted to meet Derry; and naturally Derry would like to meet 
 her. But how about Rosaleen? Mossy knew the two women 
 had not yet met. Did Derry want to keep them apart ? There 
 was only one way to find out that was to ask Derry when he 
 came up on Friday. But the party was fixed for Sunday week, 
 and there was but little time for all there was to be done. 
 
 Ethel, although she hated Carrie, who jeered openly at her 
 pretensions and made fun of her, thought it only right she should 
 be invited. For the Ranmores and she were cousins, and, 
 much as Ethel disliked Lady Carrie, she could not forget that 
 she was the daughter of the Earl of Wickford. It was a very 
 
 260
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 difficult point to decide. Mossy could not help talking about 
 his party to everybody he met, and he had to meet Carrie on 
 business that very week. He boasted of the celebrities who 
 had promised to attend Lord Windermere and Iris Maclntoy, 
 Mrs. Maltravers and Nat Simons. Mossy 's celebrities, like 
 prize fruit at a Horticultural show, were too showy to be quite 
 sweet. They were fruit of magnificent appearance, grown for 
 show, something wanting in purity of flavor, perhaps. But 
 Lady Carrie thought his party would be great fun. She said 
 she would like to come very much. Mossy 's house was neutral 
 ground, she could meet anyone there; it was just an excursion 
 into Bohemia. Not like Ethel's dreadful parties, another of 
 which she vowed she would never attend. 
 
 Mossy did not ask her if she minded meeting Derry's wife. 
 What was the use, since she had said she would come, almost 
 before he had made up his mind to ask her? The same argu- 
 ment applied to Deny; the thing had decided itself.
 
 MOSSY was not very pleased with Mrs. Persian's flat 
 when he went to see the Ranmores and tell them of the 
 entertainment he was preparing in their honor. He 
 found it stuffy, tasteless, and ill-furnished. And, indeed, it was 
 all that. The last thing he could think was that these common- 
 place wall-papers and engravings, these saddle-back sofas and 
 chairs, could be background for tragedy. Double doors divided 
 the dining and drawing-room. When they were set open there 
 was enough air in the room, which was about all that interested 
 Deny. It was only a halting-place for him on his way to 
 Ranmore. 
 
 "I say, Deny, what's Lady Ranmore going to wear at my 
 party? Let me choose a dress for her, will you? I want her 
 to outshine everybody else. She ought to, you know, although 
 Julie Stormont is coming. By the way, did I tell you that Julie 
 was coming? She's the best-dressed woman in London." 
 
 Mossy talked as he wandered round the rooms, and grumbled 
 at them, commenting on their frowsiness, and giving the names 
 of a few of the people who were attending his party. 
 
 "I'll be choosing her a fine new dress myself," Deny said, 
 looking at her affectionately. He knew Mossy admired Rosa- 
 leen; but then, that did not seem at all wonderful to him. Some- 
 times he had thought, perhaps, down at Brighton, that Mossy 
 eyed her a thought too boldly; but it was Mossy 's way, and it 
 wasn't a fuss he'd be making about it. "She'll look well in 
 whatever she wears." 
 
 Rosaleen, with heightened color, protested she didn't want 
 a new dress, and she didn't want to go to the party at all. It 
 was her vivid recollection of the last one that dyed her cheeks. 
 Mossy interpreted her flush conectly. He would not allude 
 
 262
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 to it directly, he thought whatever had occurred then was best 
 forgotten. 
 
 "I'll guarantee you shall enjoy yourself, Lady Ranmore. 
 Oscar Paton is coming, and Mrs. Maltravers, Nat Simons and 
 Clarice Vane, Lord Windermere, and . . . and ..." He 
 cleared his throat, and hesitated. He looked from one to another 
 relit his cigarette that had gone out, and added tamely it 
 seemed tame after the other names "and Lady Carrie . . ." 
 
 It seemed to Rosaleen she could hear the silence that followed; 
 but they were only her own heart-beats she heard. Deny gave 
 her a glance; she did not meet his eyes, but she knew he had 
 looked at her. 
 
 "Lady Carrie coming! Is she? Now, that's good news." 
 But he wasn't very sure about it. "My wife has never met 
 her." 
 
 "You've never met her?" Mossy turned inquiringly to 
 Rosaleen. "She is good company." 
 
 "Good company, is she?" Rosaleen answered dully. Both 
 of them now began to speak of Lady Carrie Carthew somewhat 
 eagerly, as if the moment had been embarrassing, but the 
 embarrassment was over. 
 
 "She can imitate anyone she meets, you'd think you heard 
 them speaking. You should hear her do Mrs. Jobson and 
 Sir Patrick." 
 
 "She has had very hard luck one way and another," Derry 
 began. Rosaleen must never know that it was Terence who 
 had consoled her. 
 
 "I don't know what you mean by bad luck. She puts in a 
 pretty good time, I can tell you. She is always short of money, 
 if that's what you call bad luck; but which of us isn't?" 
 
 "She is lonely. ..." 
 
 "Rats! The place is always full of men." 
 
 "Perhaps she has told Derry she is lonely," Rosaleen ven- 
 tured; her lips were trembling, but she was brave enough to 
 want them to go on. She wanted to hear more, but she did 
 not know what it was she wanted to hear. Derry, who was not 
 good at any sort of dissimulation, who bungled and grew red, 
 
 263
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 and was noisy with the furniture, knocking about a footstool, 
 almost overturning a lamp, only wanted to change the con- 
 versation. He was afraid of Terence's name being brought 
 up before Rosaleen. He did not know what Mossy would say, 
 Mossy, who had known better than himself what were the 
 relations between her and Terence. 
 
 "She's lonely enough, and hard up besides. And as for 
 the men. . . . Here, have a whiskey-and-soda, Mossy. Tell 
 us more about the fine party of yours. What's the good of 
 talking about Lady Carrie? Rosaleen will see her, and I'll 
 be bound she'll like her." 
 
 Mossy saw that Derry was embarrassed, and talking to cover 
 it, and he thought it was, perhaps, quite natural; but Lady 
 Carrie and Rosaleen had got to meet, so what was the use of 
 bothering? He was beginning a dissertation upon her; he did 
 not want Derry to have any illusions. Whatever he was doing 
 he had better do with his eyes open. 
 
 "I like the idea of Lady Carrie being lonely!" he repeated. 
 
 Derry went straight at it then. After all, he need not hear 
 anything for which he had no mind. 
 
 "I wish you wouldn't talk about Lady Carrie at all," he said 
 to Mossy, still with that heightened color. "Rosaleen doesn't 
 know her, and you'll only be prejudicing her. You're such a 
 prejudiced fellow yourself. How about that new dress, though ? 
 I thought you were taking such an interest in it, and were going 
 to advise as to the color." 
 
 "Well, that was partly because I wanted her to cut out 
 Carrie ..." but he saw the frown on Derry 's brow. 
 
 "It's a grand creature she is, then?" Rosaleen asked. 
 
 "Grand! Not a bit of it. What made you think she was 
 grand? She's quite a little woman; it's always these little 
 women who ..." 
 
 But now Derry literally shouted at him. 
 
 "Have done about Lady Carrie! I'm not wanting her 
 discussed, I'm telling you . . ." He was ashamed of his 
 violence. But Rosaleen must not hear about her and Terence. 
 
 "All right, old fellow, all right." Mossy was confused in 
 
 264
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 his opinions. He thought Deny a fool, considering what a 
 far more beautiful woman his wife was than Carrie Carthew. 
 He thought, too, that Rosaleen looked unhappy; her face was 
 white, and the stars had gone out of her eyes, that now were 
 sombre and brooding like a dark night. Mossy was sorry she 
 should look sad. 
 
 "Talking of dress reminds me that Percy Fullerton is coming, 
 too. You must leave your dress to me, Lady Ranmore. Percy 
 has often said he'd rather have a word of appreciation from me, 
 when he has really done himself credit in dressing a show, than 
 a whole column of praise from a critic who didn't know red 
 from magenta." 
 
 Deny plunged eagerly into the question, looking at her with 
 an attempt at envisaging her in a ball-dress. 
 
 "She must wear green, for the honor of old Ireland. ..." 
 There was love in his eyes, had she but been able to see it, and, 
 a great anxiety to know if a chance word had hurt her, if she 
 had ever guessed she had had a rival with Terence. She saw 
 the anxiety, but missed the love. 
 
 Mossy scoffed at the idea of green. 
 
 "My dear fellow, we've got to bring out her tones, not to 
 deaden them. Green is all very well for girls with red hair, 
 sometimes for a very pale blonde; it's no good at all for a real 
 brunette. Red now, if we had to decide on a crude color, 
 would be a thousand times better; but we'll do better than that. 
 You leave it to me ; I '11 see Madame Festoon, and talk it over 
 with her." 
 
 Deny would not leave it to anybody, although he was quite 
 ready to discuss it with Mossy, or with all the world. The 
 subject seemed of absorbing interest. 
 
 After Mossy had left, not without giving Derry the name and 
 address of the dressmaker, and urging the necessity for seeing the 
 selected color by artificial light, Rosaleen found the strength to ask : 
 
 "Is it for this Lady Carrie Carthew, then, that you want me 
 to be so fine?" 
 
 Derry's reply, "Well, I'll be proud to show you to her," did 
 not seem all the answer she wanted. 
 
 265
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 In the short silence that fell between them she felt wildly that 
 she must make an effort to know what it was he was trying to 
 hide from her. Of course she knew it was only to save her 
 feelings he would practise dissimulation. Derry's goodness 
 could never be in question; but he had almost been forced into 
 his marriage with her. She forgot how happy they had been 
 together. Was it, then, true that he had known and cared for 
 another woman, and that only his great chivalry, and his great 
 care for his cousin's memory had prompted his marriage? It 
 was good he was . . . but, oh! if it were only his love he had 
 given her rather than his pity! She choked back the sob in 
 her throat. 
 
 "You don't want to talk about her to me," she said then 
 desperately. 
 
 He went over to where she stood by the window, looking 
 blankly out at the blank wall; he put his arm about her, never 
 dreaming how she was misunderstanding. 
 
 "Not if you don't mind," he said. "We've plenty else to 
 talk about, you and I."
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE day of Mossy 's party came at last. Rosaleen had 
 made vain protests first against going at all, and then 
 about the fine new dress. Mossy and Derry together 
 had overridden all her objections. Mossy said he was only 
 giving the party for her. Derry said more than once that it 
 was proud he'd be to see her dressed like a queen. Derry was 
 always saying pretty things to her. Now with determination 
 she tried to shut her mind, and her memory, against the doubts 
 and fears that encompassed her. 
 
 She had gone with him to the great modiste whom Mossy 
 had recommended, and chosen her dress, although, indeed, 
 she was not allowed to interfere over much, for Madame Festoon 
 knew so exactly what was required. She admitted that Mr. 
 Leon had spoken to her of Lady Ranmore; Mr. Leon was a 
 good customer of hers. Mossy had once boasted to Derry that 
 he had given more clothes to more women than any other man 
 in England, except, perhaps, Nat Simons; but then his were in 
 the way of business. Derry had never in his life ordered a 
 dress for any woman but Rosaleen. He flattered himself into 
 thinking he ordered this one. He did not even know its color 
 when he went into the bedroom to see her, all arrayed for con- 
 quest, as he told her jestingly, before they set forth for Gros- 
 venor Square. 
 
 "I thought it was to be white!" he exclaimed. And there 
 was so little color in it, it well might have been white; but just 
 that little color there was, and the sheen of the satin, brought 
 out, as Mossy had promised, every eggshell tint of the fair skin, 
 it deepened the iris of her syes, and the lights of it matched the 
 light that excitement brought into the center of them. Her 
 hair, taken simply back from her face, lay in a great coil low 
 down on her neck. Rosaleen 's neck had the grace of a swan. 
 
 267
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 The white slenderness of her small bust was draped with filmy 
 lace, but it lay like snow beneath the lace, yet snow with the 
 sun on it, almost dazzling. 
 
 "Mossy said I ought to have bought you diamonds, but it's 
 no jewels you want, it's a jewel yourself you are," Deny exclaimed 
 when he looked upon her. 
 
 "You are pleased?" 
 
 "Now, if I just gathered you up in my arms to tell you how 
 pleased I am, I'd spoil everything; so don't tempt me by stand- 
 ing there." 
 
 She was young enough to be excited by a new dress, and her 
 own reflection in her mirror, and above all by Berry's praise. 
 She put aside all doubts and misgivings, and only remembered 
 that, at least, she was his wife, and that to-night he was pleased 
 with her. It was his appreciation that lit the stars in her eyes. 
 Happiness accentuated her beauty. Derry was really proud 
 of her, and she, as always, of him. Derry, like all dark men, 
 looked his best in evening dress. 
 
 They were a very noticeable couple as they followed their 
 names into Mossy 's drawing-room, and were received in Ethel 's 
 best manner, and with Mossy 's real cordiality. 
 
 "Ripping, isn't she?" he said aside to Deny. Mossy's 
 black eyes glistened as they went over the detail of her dress. 
 Mossy was a splendid host when the whole conduct of affairs 
 was in his hands, as it was to-night. He made every guest feel 
 that he or she was the guest of the evening, and that the entertain- 
 ment was given in his or her honor. Ethel could never have 
 been a good hostess. All the time her mind was on herself, 
 and on the effect she was making. She was certainly handsome, 
 and her waist measurement was not more than twenty inches, 
 if that. All the Ayscoughs prided themselves on their genteel 
 slimness. In truth, there was no milk of human kindness in 
 any of them that could serve for fattening. Ethel held herself 
 very erect in her new black velvet; her hard, handsome eyes 
 were critical on Rosaleen, but, once they were satisfied, they 
 easily sought the mirror between the windows. She saw that 
 Lady Ranmore wore no jewelry, while her own coronet of 
 
 268
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 diamonds sparkled on her elaborate coiffure. Now she could 
 receive her other guests with an easy mind. She really thought 
 she looked much more like a peeress than Lady Ranmore. 
 
 The dinner party was to be small, only ten people. Rosaleen 
 had hardly collected her faculties before she found herself being 
 piloted downstairs by Mossy. She had been hot and cold, 
 looking this way and that, dreading to recognize Lady Carrie 
 Carthew, fearful all at once, she hardly knew of what. Derry 
 was so fine and precious a possession to her; little chills of 
 terror shook her as she went down stairs with Mossy, because 
 some other hand was on his arm, and she heard his deep voice 
 answering a low one. 
 
 "We've a crowd coming in the evening," Mossy said, "but 
 I like a small dinner party. Ten is two too many, but one never 
 can be certain of Lady Carrie." 
 
 Now they were seated at the round table with its flat decoration 
 of mauve orchids. Among the orchids were poised little dancing 
 figures, dressed, Mossy told Rosaleen, like the chorus of flowers 
 in the new play at the "Frivolity"; each bearing an electric 
 lamp. 
 
 "That was my own idea; good isn't it? We shall have the 
 whole fifty on the supper- table." He was quite exultant over 
 the effect. Rosaleen's eyes were on the table, indeed, she 
 found it beautiful, she told him. Those eyes of hers could not, 
 as yet, wander any further, and her heart-beats were stifling 
 her. It was only Lady Carrie she wanted, and dreaded, to see; 
 she who had written to Derry in Siam, about whom he did not 
 want to talk. Yet now she heard him talk. She heard his 
 voice more clearly than she heard Mossy's, although Mossy 
 never stopped talking. 
 
 But presently, when she found the courage to raise her eyes, 
 her transient color coming and going, she found she could not 
 see Lady Carrie from where she sat, and Derry, too, was almost 
 hidden from her. Then she was able to follow what Mossy 
 was telling her about his guests, and realize that he was intro- 
 ducing her to her vis-a-vis, and the man who sat next to her. 
 
 Carrie, in the meantime, up at the top of the table, had no 
 18 269
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 interest at all in Derry's wife, but a great deal, for the moment, 
 in Derry himself. 
 
 There was no one more capable than Carrie of appreciating 
 the alteration in Derry. He had grown from a great awkward 
 boy into fine manhood. He was even more attractive than 
 Terence had been, she thought. And to-night he had something 
 of Terence's gaiety. 
 
 "I am going to save you from Mrs. Mossy Leon," was almost 
 the first thing she said to him. "You are sure to be on the other 
 side of her, and she will ask you, as loudly as possible, so that 
 everyone at the table may hear, and think she is a friend of hers: 
 'How is your cousin, the Duchess?'" 
 
 Carrie imitated Ethel's tone, although Ethel was just behind 
 her on the stairs, and might easily have heard. 
 
 "You may answer her. I shall let you gratify her to that 
 extent. Then you must turn round and talk to me for the rest 
 of the dinner. I've a hundred things to say to you." 
 
 Derry was nothing loth; even her enemies had to admit 
 Carrie was good company. And they began by a laugh that 
 established their friendship. For, surely enough, as soon as 
 ever they were all settled in their seats, and in the pause that 
 came before the first bottle of champagne was uncorked, Ethel 
 said loudly: 
 
 "And how is your cousin, the Duchess, Lord Ranmore? I 
 see she has returned from Pau. I hope she enjoyed the 
 hunting ..." 
 
 Derry answered that she knew more about his cousin's 
 movements than he did. He threw it off lightly. He was not 
 going to spoil the pleasure that was before him by dwelling on 
 the thought of how little he knew of Margaret's movements. 
 He appreciated Carrie's imitation of Ethel. Perhaps it was a 
 little cruel, perhaps it was a little caricatured, but certainly she 
 hit off their hostess to the life, and was not deterred from con- 
 tinuing her mimicry by the proximity of her victim. Afterward 
 she gave Derry a rapid description of the other guests, with a 
 flash of illuminating phrase that made him see them through 
 her eyes. 
 
 270
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Next to Carrie, on the other side to Derry, was the famous 
 Irish novelist, Oscar Paton. He had been red-haired and 
 flamboyant in his youth, with eyes of china-blue, and fat, small 
 hands with which he gesticulated and talked. The red hair 
 had turned white, but the eyes had retained their blue, and the 
 speech its flamboyancy. Oscar Paton was the only literary 
 man in an illiterate age. He told this to everyone, and some of 
 them believed him. Certainly he devoted his entire life to his 
 art, living in Dublin, and only coming over now and again to 
 visit his publishers. With his waving hands he deplored that 
 he was unable to read modern English. He didn't understand 
 it, he said. He extolled the French novel, and shrugged his 
 shoulders when he regretted our insular lack of literature. 
 Oscar Paton has not a great vogue. The press, the compact 
 little ring that controls the fiction market, always treat him with 
 indifference for even a journalist resents being stigmatized as 
 illiterate. In a pause of Carrie's description he was heard to 
 speak of a leading reviewer. 
 
 " I deplore his undistinguished fluency. If he were to praise 
 anything I did, I should know I had failed, I should be afraid 
 he had begun to understand me. 'She threw an orange at him.' 
 That is his criterion of imaginative fiction." 
 
 And he went on to speak of a novel he had not read, but which 
 had gone into many editions, and excited his jealousy. The 
 phrase seemed to have no meaning, but he repeated it several 
 times. "She threw an orange at him." 
 
 Oscar Paton had a distinct personality. But for his over- 
 weening vanity, and his lack of classical education, he might have 
 been the great man that he saw himself. As a novelist he failed, 
 and would always fail, because he had no understanding of 
 normal relations between men and women; but in his younger 
 days he had written exquisite verse, and a play that ran for a 
 week, in which Mossy had detected genius. Mossy and he 
 had been friends ever since then. Oscar talked to him for 
 hours whenever he was in London, of himself, and of Judaism. 
 Oscar was very much interested in Judaism; he found it a pictur- 
 esque survival. 
 
 271
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 On his other side to-night was Mrs. Maltravers, the famous 
 courtesan, a woman of forty but still beautiful; a Provencal by 
 birth, owing her name and place to a romantic marriage. 
 
 "You know something of these Jews?" he asked her; "they 
 are the romance of our dull age." Everything he said was said 
 for effect, as Carrie pointed out to Derry in a quick undertone. 
 But there was often a wild truth caught in the net of his epigrams. 
 Rosaleen was introduced to him across the table, and he asked 
 at once if she had read The Bay of Bantry. 
 
 "It was the only serious contribution that has appeared on 
 this side of the Channel to the literature of Catholicism and decay. 
 The French were the first to discover the analogy, but it was I 
 who ..." He wanted the entire table as audience, but when he 
 found they were bad listeners, he dropped his voice, and spoke 
 into the ear of his neighbor, Mrs. Maltravers. He was full of 
 French stories, modern conies drolatiques, and he had an absolute 
 pride in his want of delicacy in narrating them. It was many 
 a long day since Rose Maltravers had found her way from a 
 French circus to an English country house, and Maltravers had 
 been but ill rewarded for his misplaced chivalry. For a time 
 Mrs. Maltravers was the most-talked-of woman of her day, the 
 scandals which were attached to her name began in a palace, 
 and ended in a stable-yard. Perhaps they had not ended yet. 
 She was extraordinarily stupid, and had never quite mastered 
 the language of her adopted country, but her amiability was as 
 amazing as her stupidity. It was Mossy who had engineered 
 her on to the stage when her fortunes were at their lowest ebb. 
 He said her neck and shoulders, combined with her bad reputa- 
 tion, and her French accent, would make any play. She was 
 not an actress, but her few public appearances in foreign parts 
 of plays written for her, had given her a new standing in the 
 public eye. The horses, however, that had been her first love 
 were also her last. She had racing stables now, and an entire 
 new social clientele. At forty she was still beautiful. She had 
 no scruple in laughing at Oscar Paton's coarse stories, delicacy 
 being no part of her social equipment. 
 
 Another of the dinner guests was Nat Simons, the famous 
 
 272
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 entrepreneur. What share he had in Mrs. Maltravers' racing 
 stables was always a subject of debate in theatrical circles. A 
 handsome fellow was Nat Simons, with the head of a Roman 
 emperor. His eyes were sleepy and southern, his black hair 
 curled low on his forehead. He glanced at Rosaleen from under 
 his eyelids, now and again, as if wondering how she would look 
 in tights. It was Nat's appreciation Mossy wanted, when he 
 had taken so much trouble over Rosaleen's costume. They 
 were solicitor and client, but they were also boon companions. 
 Mossy enjoyed exhibiting a new beauty to Nat as a collector 
 enjoys a rarity when showing it to a brother collector, who 
 would have given any money for it. Nat was very sociable, 
 an agreeable addition to any dinner-party; he could both talk 
 and listen. 
 
 Clarice Vane and Lord Windermere completed the party. 
 Their liaison was one of the tragedies of the Roman Catholic 
 anti-divorce laws. At twenty-four Lord Windermere had been 
 persuaded by his confessor into a mariage de convenance with a 
 young convert of the great house of Eartham. In the first 
 eagerness of her apostacy the marriage with Lord Windermere 
 appeared as a fitting corollary to her induction. But within a 
 year the innate fickleness of her disposition found another 
 objective. Large interests were involved, and a scandal had 
 to be avoided at all hazards. \Vhen Lord Windermere became 
 convinced that it was impossible to get a dispensation from 
 Rome, he bowed his head to the yoke, as children of his church 
 have done from time immemorable, and wore his fetters uncom- 
 plainingly. But at thirty-four, neither husband nor widower, 
 he fell in love with one of the prettiest and most virtuous little 
 women that ever danced and sang her way into the fickle graces 
 of the public. He had two children by her, and would have 
 made her his wife at any time, had he been able. Their lives 
 together were models of domesticity. He was a dark and 
 saturnine, melancholy man, she was light of foot and dainty; 
 their devotion was a byword. 
 
 Clarice Vane had a great friendship for Mossy Leon. It 
 was Mossy who arranged her settlement, and persuaded Lord 
 
 273
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Windermere to let her remain on the stage. Mossy urged that, 
 as he could not give her any society but his own, and, as she 
 had been the great favorite of the public, used to applause, the 
 "beat of populous hands," it would be unfair to deprive her of 
 the exercise of her art. She would make him no worse compan- 
 ion for going on with her life 's work. Through Mossy 's inter- 
 vention, therefore, Clarice kept her place on the boards. The 
 home in St. John's Wood lost nothing because its mistress led 
 a strenuous, instead of an idle, life. There were times when 
 Lord Windermere had perforce to leave her for days, sometimes 
 even for weeks at a stretch; he had the duties of his great position. 
 He, too, was grateful now to Mossy for having pointed out that 
 she would have pined and fretted at her isolation without the 
 stage. She had been absolutely faithful to him, and had never 
 had another lover. Mossy could not for the life of him see that 
 Clarice Vane was not fit to meet Rosaleen, or his own wife, or 
 any lady in the land. 
 
 Carrie, telling the story in her own way to Derry, rather 
 jeered at Mossy 's point of view. She had known Gerald 
 Windermere all her life, she said, but he would never have 
 dreamed of introducing her to Clarice Vane. Lady Carrie was 
 under many obligations to Mossy, and was enjoying his hos- 
 pitality, but that did not deter her from jeering at his lack of 
 shibboleths. Derry looked at Clarice with sympathy and 
 interest, and perhaps that influenced Carrie when she spoke 
 of the "impossible" things Mossy did, such as inviting Clarice 
 to dinner. Clarice Vane, off the stage, was a sweet-faced, 
 gentle little woman. Whatever her status in society, Carrie 
 Carthew would have been unable to understand or appreciate 
 her. The form of her union with Lord Windermere may have 
 been irregular, but in all essentials she was a" sweet and tender 
 wife and mother, and a loyal comrade. All the dramatic 
 charities could have told tales of her unstinting generosity; 
 many a poor sister-professional, fallen on evil days, had cause 
 to bless the day she heard her name. She had a wonderful 
 charity of thought and action. The State might not recognize 
 her position, and such women as Carrie Carthew and Ethel 
 
 274
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Leon might treat her with contempt or condescension; but if 
 any morality, other than conventional, be accepted in a higher 
 place, there would be no condescension in the judgment meted 
 out to Clarice Vane. 
 
 The dinner passed all too quickly. It is possible both Clarice 
 Vane and Rosaleen dreaded that inevitable twenty minutes in 
 the drawing-room. Lady Carrie had an habitual distaste for 
 the society of women; particularly, as she said lightly to Derry 
 when she followed Ethel's signal, "spotted ones." He took 
 the allusion slowly; it was difficult to think she could class 
 Mrs. Maltravers with Clarice Vane. 
 
 But, once in the drawing-room, Mrs. Maltravers presented 
 no social difficulty. "It is going to be one long evening, I sink," 
 she said to Ethel, smiling sweetly; "and if you will excuse me, 
 I go upstairs, and take ten minutes' sleep, I sink there is a big 
 sofa in your bedroom. You vill tell your maid to call me at 
 half-past ten, vill you not?" 
 
 Rosaleen knew her moment had come. She met, as well as 
 she was able, Lady Carrie's light, inquisitive eyes. They were 
 vaguely curious, perhaps still more vaguely satirical. 
 
 "So you are Berry's wife," she began. "He ought to have 
 brought you to see me before this, I've just been telling him 
 so." 
 
 "It's so short a time that we've been in London," Rosaleen 
 faltered. 
 
 "Yes, I know. Still, he found time to come himself." The 
 sudden flush amused Carrie. "Did he not tell you he had 
 called? I'm sorry I was out, he ought to have let me know 
 he was coming ..." then, because she could read the other 
 like an open book, and found herself all at once quite amused, 
 and in her element, she added, mischievously, "like he used 
 to do." 
 
 Lady Carrie understood jealousy when she met it; it was 
 no new thing for her. To find it in Derry Ranmore's peasant- 
 wife was exhilarating. 
 
 Derry 's wife did not look like a peasant, although, somehow 
 or other, Carrie's supercilious and patronizing smile and 
 
 275
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 manner, and amused, critical eyes, made Rosaleen hold herself 
 less erect. It was always her own past that humiliated and 
 flushed her cheek irregularly. 
 
 Carrie subsided gracefully into a low easy-chair, and indi- 
 cated that Rosaleen should sit, too. 
 
 "You are so tall, too tall for a woman. Deny used to like 
 little women. Don't stand as if you were triumphing in being 
 so much above me." 
 
 Rosaleen 's flush deepened. 
 
 "You had not known Deny very long before you married 
 him, had you? I don't think he had met you at all when I first 
 knew him. He never spoke of you to me." She smiled just 
 as maliciously as she had spoken. "He was only a boy. I've 
 often told him what a boy he was; too young to be making 
 love to me." 
 
 "It isn't a boy Deny has ever seemed to me," the poor girl 
 said slowly; she was in a bewilderment of feeling. It was 
 surely impossible that Derry had ever cared for this plain little 
 body. Yet the plain little body had the power to hurt. Lady 
 Carrie knew her capacity, and it was easy to see the other's 
 defenselessness; even this preliminary skirmish made it clear. 
 And Derry had grown into a fine man; he was worth fighting 
 for. 
 
 "Don't scold him for having been to see me, there's a dear 
 woman, I like him to come, and he likes to come:" This 
 evening was the first time Carrie had seen Deny since his 
 return from Siam, but Rosaleen was confused, and failed to 
 realize it. "You have so much of his society," Carrie said, 
 with a droop of her lip, but a quick glance of her eye to see 
 how her plea was received; "don't grudge me an occasional 
 hour." 
 
 "I'd not be interfering with anything Derry wants to do," 
 Rosaleen answered, not without her defense of pride. For 
 now she had her armor on, that armor of instinctive reticence. 
 
 "How sweet of you!" Carrie ejaculated. Who could say 
 if she meant it ironically, if she thought Derry would go and see 
 her anyhow, whether his wife wished it or not ? They exchanged 
 
 276
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 a few more sentences. Carrie was a little vexed at getting no 
 further "rise" out of her victim. The flush had been succeeded 
 by pallor, but Rosaleen's voice was steady, and what little she 
 answered to the other's veiled gibes, or questions, showed 
 nothing of her mind. In truth Carrie found Rosaleen some- 
 what baffling. She was perfectly gowned, for one thing, and 
 no one could deny her beauty. But she had taken the liberty 
 of baffling Lady Carrie, and Lady Carrie's duty was clear. 
 
 Deny was the first of the men to come upstairs. 
 
 Carrie said to him coolly: "Now, don't forget I expect you 
 to devote yourself entirely to me this evening. We're both of 
 us out of our element." Glancing at Rosaleen, she added: 
 "I suppose your wife knows we are by way of being distant 
 cousins, the Ranmores and I?" 
 
 Rosaleen understood, if Derry missed the implication, that 
 here, among these theatrical and Bohemian people, she might 
 be in her element, but Derry, and his "distant cousin," were 
 out of theirs. 
 
 "We'll look on at Bohemia from a convenient distance. 
 There is a sort of conservatory arrangement at the other end of 
 the room, isn't there? I think I see it, or is it only palms ? Now, 
 bring me this low chair, and another comfortable one for your- 
 self, a cushion and a footstool, and I'll play showman to you." 
 
 "And it's the showman will be the best performer of them 
 all I've no doubt," he answered gallantly. 
 
 Carrie, with a little parting smile, went off with Derry just 
 as Mossy made his way toward Rosaleen. Derry looked both 
 expectant and merry as he went off, carrying Lady Carrie's 
 low chair, listening to her and talking. Surely, Rosaleen 
 thought, she had not been so unhappy that last evening she 
 dined here, and ran away before the men joined them in the 
 drawing-room. There was no opportunity of running away 
 now, Mossy was by her side, full of his intention to give her a 
 pleasant evening. 
 
 "I've got the Paulyn Brothers coming, and Dan Stern. 
 They have neither of them ever performed in a private house 
 before. Stern has only been in England four days, and his con- 
 
 277
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 tract with the Palace is an exclusive one. Oh! don't bother 
 about Deny!" for he followed the direction of her eyes; "Carrie 
 has walked off with Derry; it's a way she has. She'll keep 
 him amused. Did you ever see Dan Merino do his 'Bill Sykes 
 at the Pet Dog-show?' I told you I'd secured him, didn't I?" 
 
 Mossy constituted himself her body guard. He did not ne- 
 glect his other guests, but he never left her alone for long. He 
 was so obviously anxious she should enjoy herself, that she 
 had to smile at him, and tell him everything was delightful. 
 While all the time she was carrying her heart like a stone in 
 her breast, and the cold of it was all through her. 
 
 But it was really a delightful evening. There were many 
 ladies, from the first rank only, of the musical-comedy stage, 
 and there was not merely our only light-comedy actress, but also 
 our only tragedienne. Julie Stormont was easily the best-dressed 
 woman in the room, notwithstanding the trouble that had been 
 taken over Rosaleen's get-up; but Julie had a gift, an instinct 
 for clothes, also a superb figure, and a jewel casket wherein 
 taste met splendor. To-night she wore green that very green 
 that had been denied to Rosaleen; but then, it matched Julie's 
 eyes, and her wonderful chain of uncut emeralds. And her 
 hair, for the moment, was red, or brown with a shading of red ; 
 she wore it high, piled against her quaint Empire comb of 
 emeralds. Her manners were as fine as her figure. Perhaps 
 there was a shade too much of them, she was a little too invariably 
 amiable, a little too empressee, and delighted to meet everybody ; 
 but that counted for, and not against her, in this circle. She 
 had French methods and modes of expression, she moved with 
 a slow, undulating grace, and she moved a good deal, here, there 
 and everywhere, distributing words and smiles. Carrie told 
 Derry she had to walk about because she was laced too tightly 
 to sit down! 
 
 Mrs. Brian O'Hagan was in black velvet, a crumpled-looking 
 garment that had a second-hand effect; a fichu, which had once 
 been white, was adjusted, as if hurriedly, about her shoulders, 
 the corner of it missing the middle of her back, and the rest 
 meandering at will, obviously covering hooks that were absent 
 
 278
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 and an essential shabbiness. She wore a great cinquo cento 
 crucifix, suspended from a string of amber beads: this was her 
 only jewelry. The tragic eyes were set in a sallow complexion, 
 and, amid the chatter and light laughter that so soon filled the 
 room, the beautiful cadences of her voice struck an incongruous 
 note. Mrs. Brian, as they all called her, came in very late, and 
 she appeared a little dazed, as if she had been sleeping. Carrie 
 told Deny she was supposed to be addicted to morphia, but to 
 a more observant eye, it only showed her as a mystic, or 
 visionary. 
 
 When the rooms were quite full, there were certainly a hundred 
 or more guests, hardly half a dozen of them with names unfa- 
 miliar to the public. 
 
 To entertain the artists of the musical-comedy and regular 
 stage, Mossy had got together all the talent from the "halls." 
 Presently, on the platform where the grand piano stood, one or 
 another took his place, to speak a speech, or sing a song, or 
 show his quality. This was* an audience of artists, and the 
 spirit of it grew. Champagne was brought into the drawing- 
 room, and flowed freely. Smoking was, of course, allowed, and 
 amid the fumes one heard the excited laughter, and applause. 
 The last play in which Julie Stormont had appeared ran for 
 three hundred nights. She had no opportunity of going to the 
 Oxford, and hearing the incomparable Dan Stern sing "It was 
 half-past nothing on a snowy summer's night," or, dressed as 
 Joan of Arc, telling the story of the famous pearl necklace. She 
 shrieked with laughter at Dan's presentation of Joan on her 
 white horse, mounted for the first time, haranguing the troops, 
 as it caracoled and more than once nearly threw her. All his 
 properties were a handkerchief, which he made into a helmet, 
 and a stick that he borrowed from Mossy and bestrode in great 
 style. He was Marie Antoinette one moment, and Joan of 
 Arc the next, with Mary Queen of Scots as a "runner up." 
 
 The Paulyn Brothers were American. One told a good 
 story, the other capped and contradicted. They were so quick, 
 and the stories so good, that a ripple of laughter began almost 
 at the first few words, and was kept up all the time. Their 
 
 279
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 patter was full of colloquialisms, and strange, racy, transatlantic 
 phrases, but this only added to its charm. What one could 
 understand was so humorous that the rest was accepted as being 
 even more so. 
 
 That brilliant protean artist, Mr. Sebastian Links, aided by 
 his incomparable wife, did a rapid revue as it would appear on 
 a cinematograph worked by an amateur in a manner that brought 
 down the house. The broken fitful dancing, the scraps of song 
 that were supposed to issue from a gramaphone, the spontaneity 
 and genius of the little tour deforce, met with generous appreciation. 
 
 From start to finish the entertainment went with a bang. 
 Long before supper-time the artistes were tumbling over each 
 other in their anxiety to "do a turn." Those who would have 
 needed an hour's pressing before they would have sung for 
 anyone else, or in any other private house, were volunteering on 
 all sides. For, if Julie Stormont had never heard Dan, nor the 
 Paulyn Brothers, they, in turn, had never heard her. Julie 
 recited, Clarice gave "A Columbine once met a Clown at a fair," 
 and thoroughly enjoyed hearing for the first time, Eric Coombes' 
 imitation of it. Clarice had been singing the Columbine song 
 for half a dozen years, but she had never before had an opportu- 
 nity of hearing Eric in it. He was apologetic, and not quite up 
 to his best form in the commencement, but she encouraged him, 
 and soon he was doing himself and the song full justice, dropping 
 his voice, and his curtsey, making his expressive gestures 
 just that mixture of buffoonery and caricature for which he was 
 famous. 
 
 "I believe I made the success of that song," he boasted to 
 Clarice, defiantly, after his third tumbler of champagne. The 
 champagne was served round in tumblers, and Eric's defiant 
 manner was the natural sequel to his nervousness; "They like 
 the parody quite as much as the original." 
 
 "I am sure they do," Clarice answered him, soothingly. "I 
 would much rather hear you than sing it myself. Can't you 
 do anything with the new one, 'Pretty Fanny Moody met a 
 Melancholy Man?' " 
 
 He caught at the suggestion, quite a promising friendship 
 
 280
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 was struck up between them, and if he had not drunk a little 
 too freely of Mossy's champagne, and grown a trifle uproarious 
 later in the evening, she might have invited him to that house 
 in St. John's Wood. 
 
 Few people wanted, perhaps, to hear Mrs. Brian recite "The 
 Death of the Firefly" from the new Japanese play at the Parthe- 
 non, but it was wonderful for her to volunteer it. 
 
 Rosaleen liked this item better than any other part of the 
 programme. She had tried to respond to Mossy's kindness, 
 but the sight of those two figures at the end of the room, sitting 
 together, laughing, and talking, so full of gay intimacy, paralyzed 
 her faculty of enjoyment. 
 
 All at once, as that beautiful cadenced voice rose and fell, 
 she was back in Siam, on that evening when Brother Ben Whip- 
 pell had told in Siamese the Story of the Crucifixion to the 
 moving pictures from the lantern. She fell to dreaming, and 
 now there was the long drive home, with Berry's hand clasped 
 in hers, under the wonderful moonlight. She saw it all so vividly. 
 On every side, from pine tree and alder, the fireflies danced 
 and played in the silvered darkness, darting here and there . . . 
 She had to brush her hand against her eyes to see that she was 
 here, in Mossy Leon's brilliantly lighted, crowded drawing-room 
 and Deny was still seated in the corner there, under the palm, 
 holding Lady Carrie's fan, listening and laughing while she 
 talked. 
 
 At twelve o'clock supper was announced. A hundred people 
 crushed at once into the dining-room, overwhelming imported 
 butlers, and incompetent footmen; and they ate as if they had 
 never eaten before, and drank wine as if it were water. The 
 clash and clatter of plates, and knives, and glasses, dominated 
 the supper-table at first. But very soon the men were getting 
 on their feet, and toasting their host, singing "For he's a jolly 
 good fellow," and later on, for no reason at all, "Auld Lang 
 Syne" and "Yankee Doodle." Glasses were clinked and 
 broken; healths were drunk, and new friendships, and old 
 admirations, proclaimed and insisted upon. The turmoil ebbed 
 and flowed, and, but for Mossy, would have flooded decorum. 
 
 281
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 But Mossy knew when the current needed diverting, and he 
 would shift a seat, or turn a discussion, or head an argument 
 without any apparent effort. He liked to see the champagne 
 flowing, and his fine cigars being consumed. He was for ever 
 pressing both, and directing the servants. His hospitable in- 
 stincts were racial and generous. Nobody could eat, or drink, 
 or smoke, or talk, enough to please him. 
 
 Lady Carrie disappeared early. Derry remained and helped 
 the toasts, and the choruses. He drank, perhaps, a little more 
 than was good for him. 
 
 At four in the morning, crawling homeward in the four- 
 wheeled cab that smelled of straw and damp, he said it had 
 been a glorious evening, and he did not know when he'd enjoyed 
 himself so much. He put his arms round Rosaleen, who held 
 herself upright, and a little aloof. He told her she had looked 
 ripping, the handsomest woman in the room, and that he had 
 been proud of her. If she relaxed a little, looking at him 
 wistfully, taking hope, his next sentence was like a dash of 
 ice-water in her face, and she stiffened her back. 
 
 "She's wonderful company, is Lady Carrie; it's better than 
 being at a play to hear her talk. She's taking me down to 
 Hurlingham next week, to see the polo."
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 MORNING brought Deny a parched mouth and a 
 heavy head. He breakfasted late, but while he was 
 struggling with his bacon and kidneys he said he must 
 be out early. 
 
 "Another cup of coffee, if you please, darling. These late 
 nights don't agree with me. And how about yourself? No 
 roses this morning! Like a ha'porth of soap after a hard day's 
 washing you're looking; it's a stay-at-home couple we are. I 
 must go out directly I've swallowed me breakfast, but I'll be 
 back and take you for a drive this afternoon, if you like." 
 
 Rosaleen had not slept at all. How could she sleep when 
 her heart lay cold as a stone in her body, and all the time she 
 was feeling the weight of it ? It was Lady Carrie was the good 
 talker, and the good companion to him. He had said he did 
 not want to talk to her about Lady Carrie; he had said it more 
 than once, and not only to her, but to Mossy. How could she 
 help wondering why, and never hitting upon the clue? She 
 did not underrate Carrie's attractions as a smaller woman 
 would have done. Carrie was subtle, purring, with a fluffy 
 appeal. It was not wonderful if she should care for Derry. 
 Rosaleen would not have thought it wonderful if every woman 
 cared for Derry; but it made her heart ache to think that Lady 
 Carrie and Derry had an intimacy from which she was shut out. 
 It wasn't a jealous wife she would be making him; but if it had 
 been only out of pity he had married her, and it was in the way 
 of his happiness she was standing . . . Why, the endless 
 night itself wasn't long enough for the vista of empty years and 
 dreariness that stretched before her. She, in the way of Derry's 
 happiness! How gay he had been with that woman last night, 
 he had not been so gay since they reached London, and this 
 morning over breakfast he ... yawned. 
 
 283
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 He went out after breakfast, and after luncheon, too, not 
 without asking her if she cared for a drive, but relieved, she 
 thought, when she said no. It was nearly six o'clock before he 
 came home again. He said he had had tea, and he yawned 
 again. He thought he'd have a nap in the drawing-room. . . . 
 She sat in the dining-room not to disturb him. She guessed 
 where he had been, although he had fallen to sleep without 
 telling her. 
 
 It was quite a sad face Mossy discovered when he came in to 
 talk over the party, to hear from her, as he had heard on all sides 
 to-day, what a success it had been, and how unique. She saw 
 him coming, and let him in herself; Deny mustn't be disturbed. 
 She led Mossy into the dining-room, her finger on her lip, and 
 it was then he saw that her face was sad. 
 
 "Well! wasn't it a good party? There's not another man in 
 London could have brought such a crowd together. No money 
 could have bought such a show." Then he broke off, because 
 he'd seen her face. "What's the matter? You look as if 
 you'd lost a diamond tiara, and found a hair-net of the wrong 
 color with a big hole in it! But, seriously now, anything wrong ? 
 How's the boy?" 
 
 "It's grand he is; there's nothing the matter. I'm tired, 
 that's all. Speak low, Deny is asleep on the sofa behind the 
 folding doors." 
 
 Mossy persisted: 
 
 "I expected you to be looking no end gay, you were the success 
 of the evening last night. You should have heard what Nat 
 Simons said about you! You could "walk on" to-morrow, if 
 you like, and I would guarantee you a speaking part in a month." 
 
 Assured that there was nothing the matter with her but over- 
 fatigue, Mossy became fuller than ever of theatrical gossip. 
 They moved into the bay of the window, in order not to wake 
 Deny, and he told Rosaleen what everybody had said about 
 his party; he had lunched at Romano's, and found that no one 
 was talking of anything else. He wanted to know what item 
 of the entertainment she had enjoyed most. Talking, not 
 listening, was Mossy 's idea of conversation; whatever he asked 
 
 284
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 her, he never waited for the answer. That was his weakness, 
 but it was one that suited Rosaleen very well. 
 
 Suddenly it struck her that she could ask Mossy, more easily 
 than Deny, about Lady Carrie. Had Deny ever cared about 
 her? What had they been to each other? Her own marriage 
 to him was so wrapped hi pain and darkness, she could not 
 bear to look back, yet she was being forced to look back. She 
 had never known for certain why it was he had not spoken that 
 golden summer at Ranmore, before Terence came, and shadowed 
 not only all her summer, but all her life? She felt now that it 
 was in shadow and humility her life should have been lived. 
 She had thought that it was his poverty had kept Deny silent, 
 and because they were both young. Now she believed that it 
 was because here, up in London, he had already seen someone 
 he liked better. All her reasoning powers were obscured by 
 her pain. 
 
 She did not have to press Mossy for information; his indiscre- 
 tions were part of his companionability. He had not the gift 
 of keeping secrets, his own or anybody else's, except from Ethel, 
 for whom he had that curiously inconsistent respect. 
 
 "And what did you think of Lady Carrie Carrie Carthew? 
 I didn't think she looked her best last night. She will wear that 
 eau de nil shade, because years ago some artist fellow told her 
 her hair was the color of primroses, and she must dress up to it; 
 'the sheath and the flower' you know the sort of thing. But 
 really there is hardly any yellow at all in her hair, it is just 
 ashen; he had much better have made her wear brown, and 
 appear as a good Havana cigar. But to see Carrie at her 
 best you must see her in a tea-gown, in her own place, of an 
 afternoon. ..." 
 
 More than half in earnest, for he liked Rosaleen, and hated 
 to see her look sad, he went on: 
 
 "By the way, I shouldn't encourage Deny to sprawl his long 
 length too many afternoons hi that pretty drawing-room of 
 hers. I meant to tell you that before. She is a clever little 
 monkey, full of tricks. You have to get up early to get the best 
 of her." 
 
 19 285
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 And yet he did not seriously fear Lady Carrie's seductions 
 for Derry. After seeing Rosaleen as he had seen her last night, 
 after contrasting one woman with the other, it was ridiculous 
 to think Derry was in love with Lady Carrie. Derry was in 
 love with his own wife; even Mossy knew that now; really it 
 was shouted on the housetops, Rosaleen alone did not hear it 
 plainly. Her love for him was so loud and insistent that she 
 heard nothing else. 
 
 But Carrie had admitted some time ago to Mossy that she 
 had a hold, the effect of which would be felt in Derry's pocket. 
 Mossy did not want to give away any of Carrie's secrets, they 
 were old allies, and he liked Carrie. Liking many women was 
 one of Mossy's specialties. But Derry had been waiting for 
 him when he came to the office that morning, in urgent need 
 of money; it could hardly be for his own requirements. He 
 had had eight hundred pounds hardly a fortnight ago. Rosaleen 
 was a pefectly wonderful manager and needlewoman. Derry 
 was never tired of telling of her prowess. She made all the 
 boy's clothes, her own, too, except last night s wonder. The 
 housekeeping in the flat was on an economical scale, just a 
 couple of maids and the boy's nurse. Why should Derry want 
 another 500 at once ? 
 
 Mossy was never a business man, notwithstanding that he 
 was a financier by profession, a Semite, and a solicitor. He 
 had gone to the length of pointing out to Derry that money 
 borrowed at 80 or 100 per cent, was dear, if it was to give to a 
 woman he no longer cared about. Even Mossy thought that 
 Derry must once have cared for Carrie. Derry had practically 
 told Mossy to mind his own business, get him the money and 
 not ask questions. Mossy had no thought of making mischief 
 when he gave Rosaleen a hint that Carrie might get Derry into 
 a mess. 
 
 "You see, they are old friends," he said, "and Carrie has a 
 way of depending upon her old friends. You take my meaning ?" 
 
 "I'm not sure." 
 
 Rosaleen 's heart was beating faster than ever, and louder 
 surely, she did not want Mossy to hear it, nor to think that she 
 
 286
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 was prying upon Berry's affairs. "It's Deny and she were 
 old friends, you're telling me, before we were married. But 
 why shouldn't he go and see her then? It's dull for him here, 
 I'm thinking." 
 
 "Oh! well, just as you like. There is no reason he should 
 not go and see her; but he'd better leave his cheque book at 
 home. That's all I meant; she's a little intriguer, a bit hot, 
 and going the pace all the time, on a small income. Don't 
 say I didn't warn you, that's all. Deny is such a good-hearted 
 chap; a woman like Carrie can twist him round her little finger. 
 What did you think of Julie Stormont's 'get up'? They talk 
 about Frenchwomen! There isn't a French- woman I've ever 
 seen who is fit to hold a candle to her. And she never makes 
 a mistake, Lady Ranmore, she never makes a mistake." 
 
 Now he was talking about something he really understood, 
 and his manner was distinctly earnest. "She has got the finest 
 selection of jewels of any woman on the stage, and she only 
 wears exactly enough never a brooch in the wrong place, or 
 a ring too many. Did you notice her emeralds? They must 
 have cost a fortune. The next time you see her she may be 
 in white satin, with diamonds set d jour, French setting, mind 
 you, that makes them look like lace. She has a set of peacocks, 
 in diamonds and emeralds and sapphires, that would make 
 your mouth water, and a parure of rubies pigeon's blood 
 not a flaw in any of them that she wears with a rose-pin 
 brocade. Some people call her plain. As if a woman could be 
 plain with a figure like that, and the knowledge how to dress it!" 
 
 "Is she very rich?" 
 
 Mossy laughed. He liked instructing Rosaleen's ignorance, 
 here in the intimate dusk of the closing day, although he was 
 no longer actually in love with her. That Deny was sleeping 
 at the other end of the room did not prevent it being a tete-a-tete. 
 
 "She hasn't got a bob. She draws two hundred pounds a 
 week, and spends four hundred." 
 
 "Then how does she get her wonderful jewelry?" 
 
 Rosaleen had only a perfunctory interest in the matter, but 
 she was glad Mossy was no longer talking about Lady Carrie 
 
 287
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 and Berry. She had wanted him to at first, but it had been 
 almost like the cessation of physical pain when he turned to 
 another subject. She had wished to know all there was to 
 be known of Berry's intimacy with Lady Carrie; then she had 
 found the subject, and Mossy 's treatment of it, unbearable. 
 For Julie Stormont she cared nothing. 
 
 "She gets her jewelry the same way other pretty women do," 
 he answered, and proceeded to dilate upon the theme. 
 
 "How many diamonds do you think you could have if you'd 
 so much as look at any man but your big Berry ?" 
 
 She raised unseeing eyes to his face. Had Berry ever given 
 jewelry to Lady Carrie? 
 
 "You know that line in The Boys from Barton, 'I do believe 
 in platonic love, but I'm a skeptic about platonic jewelry'? 
 Well, Julie Stormont 's casket of jewelry isn't supposed to be 
 platonic. I can't say if it's true, I've never given her anything 
 myself. She is a connoisseur, I couldn't afford it, if I wanted 
 to. We've been speaking about Lady Carrie, her income is 
 about eight hundred pounds a year, and she rents a hunting- 
 box at Melton, as well as the house in Charles Street. How 
 do you think it's done?" 
 
 It was at this point that Berry sat up and yawned, so loudly 
 that they could have heard it if the folding-doors had been 
 closed. 
 
 "Who's in there with you, Rosaleen?" he called out. "That 
 you, Mossy? That was a fine feast you gave us last night, I 
 haven't got over it yet. Have you been talking it over with 
 Mavourneen? Bidn't she look the grandest of them all?" 
 
 "We were talking of Lady Carrie," Mossy answered coolly, 
 flipping away the ash from his cigarette. "I was saying she 
 was as clever as a monkey, and no more pays for her own clothes 
 than Julie Stormont does for her own jewelry. Your wife here 
 is quite shocked." 
 
 "And no wonder! I'm surprised at you talking that way 
 of Lady Carrie. No one knows better than you what she has 
 gone through, and the claim she has ..." Suddenly he 
 recollected, and was abruptly quiet. 
 
 288
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "Me! What should I know?" Mossy asked. "I know she 
 would ruin Rothschild." 
 
 "Well, shut up about it, anyway." Deny left the sofa and 
 came over to them. Noticing Rosaleen's pallor, he said, 
 "Late hours don't agree with her, do they?" 
 
 "She ought to have more of them, that's what's the matter. 
 She ought to go out more, and enjoy herself." 
 
 But Rosaleen turned and fled. Her heart had contracted 
 when Derry told Mossy to "shut up" about Lady Carrie. His 
 look of kindness on her was poisoned. If he called attention 
 to her pale looks, wasn't it because someone else's pleased him 
 better? When she got out into the passage, that sob in her 
 throat found vent. She had not meant to listen, but she heard 
 Berry's voice raised when he asked Mossy: 
 
 "What for were you talking about Lady Carrie to Rosaleen? 
 Did you want to let her know the straits the poor woman is in ? 
 I'm surprised at you." 
 
 Derry thought Mossy Leon knew all about Sir Harry Car- 
 thew's death, and the hand Terence had had in it; but he 
 forgot always that Mossy could know no reason for the sup- 
 pression of the whole subject of Terence and his friendship for 
 Lady Carrie from Rosaleen. 
 
 "My dear fellow, if you go on borrowing money to pay Lady 
 Carrie's debts, you won't be able to keep it a secret, that's all 
 I've got to say." 
 
 "I am bound to do the best I can for her?" 
 
 "I'm hanged if I know why!" 
 
 "You know, right enough," Derry answered, shortly. 
 
 "I suppose it is the usual reason, Mossy said. Then he 
 was back in his party, repeating good things that had been said 
 and better things that had been thought of afterwards, giving 
 incidentally the outline of an idea that had struck him over 
 supper for a musical comedy. Mossy went away before dinner, 
 but not before the maid had been in twice to lay the table. He 
 was hoarse with talking, but in good spirits; he never guessed 
 there might have been mischief in his talk. 
 
 Derry was more solicitous of Rosaleen's looks when she ate 
 
 289
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 so poor a dinner. He pressed food upon her, and wine. He 
 was kindness itself to her; but bungled when he said: 
 
 "To think of a bit of gaiety oversetting you like that! Why, 
 you look like you did before we went out to Siam!" 
 
 It had slipped out unawares, and he was sorry immediately; 
 for now indeed her eyes grew suddenly quite mournful and 
 pathetic, and he knew he had hurt her by remembering. After 
 that he would not let her go on with her farce of a dinner; instead, 
 he made her lie down on the drawing-room sofa, and, great- 
 hearted fellow that he was, he knelt down before her and put 
 his arms about her, and laid his face against her hair when he 
 whispered: 
 
 "I ought not to have said it! Forgive me, I'm a blundering 
 fool. It's me that must forget and haven't I forgotten? 
 "We've been so happy together, sweetheart. Don't look like 
 that; I wouldn't hurt you for worlds. There's only you and 
 me now, just you and me! ..." 
 
 With a dry sob there broke from her the words: 
 
 "But it's never forgetting I am." 
 
 "You're tired, mavourneen, only tired. It's happy as the 
 day's long you shall be. Tell me I am making you happy! 
 I'm thinking now and again I'm failing you in something." 
 
 She put away his arms. 
 
 "And is it reproaching yourself you are," she said passion- 
 ately, "when you've given jour life to me?" For none of her 
 sad misreading saw anything but what was fine in him. He 
 must never think she knew, or suspected, it was a chivalrous 
 pity he had given her, and that she had only known that miser- 
 able mirage of happiness while she was mistaking it for love. 
 "It's nothing you haven't given me, and, indeed, I'm happy 
 as the day's long. I'm tired, only tired." 
 
 That excused the sob, but those strong arms would not be 
 flung off, they were around her again, and his lips were on her 
 ear. 
 
 " Not too tired to be kissing me, and telling me I 'm forgiven ?" 
 For it was as a lover he loved her, although her eyes were so 
 blind to it. 
 
 290
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 YET, after Mossy 's party, it seemed that nothing was 
 the same with Deny and Rosaleen. Sympathy 
 between husband and wife is a subtle and delicate 
 mechanism, adjusted, as it were, by an imperceptible spring 
 that may be jarred by the slightest word or movement, put out 
 of gear and brought to a dead-lock without warning. That 
 was how it was with Deny and Rosaleen. Conversation 
 lagged, the spring of that, too, had run down, they seemed all 
 at once to have no mutual interests. The child was no link 
 between them; for Rosaleen 's motherhood was tainted. She 
 tortured herself with the thought, as he laughed and played with 
 the child, that it was for her sake he affected pleasure in his 
 false fatherhood. The misunderstanding, the breakdown of 
 the machinery of marriage, was all in her imagination. Derry 
 was ignorant that anything had come between them, innocent 
 of offense, he knew nothing of what was happening. He saw 
 that Rosaleen was out of spirits, and put it down to the spring 
 weather, and the close flat, and a dozen other things, he could 
 not dream of the real cause. He looked at her sometimes 
 wistfully, sometimes wonderingly, he felt there must be defi- 
 ciency in himself. 
 
 Not all at once did the enlightening or illumination come 
 to him, and then it was only an artificial lighting; it flickered 
 and wavered, and lit up the corner that was to have remained 
 in darkness. Derry saw with pitiful, half -averted eyes, blinded 
 by this false light, that Rosaleen was still fretting after the 
 child's dead father. The sunny curls and blue eyes and merry 
 laughter of the growing boy were reminding her of her young 
 lover. Derry had never grasped the whole truth, never grown 
 to know that Terence had never been Rosaleen 's lover, Rosa- 
 
 291
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 leen's beloved; he had only been her master. Deny had never 
 quite understood. Yet all the manhood in him resented her 
 memories, for she was his. But he must be gentle with her, 
 forbearing. There had never been anyone like Terence; it 
 was not likely she could forget him so soon, he must not press 
 himself on her. 
 
 The more pitiful he was, and tender, restraining his love for 
 her, giving her time to recover her spirits, the deeper and 
 more constant grew the ache in her heart. The waters went 
 over her head, waters of bitterness and humiliation, when she 
 thought it was only her misfortune that had won him, that it 
 was only a great, beautiful pity she had from him, not love at 
 all as she had dreamed in Bangkok. When once this idea had 
 taken firm hold of her, she often found herself sobbing in her 
 sleep. She knew now that it was out of pity he had married 
 her, and out of his fealty to Terence. She would dream of 
 blackness and misery, and wake sobbing. Then she would 
 quiet herself, forcing herself to lie still. She must not disturb 
 him, she would give her life and soul for him, this grand, 
 generous husband of hers. But she must stand in his way as 
 little as possible. That was why she urged him to go out 
 more, to see people; and because she urged this, he thought she 
 liked better to be alone than to have him with her. 
 
 This was Lady Carrie's opportunity, of which she took such 
 full advantage. 
 
 The flat in Westminster lost its charm and home-like quality, 
 and seemed to grow formal and ugly, with all the glamor gone 
 from its hired furniture, filled only with stale reminiscence of the 
 former people who had lived there. The house in Charles 
 Street became something of a refuge for Deny, and certainly 
 Carrie could be a gay companion to a man upon whose conquest 
 she was bent. It never struck Deny that a false interpretation 
 could be put upon his friendship with Lady Carrie. His con- 
 science was so absolutely clear. If he feared sometimes that 
 he might have blundered in carrying out Terence's wishes for 
 Rosaleen, if he feared lest his love for her had made him precipi- 
 tate, he never dreamed for an instant that he had blundered 
 
 292
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 over Terence's obligations to Carrie. He was meeting them 
 the best way he knew. 
 
 He did not realize that Lady Carrie was flirting with him, 
 he thought she was grateful to him for helping her, and amusing 
 and pleasant by nature. He was sorry for her loneliness, in 
 which he believed implicitly, and for her money troubles. When 
 he was at Charles Street he was certainly quite content to be 
 there. The life he was leading in London did not suit him at 
 all. Carrie talked to him of hunting and horses, sometimes, 
 too, she talked to him of Margaret. He did not recognize the 
 efforts she made to find the subjects that interested him, but 
 whenever she asked him, he went to tea with her. Rosaleen 
 seemed to want to be alone just now, not to care for his com- 
 pany. Derry knew little about women, and he saw nothing 
 dangerous in Carrie. He had not a thought that could have 
 wronged or hurt his wife, if she had only known. 
 
 But she did not know. She only knew that he and Carrie 
 had been old friends, and he did not want to talk about her; 
 she never doubted that he sat with her every afternoon. She 
 knew, too, from Mossy Leon, that he gave her money. Yet 
 money was scarce with them. She had been so proud to save 
 it for him, working, and guarding his interests, but the thought 
 that she was saving for Lady Carrie now turned her economies 
 to bitterness. 
 
 It was impossible to suspect Derry 's fidelity to her. In such 
 a mind as hers that weed could not grow, there was no soil for 
 it. The form her self-torture took was that Deny had met, 
 and cared for, Lady Carrie while he was up in London on his 
 visit to Terence, and that they may have been engaged lovers, 
 when she and her misfortune separated them. 
 
 She wondered miserably what explanation Derry had given 
 Carrie for having thrown her over. She knew he would have 
 kept her own dreadful secret. 
 
 The unreasonable estrangement widened. Lady Carrie had 
 an inkling of it, and fostered it all the time. 
 
 Derry, sick at heart, because he saw the shadows lying in 
 his wife's gray eyes, and the stars never shining there now, 
 
 293
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 because she was growing thin, and her voice lifted no more in 
 song about the flat, and because he misunderstood the genesis 
 of it, grew unhappy and restless in his unhappiness, even as he 
 had been that short time in Bangkok. This London life 
 offered no relief in work, and open-air exercise. He was 
 hankering, too, after Ranmore, desperately home-sick for 
 Ranmore, and all that had made it home for him, tired of 
 Mossy 's talk of inevitable delay, and the slowness of the law, 
 and the dilatoriness of Carruthers. Lady Carrie was a refuge 
 from it all. 
 
 Lady Carrie lured him with talk of Margaret. " The Duchess 
 would certainly be in London some time this season." Up at 
 Dunstans now she was detained by the ever-increasing malady 
 of the unhappy Duke, but some time surely she would come, 
 and then Carrie would speak to her about Deny, and bring 
 about a meeting between them. This was what he and Carrie 
 discussed when they were together, how he should get back into 
 his aunt's good graces, how, if he met Margaret by accident, 
 or in Lady Carrie's house perchance, without any loss of dig- 
 nity, or anything in the nature of an appeal, she would under- 
 stand how it was with him, and that he was longing for recon- 
 ciliation. This was all Deny thought he talked of with Carrie; 
 she knew differently. 
 
 Lady Carrie, commiserating him on the dull time he was 
 having, waiting for the lawyers, invited him to accompany her 
 on a day's racing at Sandown, or at Kempton, at Hurst Park, 
 or Windsor. He was apologetic at first about these invitations, 
 although Rosaleen did not seem to mind at all. He explained 
 the nature of his enjoyment in them. 
 
 "It's getting a breath of the country," he would say, stretch- 
 ing his broad shoulders, throwing his head back as if to take a 
 long breath. "It's filling me lungs with air. Then there is 
 seeing the horses led round in the paddock, the glossy necks 
 and clean hoofs of them. I get talking to trainers, and the 
 jockeys sometimes; it's all of the trials and the handicapping, 
 and breed of them, we're gossiping. But it's a rare change 
 from all that theatre talk I hear from Mossy. Do you mind 
 
 294
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 if I am away for the day?" And when she said she did not 
 mind at all: 
 
 "But it's you that's not caring for my company any more," 
 he would add, wistfully, with a desire for contradiction. 
 
 Rosaleen, who could have kissed the places his feet trod in 
 the hall, who laid kisses among all his clothes, and tears among 
 them, too, never contradicted him. 
 
 She wanted him to have his pleasure. It would have been 
 absurd to pretend he did not derive enjoyment from these 
 outings. He had no real reason for unhappiness; no living 
 rival stood between him and the woman he loved, who belonged 
 to him, sleeping each night by his side, caring for him, too, in 
 some way, he knew. He had only to be patient. His nature 
 was naturally optimistic and joyful. In his light clothes, with 
 his race-glasses slung across his shoulders, he had something 
 of a boy's excitement over the prospect of a day's pleasure. 
 She saw it in his eyes. 
 
 And sometimes so strange a thing is a loving woman 
 the exhilaration in his eyes gave her that thrill of sympathy 
 which is almost a mother's privilege of emotion. But then, 
 there is no woman loving a man as Rosaleen loved Deny that 
 has not something of the mother-feeling toward him. She 
 did so want him to be happy. Surely, she thought, it was to 
 the racing and the open air he was looking forward, not to 
 Lady Carrie. That was when he stood so tall and fine before 
 her, with the look of exhilaration in his eyes, but never for- 
 getting to bid her take care of herself, and to hope she wasn't 
 feeling dull. Afterward, when she was alone, of course, the 
 reflection that all his enjoyment was in Lady Carrie's company 
 came back to her bitterly enough. 
 
 The "day's racing" took place very often. Then, there 
 was polo at Hurlingham and Ranelagh. Lady Carrie and 
 her sporting acquaintances were so much more to Berry's 
 taste than Mossy 's theater friends. 
 
 Carrie scored all the time, and she knew well enough she was 
 scoring, although she had only seen Rosaleen three times 
 altogether. Deny took Rosaleen to Charles Street one after- 
 
 295
 
 LET THE ROOF #ALL IN 
 
 noon. A few days later Carrie dutifully returned the call at 
 the flat. On the occasion of Rosaleen 's reluctant visit to Charles 
 Street, Carrie contrived to show how many times Deny had been 
 in the artificial atmosphere of that pretty drawing-room, and 
 how familiar he was with the way of the house. Lady Carrie 
 sent Derry downstairs to find cigarettes and matches. She 
 reminded him of the day the Princess Zoto of Roumania had 
 smoked them out with her scented "cigarellos," and they had 
 had to take refuge in her boudoir afterward. She proved in 
 a dozen small ways the intimacy that poor Rosaleen never 
 queried. She did it with intent, although there was nothing 
 to be gained by it; it was only because she was naturally feline 
 and mischievous, and she thought Rosaleen 's forlorn attitude 
 ridiculous. Derry missed reading the riddle of her face, but 
 Carrie missed nothing. 
 
 When Lady Carrie paid that obligatory return visit to the 
 flat, Derry was at home to receive her. She had arranged with 
 him the time of her call. Rosaleen knew that, because Derry 
 had ingenuously told her, knowing no reason for concealing it. 
 
 She had come in all her frou-frou of fine clothes, and style, 
 and had stayed less than ten minutes, looking about her with 
 quick and affected surprise, asking Derry how he could bear 
 to live with other people's furniture, and such furniture! She 
 had openly sympathized with the conditions of his life. She 
 had called him "poor Derry," and had said she really must 
 find means to reconcile him with his people. 
 
 Rosaleen's attitude added zest to Carrie's pursuit of Derry. 
 It was pleasant enough to have a cavalier upon whose escort 
 she could depend to execute her racing commissions, take her 
 tickets, get her lunch and tea, play the cavalier servente. Lady 
 Carrie always had, and always would have, someone dangling 
 after her, attached to her suite, as it were. Derry did not make 
 love to her; she had not brought him to that point yet, although 
 she had hopes of it; but he was very good to look upon, and 
 easy to lead. Whatever he had, she could get from him; he was 
 certainly an acquisition. That he had a wife, a dumb, mournful 
 peasant, as Carrie characterized Rosaleen scornfully, was no 
 
 296
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 drawback, rather the contrary. Lady Carrie did not want to 
 marry again, unless, of course, marriage should ensure a fine 
 settlement; she had had enough of marriage with Sir Henry 
 Carthew, and her temperament was really cold. What she 
 wanted was to enjoy herself. The conquest of Derry, or of 
 any man, became interesting to her only when it was in battle 
 between herself and another woman. Rosaleen was her enemy 
 while Derry was still unconquered. He paid her compliments, 
 of course; was he not an Irishman? But of love-making there 
 was none. Carrie was annoyed about it sometimes; he ought 
 to make love to her. She knew it was Rosaleen that stood in 
 her way, and she began to dislike Rosaleen. 
 
 The climax came with the invitation to stay at Ascot for a 
 week. 
 
 "The Brinmores have told me to bring anyone I like; they 
 want one man to complete the party," Carrie told Derry. "It's 
 a very pleasant house to stay at, they do you well all round. 
 Brinmore drives a four-in-hand; we get over to the course in 
 under an hour. Jack Brinmore has always horses running, 
 and, as he trains with Finnemore, he gets to hear one or two really 
 good things in the course of a meeting. You can't expect more 
 than that." 
 
 The invitation had been sprung upon Derry the evening she 
 had driven him home from Ranelagh in the dusk, after dining 
 in his company. It had all been very pleasant. But to spend 
 Ascot week away from home! She could see him hesitating 
 as he stood on the doorstep to say good-bye to her. 
 
 "It's a pleasant time we've had." 
 
 "It will be pleasanter at Ascot." 
 
 Then she found her lever. If Margaret would go anywhere 
 at all, with the Duke in his present condition, she would go to 
 the Brinmores. In any case, she was certain to be over to the 
 racing for one day. 
 
 "That is why I've practically settled it. I said you would 
 come with me. Three years ago Terence went with me. It's 
 not the place a woman can go by herself. They don't expect it 
 of one. I am sure it will all come right with you and the 
 Duchess if you get face to face." 
 
 297
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 She intended to carry Deny to Ascot with her; she did not 
 care with what argument she baited the hook. The Duchess 
 was just as likely to be staying with the Brinmores for Ascot as 
 she would be to quarter herself on the Mossy Leons, for instance, 
 for the London season, but this, of course, Deny could not 
 know. He was told he would be able to ride over to Ascot, if he 
 preferred it to driving. He heard of Jack's fine racquet-court, 
 in which there was generally a game to be had before they started 
 for the course. Nothing was said about the bridge, and the little 
 game of baccarat, that wound up the evenings. She knew it 
 was racquets and tennis, and, above all, the horses, that would 
 tempt Derry if the prospect of meeting his cousin was too remote. 
 
 "I'd go like a shot, I'd go in a minute, but I don't like leaving 
 Rosaleen. It's herself that's looking peaky, and wants a change 
 of air." He hesitated, the prospect held out was very pleasant; 
 he would like to be out of London, he was longing to meet 
 Margaret, he loved racing. 
 
 "But she won't be dull," Carrie urged. "She has her beauti- 
 ful boy." 
 
 Lady Came had never seen little Terence. She openly 
 admitted she could not bear children; they monopolized conver- 
 sation, and seemed to her of no interest. " Or why," she went 
 on, "if you say she is looking peaky, why don't you send them 
 both away to the seaside while you are with me? You could 
 join them at the end of the week. Why not Folkestone? I 
 might go down with you from Ascot to Folkestone, and run over 
 to Paris for a few days. There isn't a decent hat to be found in 
 London. I don't believe I could do better than run over to 
 Paris." 
 
 All this was not said on the doorstep of Charles Street; but the 
 next day, and the next, Derry restlessly moving from one chintz 
 easy-chair to another in the Charles Street drawing-room, was 
 allowing himself to be allured. Carrie thought Folkestone was 
 an inspiration. Derry would bore himself to death in Folke- 
 stone lodgings after a week at the Brinmores'. Paris is the one 
 place impossible to be about in alone. He would probably 
 jump at the chance of seeing her over, and, once there, she had 
 
 298
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 no doubt he would stay as long as she wanted him. She urged 
 the advantages of the Folkestone plan upon Deny. He agreed 
 that the sea air might do wonders for Rosaleen and the boy, 
 although he would make no promise about Ascot. He must 
 first see what Rosaleen had to say about it. 
 
 "Not but what the boy looks a picture. It's she that has 
 grown thin." 
 
 But he could not talk about Rosaleen to Carrie. He was 
 worried about her, although again and again she assured him 
 she was quite well. It never even vaguely occurred to him 
 that his intimacy with Lady Carrie had any connection with 
 Rosaleen' s altered looks. 
 
 Mrs. Mossy Leon, who was very attentive to Lady Ranmore, 
 and frequently called to invite her for a drive, offers which 
 Lady Ranmore almost as frequently declined, supplied an 
 explanation. 
 
 "When are you going to take steps about your wife's presen- 
 tation?" Mrs. Mossy Leon said to him, one night at the theatre. 
 
 Mossy had taken stalls for the four of them, and Rosaleen 
 wore her champagne-colored dress. She had grown too thin 
 for it, and now the fit did Madame Festoon no credit, but she 
 was striving to respond to Mossy's witty gossip, and he was very 
 content with her society. 
 
 "Her presentation?" 
 
 "She ought to have been presented on her marriage. Of 
 course the Dowager would be the right person, or, if she is still 
 in mourning, then the Duchess of Towcester. But, failing 
 either, there is Lady Carrie ..." 
 
 "Oh, I can't think of it at all," Deny answered hastily. 
 
 He did not know why he couldn't think of asking Lady Carrie 
 to take the place of his aunt or cousin; the whole idea was new 
 to him, and distasteful. 
 
 "I think she is fretting about it," Ethel went on relentlessly. 
 " It is such a slight, and under the circumstances, you know. . . " 
 
 Deny was really startled. The play lost its interest, and the 
 supper at the Savoy, that followed it, was dust and ashes in his 
 mouth. Surely Rosaleen would not think he meant to slight 
 
 299
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 her. He glanced at her across the supper-table. How beautiful 
 she was! And she smiled back at him, for, at the same moment, 
 she was thinking that not a man in the room was as fine as he. 
 When they had come into the room, everybody had turned to 
 look at him. She always thought it was at him people looked. 
 But Deny saw that her smile had lost its youthfulness. Could 
 she possibly be thinking he meant to slight her over that presen- 
 tation, had he been dull, or obtuse, and missed the cause of her 
 changed demeanor; it seemed absurd, impossible that she should 
 care for such a thing ? The band had been playing " The wearing 
 of the green," and perhaps that accounted for the lines into 
 which her face fell after that smile. It is a wonderfully sad 
 piece of music, Derry thought, watching her. It was impossible 
 she was fretting about not having been presented. She could 
 not think he meant to slight her, to keep her from her rightful 
 position. 
 
 In the cab, going home after supper, Derry questioned 
 Rosaleen. Somehow or other his arms had grown a little shy; 
 they no longer went so certainly and instinctively about her. 
 
 "Is it dull you are in the flat? Is it more society you're 
 wanting? Mrs. Leon, she's thinking you're fretting over not 
 being presented. It's proud enough I'd be to take you to Court. 
 And the Queen, God bless her, and Him, too, they'd love to 
 know you. I was only waiting" Derry hesitated, but, after 
 all, he thought, why shouldn't she know his hopes? "until 
 me aunt came round, or Margaret. It's Margaret would be 
 proud to present you." 
 
 "It isn't dull I am. And why should I be fretting? Don't 
 think of it," she answered him. 
 
 "And it isn't fretting after anything or anybody you'd be if 
 I could help it." The tenderness in his heart was so great 
 that it drove the timidity from his arms. He put them about 
 her, and her head rested a minute against his shoulder. 
 
 "I'd like to see you happier," he said. 
 
 She hadn't a word to answer him. But she rested there, 
 against his shoulder, all the way home, wishing the drive could 
 last forever. 
 
 300
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 All the deep springs of her nature were frozen and congested 
 by the passion of her feeling for him, and her gratitude. She 
 had, perhaps, forgotten it in Siam for a time, accepting the joy 
 of her daily life without thinking always of its source. Since 
 the vision of Lady Carrie had intervened she had had no hour 
 of this unalloyed joy. She was thinking always of what he had 
 done, and why he had done it. By now, she had quite forgotten 
 that once she had hoped he cared about her for herself, that once 
 she had thought he did. In her mind now was the fixed idea 
 that it was the Lady Carrie he had cared about, long ago, for 
 herself he had a kindly pity, nothing else. But yet she might 
 have said a word to him, have let fall one that would have given 
 him a clue, when he held her like this, and his arms were com- 
 forting about her, and her tired head rested against his 
 shoulder. 
 
 "You are growing thin," he went on, as he held her. "I 
 was talking about it to Lady Carrie to-day, telling her you were 
 not looking strong at all." If her lips tightened he did not 
 see it, her head was against his coat, and now she could feel his 
 breath stir her hair. "I can't have you leaving me bit by bit, 
 an ounce to-day and a pound to-morrow." His tone was light, 
 but the feeling underneath it was deep. "I'd like to see you 
 happy. You're not used to London ways, and you're getting 
 tired of them. Will you be happier by the sea, with the boy? 
 Is it more air you're wanting? Why not be going off to the 
 sea with the boy?" 
 
 It was then he told her of his own invitation to Ascot. Her 
 head lay still against his shoulder, and she never stirred. 
 
 "I don't want to be going away without you, but if you'd be 
 happier ..." Again his tone was wistful. 
 
 "It's not happier I'd be without you. An' it's not my 
 happiness I'm wearing after," she said hastily. 
 
 He drew her closer. Of course, she was thinking of that 
 young life that had been brought to so quick and cruel a close; 
 he felt he would have given the world to make her forget. 
 
 "Is it better when I'm beside you, then?" he whispered. 
 To-night it seemed his patience was failing him a little, and 
 20 301
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 he must have reassurance from her. "You're not disliking 
 me altogether?" 
 
 She gave a little low laugh. 
 
 "Haven't you been Providence, and all to me?" 
 
 "But it's not gratitude I'm wanting. ..." 
 
 "And how can I help being grateful?" 
 
 Then the cab stopped. 
 
 When there is a misunderstanding between husband and 
 wife, words are necessary for its full elucidation. For a satis- 
 factory readjustment of delicate machinery, the flaw that has 
 caused the jar must be discovered. 
 
 For all its crawling, the cab stopped too soon that night at 
 the Westminster flat.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 THE next time Derry saw Lady Carrie he told her he 
 had decided against the week at Ascot. Rosaleen did 
 not seem to like the idea of going to Folkestone without 
 him. Altogether it seemed a selfish plan, and he would give 
 it up. 
 
 Carrie was furious. She had the emotion one could imagine 
 in a world-renowned wrestler, thrown in an early round by a 
 bungling amateur. It was an accident, it could only have been 
 an accident, but it was intensely galling to her pride. She con- 
 cealed her feelings from Derry, but dwelt upon all the pleasure 
 he was missing; it was only regret she expressed to him, not 
 anger. 
 
 He came away from that interview rather pleased with his 
 own magnanimity for refusing the invitation, but rather sorry 
 for Lady Carrie, who told him she had quite counted upon him, 
 and that it was too late to find another cavalier. 
 
 It was natural Rosaleen should gather something of his state 
 of mind. It was not against the visit to Ascot she had protested, 
 but at being sent to Folkestone. Where Derry and the boy 
 were, was home for Rosaleen. The Westminster flat had still 
 that distinction. 
 
 "Do you go to Ascot, it's a fine time you'll be having there, 
 and I '11 like to hear of it. But let me stay here with Sonny." 
 
 "I'll not be leaving you behind me in London, while I'm 
 enjoying myself in the country. I'd have liked to be taking 
 you down with me. It wouldn 't be half a holiday without you. 
 But it's only meself Lady Carrie has asked, worse luck. I'll 
 not be going at all. Put it away from your mind." 
 
 But in the evening, after he had seen Lady Carrie, and all 
 that he was missing had been explained to him, he spoke abtmt 
 
 303
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 it again. It wasn 't exactly that he was wavering, but if Rosaleen 
 had cared to go to Folkestone, and get a breath of sea air, why, 
 he admitted, he could have had a fine time at Ascot. 
 
 He told her all about the racquet-court that Brinmore had 
 built. He said it was so long since he had taken any exercise, 
 he did not believe he would be any good at all. This was while 
 they were still at dinner. Afterward, when he was filling his 
 pipe, he made her feel his muscle, to realize how it had atten- 
 uated, though there was not much slackness perceptible. Now 
 he put the pipe on the mantlepiece while he walked about, and 
 made movements as if practising with a dumb-bell. 
 
 "I'll be falling off me horse, like that man we saw at Mossy ^ 
 party, and the racquet will be too heavy for my hand. It's 
 a poor husband you're getting, Rosaleen. I'll have to be 
 looking for work, if things don't right themselves soon." 
 
 Then, because this was the mood into which Lady Carrie's 
 talk had brought him, he gave vent to some of the vexation of 
 spirit he felt over the tedious delays Mossy and Carruthers were 
 making, and his regrets that there seemed no way to overcome 
 the dislike the Dowager had taken to him, or to circumvent, 
 without actually commencing an action, the efforts she was 
 making to bar him from the enjoyment of the estate. 
 
 "If I hadn't made a vow that I'd never enter Ranmore until 
 she made me welcome there, I 'd be taking you over." 
 
 And, walking up and down, puffing at his pipe, he could not 
 conceal his longing, and constant homesickness, for his own 
 people, and his own country. She had known he fretted for 
 reconciliation and Ranmore, but she had not perhaps quite 
 understood until now, when he voiced it, how deep it lay within 
 him. To her, home meant Deny and the boy; to him, it meant 
 Ranmore. Here in London he felt as if in prison. The 
 close flat, the thick air, the pavement, all suggested captivity, 
 and it seemed that all the exercise he had was walking in the 
 prison yard. He was no Londoner, the metropolis was not in 
 his blood. The blue mountains with the mists upon them, and 
 the soft humid days, haunted him. It was Ireland of the many 
 sfteams, and lush greens, he saw in his dreams; and in the day- 
 
 304
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 time, above the roar of the traffic and the tunes of the barrel- 
 organs, he heard the call of curlew and heron. 
 
 So he expressed his mood. But it was only a mood of the 
 moment, an echo or reflection of things Lady Carrie had been 
 saying to him that afternoon. He was not really quite so rest- 
 less, or dissatisfied, or impatient as he made himself out to be, 
 although, of course, it was true that he was always homesick 
 for Ranmore. 
 
 It was nevertheless this transient dissatisfaction of Derry's 
 that made Lady Carrie's task so easy when she came to see 
 Rosaleen. The more Lady Carrie thought of her defeat, the 
 more she resented it. Derry must take her to Ascot. That 
 incongruous, unnecessary, incubus of a wife of his must be 
 made to see the necessity. The first throw was nothing. Meta- 
 phorically she girded up her loins; literally, she put on her best 
 clothes, and ordered the carriage for three o'clock. She would 
 let his wife know that she was standing in his way. 
 
 Derry had sighed when he had told her he could not go with 
 her. He may have chafed a little at his fetters; the desire for 
 freedom surges over a man sometimes, over the most contented 
 of married men. The prospect of a week 's racing had certainly 
 been attractive to Derry, and when he told Lady Carrie he 
 must give it up because Rosaleen did not want to go away, and 
 he would not leave her alone in London, he may have sighed. 
 Yet neither the sighing nor the restlessness meant more than 
 the mood of a moment. 
 
 But Lady Carrie determined that he should not miss his 
 racing, nor she his company, to please his peasant-wife. It 
 was for that she went to see her. She must have known Rosa- 
 leen was alone that day, for it was she who had sent Derry to 
 Tattersall 's. If she spoke and thought of Rosaleen as a peasant, 
 she dressed for her as if she had been one of her own set. 
 
 Rosaleen had not learned the trick of saying she was not at 
 home when she was disinclined for company, so Lady Carrie 
 had no difficulty in obtaining admittance. As usual Rosaleen 
 was at needlework; it was her great companion when Derry was 
 out. She filled her days with darning Derry's socks and 
 
 305
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 underwear, making little garments for the boy, keeping her 
 household linen in repair. She was engaged on the underwear 
 when Lady Carrie came to see her for the second time, resplend- 
 ent in her Parisian raiment and brightly plumaged hat. 
 
 Rosaleen sat at her needlework in the dining-room, for there 
 the table was most convenient. The furniture was of fumed 
 oak and the upholstery was in cretonne. On the walls were 
 modern mezzo-tint engravings after Luke Fildes and Frank 
 Dicksee, cold impressions from steel-faced plates. The carpet 
 was a little worn, and protected by a white drugget. From the 
 red jute curtains at the window, to the heavy oak-framed mirror 
 over the mantel, there was nothing in the room to gratify 'a 
 cultivated taste, nor to content an educated intelligence. Lady 
 Carrie truly shuddered. She talked desultorily, almost nerv- 
 ously, for a few moments. It was the room that affected her 
 nerves, for really she had the courage of her heartlessness, and 
 was drawing taut her muscles for the bout. She laid a gloved 
 hand on the undervest Rosaleen was darning. 
 
 "Is this the way you spend your time? Poor old Deny! 
 Does he sit of an afternoon in this awful room, and watch you 
 darning away at his underwear?" 
 
 "It's yourself that knows best where Deny sits," Rosaleen 
 was stung into retorting; but she got up, and folded away her 
 work. "Mary will be taking the tea into the drawing-room," 
 she said, "will you come?" There were sofas and easy-chairs 
 in the drawing-room, some flowers and books, it was at least 
 habitable. 
 
 "Why do you say I must know best where Deny sits? Is 
 it meant for sarcasm, or don't you like Deny to come and see 
 me?" 
 
 Lady Carrie could affect simplicity, too. If she was going 
 into the ring, she was quite ready to shake hands first, she knew 
 all the rules. 
 
 "Because you've only got to say so," she went on. "I 
 believe in women being straightforward with each other. I 
 thought it possible something of that sort might be in your 
 mind. You come with him so seldom. Why don't you come 
 
 306
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 with him oftener? I'm sure I should always be charmed to 
 see you." 
 
 Rosaleen had no answer ready for the moment. Then she 
 said, hesitatingly: 
 
 "It's you that can talk to Deny." 
 
 " Of course I can talk to Derry; we're such old friends. You 
 mustn't forget I knew him before you were married. That is 
 really half the reason I'm here to-day. I want to talk to you 
 about Derry. You know he isn't looking at all well." 
 
 Rosaleen also tried to brace her muscles, although she had 
 no heart for the fight. She, too, knew instinctively that it was 
 going to be a fight, and that she was ill-prepared. 
 
 "Not looking well!" she answered mechanically. 
 
 "Haven't you noticed it? He was speaking to me about it 
 himself. His muscle is going, he says. He is getting flabby. 
 Hasn't he said anything to you about it?" 
 
 "He said that." 
 
 "You don't mind my being frank with you, do you? I am 
 fond of Derry, and I hate to see him going downhill. He is 
 fretting at the estrangement from his family. I've come to 
 talk to you quite seriously about that. It is time something was 
 done. There is no use leaving the lawyers to wrangle and 
 quibble indefinitely ? What is needed is a woman 's hand, I 'm 
 quite certain of that, it is diplomacy, not law, that is wanted. 
 Did he tell you I want him to go to the Brinmores for Ascot 
 week ? And that it is almost certain the Duchess will be there ? 
 Don't you think you are rather narrow minded in shutting him 
 away from all his friends?" 
 
 The suggestion that it was she who was keeping Derry from 
 his friends had time to sink into Rosaleen 's mind while the 
 conversation was interrupted by the maid bringing in the tea, 
 lighting the lamp under the kettle, and returning with cake and 
 bread and butter. When she had gone, Rosaleen said, her hand 
 trembling over the sugar-tongs: 
 
 "It's not me that is standing in the way of Derry 's going to 
 Ascot. I am willing enough for him to go." 
 
 "My dear thing" it was the fashionable mode of expression 
 
 307
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 that season "I am sure you would not be selfish for the world. 
 But the fact remains that it was all arranged Deny should come 
 with me to Ascot, and you should take your baby to Folkestone. 
 Naturally when you wouldn 't go to Folkestone, Deny wouldn 't 
 go to Ascot. You have your methods. ..." and Carrie 
 shrugged her shoulders, as if she understood that Rosaleen had 
 been diplomatic in her opposition to Deny 's suggested holiday. 
 
 "I've no method at all." 
 
 Lady Carrie took the cup of tea Rosaleen handed her, and 
 she nibbled at a piece of bread and butter, her veil only half 
 lifted to free her mouth. 
 
 "You say you want him to go and enjoy himself. But he 
 is much too good-hearted to be happy away, if you are moping 
 and discontented at home." She added, with an affectation of 
 hesitation, "jealous of all his old friends." 
 
 She finished her bread and butter. 
 
 "Do you mind if I have another cup of tea. One lump of 
 sugar, please. You see what I mean. You are really ham- 
 pering Deny; he ought to go about and see people. It is very 
 likely he will meet his cousin at Ascot. For my part, I look 
 upon it as vital that he should be there. You don't mind my 
 speaking plainly, I hope? The fact is Deny is chafing under 
 his chains, panting for more freedom." 
 
 She noted the pale face of the other, and the hands that shook 
 among the teacups. "In our set, you know and, after all, it 
 is to us Deny belongs it is not usual for a wife to drag on to 
 her husband's coat-tails. Our men hunt, and shoot, and go 
 about the world. Of course, Deny is trying to meet your 
 requirements, the bourgeouis ideal, domesticity, and all that 
 sort of thing." She spoke with a tolerant contempt. "But 
 is it quite fair to him to press your claims so heavily? I only 
 put it to you, is it fair?" 
 
 What a poor-spirited creature was this wife of Deny's! She 
 was putting up no fight at all. Carrie wanted her to speak. 
 There is very little pleasure in wrestling with a lame opponent. 
 Even a bull-fight loses it charm if the bull cowers timorously in 
 a corner. 
 
 308
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "You can tie him to your apron-strings, and he won't pull 
 away for fear of hurting you. He is the most kindhearted man 
 I 've ever met. But if you keep a dog on too short a chain, and 
 he is for ever straining, and straining . . . well, it is very bad 
 for him, to say the least of it." 
 
 Rosaleen left off that pretence of making tea. 
 
 "It's me that's chaining Deny, you think?" 
 
 "My dear thing, look at what is happening. You can't pre- 
 tend you don 't know why they won 't settle up the affairs of the 
 estate, or see him, or anything!" 
 
 "You're meaning ?" she asked, breathlessly. Indeed, 
 
 she had known, but even to herself she had not worded her 
 knowledge. For if it were true, what could she do? Yet, 
 even as Lady Carrie was speaking, she knew what she 
 should do. 
 
 "You can't pretend to think that if Deny had married in his 
 own order, married me, for instance, the Ranmores would have 
 behaved as they are doing now? I wouldn't hurt your feelings 
 for the world, but you know what these people are proud as 
 Lucifer, thinking the Ranmores really do count in the scheme 
 of creation. You did not expect them to be pleased when 
 Terence's heir ran away with, and married his aunt's maid." 
 
 "I was not expecting anything," Rosaleen answered for- 
 lornly, with paling lips. She knew so much more about that 
 marriage than did Lady Carrie. 
 
 "Now, do think of all this before it is too late. You can, as 
 I say, play on his good-nature, and keep him boxed up here 
 but is it wise ? I 'm only speaking for your own good. Nobody 
 understands what it means. For all the social position you are 
 taking, you might just as well not have been married to him at all. 
 Of course, you know that is what some people are saying. ..." 
 
 She paused. Rosaleen was gazing at her with startled eyes. 
 
 "They're saying that!" she gasped. 
 
 "What can you expect?" Carrie shrugged her shoulders 
 again. "It is rather a pity ..." This time the pause was 
 more abrupt. 
 
 "You're thinking it's a pity he ever married me at all." 
 
 309
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "Poor old Deny! After all it is only natural that I should 
 feel sorry for all his deprivations. ..." She looked round 
 the room again, expressively, "and his lack of freedom. ..." 
 She sighed impatiently. "But there is no use talking of it." 
 
 "Deny goes out by himself every single day." The words 
 came with a sob. 
 
 "For an hour or two," Lady Carrie said, scornfully. "Your 
 hand is on the end of the chain all the time." 
 
 "It's me that's holding him?" 
 
 "What else are you doing? This Ascot visit, now . . ." 
 
 "Have done with your Ascot visit ..." Now Rosaleen's 
 hands went up to hide her face. She was seeing Deny pulling at 
 his chain, wearying of it. "And what can I do ?" broke from her. 
 
 "You can go away, down to Folkestone, for instance, give 
 him a chance of getting back among his own friends. He can 
 pull you up with him, later on, you know. But he has got to 
 get back by himself first. You must know it as well as I do, 
 you are dragging him down." 
 
 All at once it seemed as if she did know it, and had known it 
 all along. She put her arms down, and her face went down, too. 
 Hadn't it been in her own heart this long time? She was a 
 drag upon him, and it was through her that they were keeping 
 him out of Ranmore, the place that belonged to him, that he 
 fitted; from the stables, and the horses on which he would ride 
 forth in his pink coat to the meet, from the woods which he 
 would stride through with his gun on his shoulder, from the 
 streams that were his to whip for trout, to cast the fly, from the 
 green and glory of Ranmore. There, amid the blue mountains 
 and blue, soft sky was his home, and it was she that stood 
 between him and its beauty. 
 
 She lifted her head again. Lady Carrie had taken another 
 piece of bread and butter. She had an idea the fight was over. 
 She had not meant to go quite so far when she came here. But 
 it would be a very good thing for Deny if the creature would 
 go away from him for a time. It was a nuisance his always 
 wanting to get back to her for lunch or dinner. Deny as a free 
 lance would be much more agreeable. 
 
 310
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "You say I'm standing between Derry and his home, between 
 him and friends?" 
 
 "Well! you don't doubt it, do you? You don't really think 
 that Mossy Leon, and all those theatrical people, represent the 
 social circle to which Lord Ranmore belongs?" 
 
 "I hadn't thought," Rosaleen answered; but thought looked 
 out now from her mournful eyes. 
 
 "Well, you will now, and do the right thing, I am sure." 
 Lady Carrie rose, her manner was kindly patronizing, as if 
 she were patting on the head a repentant village child. "You 
 will not go on standing in his way." 
 
 Rosaleen rose, too, she had done with trying to hide the truth 
 from herself. She would brave the full blast of it. He had 
 set her in the cool breeze, and her aching feet in running 
 water; but she was back in the fire now, and all of her was 
 burning. 
 
 "It was you he ought to have married, it was you he would 
 have married . . . ?" 
 
 Lady Carrie, waiting, looking at her curiously, paused at 
 the door. 
 
 "He ... he cared for you before before Terence died? 
 Tell me that, tell me the truth of it. I'll go away," she cried, 
 wildly, for the pain was very bad, and made her cry out, "if 
 it's you that he cares about, and me that's only in his way. . . ." 
 
 It was not in Lady Carrie to say that Derry did not care for 
 her, never had cared for her, and would not even put on that 
 little affectation of caring, that is called flirtation. She could 
 not, if she would, be honest, or truthful or straightforward, 
 and of compassion she knew as little as a Liberal Government 
 of economy. She only laughed, that little, low, half-contemptu- 
 ous laugh, and went a step nearer toward the door. 
 
 "Tell me," cried Rosaleen, obstructing her passage. 
 
 "My dear woman, why do you want to know? What object 
 does it serve? It was you he married." 
 
 "Tell me." 
 
 "Well, if you must have it ..." 
 
 "Tell me ..." 
 
 311
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Lady Carrie's eyes gleamed maliciously, and then they 
 dropped modestly. 
 
 She hesitated, but it was only to bring out her phrase more 
 effectively. "I think you ought not to ask me, not to press the 
 question, it is hardly fair. Supposing Deny does cart for me, 
 it isn't strange, we have so much in common. And there are 
 class distinctions. . . . but I am sure he is trying to do his 
 duty. You must not fret about it." 
 
 Rosaleen turned her face away, like a wounded animal; but 
 not before Carrie had seen it 
 
 Not fret about ill The room swayed, and the day went black. 
 Not fret about it! 
 
 Lady Carrie was glad to get out of the flat, and into her 
 luxurious victoria. 
 
 "What a fool the woman is, what a fool! Rumpelmayer's," 
 she directed the footman. 
 
 Leaning back, on her way to that fashionable rendezvous, 
 her sunshade open, and pleased in the instinct that told her the 
 purpose of her visit had been achieved, she said to herself many 
 times: "What a fool! she cannot even see that her husband is 
 in love with her."
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 ROSALEEN knew now what she must do for Deny. 
 Purpose dawned on her as she lay, with her face 
 hidden, in the swaying room, on the day that had gone 
 black. It had a gray, cold dawning, that Purpose of hers, 
 very slow. There would be no sun upon it, and there is but 
 gray dawn to a day without sun. 
 
 Soon she grew more composed. To battle with the waves 
 in a desperate death-struggle makes the heart tumultuous, 
 shakes the courage, hurries into irregularity the heaving, painful 
 breath. But now the struggle with the waves was over, and she 
 was drifting on that slow tide that "moving seems asleep." 
 Already she felt that she had parted from him forever. Hadn't 
 he made his great sacrifice, in that stone church at Marylebone, 
 and wasn't she ready to make hers for him ? She was standing 
 in his way. 
 
 When she knew what she must do, she did it so well, and 
 so bravely, that he never guessed the mistake she was making, 
 nor where it was leading her. Rosaleen could not speak to 
 him of Lady Carrie's visit, and Lady Carrie, too, avoided telling 
 him. Therefore, when Rosaleen told him, that she had changed 
 her mind about Folkestone, and thought the visit would be good 
 for both herself and the boy, although he was surprised, he had 
 no reason for thinking she was disingenuous. 
 
 When she pressed upon him the week at Ascot, and was 
 quite urgent that he should not miss the chance of meeting the 
 Duchess, he could question her conclusions, but he could not 
 doubt her bona fides. He argued with her about it, but perhaps 
 the argument was a little half-hearted. It was going to be an 
 exceptional Ascot. 
 
 "But you'll be dull at the seaside without me!" 
 
 313
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "Not with Sonny, and the needlework, and I don't know 
 what besides." 
 
 "Well, it's brighter you're looking this morning, anyway. 
 I believe it is at the prospect of getting rid of me. Now, tell 
 me, is that the way of it?" 
 
 She was feeling brighter. Already she was in the calm of 
 the slow-moving tide. 
 
 "I am glad you are going to have the pleasure of the visit." 
 
 "I'm not at all so sure I am going. I don't like seeing you so 
 happy in your mind. Is it a tete-a-tete with Mossy you 're pro- 
 jecting ? Have you invited him to come down with you ? Or is it 
 thinking of Mr. Nat Simons you are after, and his opinion that 
 you'd be an ornament to the stage?" He had the Irishman's 
 love of lighj-hearted banter, and Mossy's admiration was a 
 good peg upon which to hang it. 
 
 She could smile at him, perhaps it was not a very gay smile. 
 
 "It's a grand time you'll be having, surely," she said. 
 
 "It would be grander if you were coming with me." 
 
 "But the Duchess would rather be seeing you alone." 
 
 "Not she! And who is to say Margaret will be there? I 
 don't seem to call to mind hearing of her staying at the 
 Brinmores." 
 
 Margaret's comings and goings had been freely discussed 
 between him and Terence in the old days. Terence always 
 knew where his sister was to be found, and the two were never 
 very long apart. 
 
 "I don't recollect the name at all." 
 
 "Well, maybe she'll be there, all the same." 
 
 "And you're sure you'll not be missing me?" 
 
 The more he queried and doubted, and seemed as if he were 
 loath to part with her, the nearer the dark day of her purpose 
 reached to its meridian. She was keeping him from his natural 
 pursuits and friends, and the ache at his heart for Ranmore, 
 was one she had been making worse by pressing too closely 
 against his side. She had been blind, struggling with the salt 
 spray in her mouth and eyes now she was in the calm. Of 
 course Terence's mother, and Terence's sister, would have 
 
 314
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 been willing that Deny should be back there among them. 
 He was of their own people. It was she, O'Daly's daughter, 
 that they could not stomach. Now and again the sobbing 
 breath woke again convulsively, for she loved him so terribly, 
 and wanted neither grandeur nor riches, but only to be near 
 him. Yet she was strong that he should neither see, nor guess 
 that she suffered. He must get back to Ranmore. Somehow 
 or other, the thought that he cared for Lady Carrie, or she for 
 him, sank now into the background of her mind. It was as 
 if, so near to the eternal verities, some faint light was shed upon 
 her passage, to give her heart peace. It was to Ranmore and 
 his people she was giving him up; there he would be when she had 
 taken herself out of his way, not in London with Lady Carrie. 
 
 In those few days that intervened between Lady Carrie's 
 visit and the Ascot Monday, Rosaleen never faltered, although 
 Derry was not of the same mind for two hours together. Some 
 instinct must have warned him, although afterward he said he 
 had had no instinct at all. Only he loved her, and was reluctant 
 to part with her even for a few days. It was the Folkestone 
 scheme that reconciled him. 
 
 "I'll be picturing you playing there with the boy, and the 
 wind ruffling up his curls. I'll be seeing the brown coming 
 over that white skin of yours, and the sun kissing you for me. 
 But I'd rather be doing it myself ..." And the action 
 followed swiftly on the word. 
 
 He went down with them to Folkestone on the Saturday 
 before he was due at the Brinmores. He settled them in com- 
 fortable rooms, a bedroom for Rosaleen and one for nurse and 
 baby, a fine airy sitting-room with a great window looking right 
 on to the sea. He told the landlady, who was quite carried 
 away by his title and his Irish accent, that they were "two 
 treasures he was leaving in her charge." She was to mind and 
 take care of them. No lodger had ever tipped her before. 
 This open-handed gentleman pressed a five-pound note upon 
 her. 
 
 "Now that's to buy yourself a new bonnet, and grand you'll 
 be looking in it, and I'll come down myself to see. . . ." 
 
 315
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Mrs. Peach was buxom, and not long past fifty. She bridled 
 and smiled, and thought this was really a fine appreciative 
 gentleman. 
 
 "But mind about my treasures, even when you've got that 
 new bonnet on your head. From the moment I set eyes on you, 
 I said, 'that woman's a treasure herself, and she'll guard mine 
 for me.' I wouldn't so much as look at any other rooms once 
 I saw you open the door to me." 
 
 Of course she vowed she would do her best. When Rosaleen 
 went into the bedroom to help nurse with the unpacking, Mrs. 
 Peach told stories of other lodgers who had come there, recover- 
 ing from illness, or what she was pleased to call "their neural- 
 itis," and had "picked up wonderful." She promised milk 
 puddings, and plenty of new laid eggs. 
 
 "I hold by eggs myself, beat up with brandy for the lady." 
 And she spoke of junket and boiled fowls, and her skill as a 
 cook. 
 
 Deny stayed that night. There was an afternoon train on 
 Sunday that would take him to town in plenty of time. The 
 Idoging-house was served by a maid-of-all-work, and a foreign 
 butler, or footman, waiter or boy, who completed the household. 
 This nondescript person was a Swiss, had come to England to 
 learn the language, and was intent only on achieving his object 
 and getting home. But he was one with the rest of them in 
 his anxiety to serve Deny, and to wait upon his lady. Deny 's 
 five shillings made him say that he would be glad to carry up 
 the meals, and the salt water for nurse. Sunday morning 
 he lugged out the perambulator for that bonny, gold-haired 
 baby boy, who held out friendly arms, and laughed at him out 
 of the loveliest pair of blue eyes he had ever seen. 
 
 Deny was out on the Leas with them both, all that mag- 
 nificent Sunday morning. The sun was high in the heaven, 
 and the wind was playful, almost sweeping Sonny off his feet, 
 sometimes, when, the perambulator discarded, he walked or 
 gambolled on the grass beside them. 
 
 "It's health that's blowing in to you; and it's roses instead 
 of lilies I'll be finding in your cheeks when I come back. I'm 
 
 316
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 glad I persuaded you down here. If it wasn 't for Lady Carrie, 
 and having promised her, and all that, I'd be stopping myself. 
 It was only air I was needing." A word would have kept him. 
 
 She reminded him, instead, of the possibility of seeing the 
 Duchess. There was no doubt that was in his mind, for quite 
 a flush came into his cheek. 
 
 "Ah! I'd like to see Margaret," was all he said. But she 
 knew now how deep it was in him, that longing for reconciliation. 
 
 She had not faltered in London when she had been looking 
 out his racquets and tennis-shoes, mending his socks and under- 
 clothes, pressing and packing and preparing. She had left 
 everything ready for him at the flat. She did not falter when 
 she walked with him to the station in the afternoon. 
 
 The wind had got up since the morning, and now it whistled 
 about their ears. The sun had gone, and in the station it was 
 cold and draughty. The train stood there waiting, but already 
 steam was up, and the engine was shrieking. Deny was not 
 the man to catch a train with too much time to spare. He 
 jumped in almost as it was going, his last kiss being taken in a 
 hurry; he called to her out of the window to get along home as 
 quickly as she could, not to take cold. That was the last she 
 saw of him, his face at the window. She watched the train 
 until it rounded the corner, and was out of sight. 
 
 She walked back very slowly. How good he had been to her, 
 from first to last! He had married her out of pity, and loyalty 
 to Terence, with the desire to shield his memory. He had 
 treated her as the "greatest lady in the land." The phraseology 
 of Rosaleen's mind was all in that simple sentence. And the 
 boy Terence 's boy he had taken, too, into his great heart, and 
 he loved him. Rosaleen knew Derry loved the boy, who grew 
 more like Terence every day, he had already the same glint of 
 laughter in his blue eyes, the same beguiling ways. He was 
 a Ranmore sure enough. But what was she but O 'Daly's 
 daughter, with no tie to the house but gratitude and service? 
 Yet it was she who was standing between Derry and his people 
 and the home of all of them. 
 
 Her thoughts flew to Ranmore, the great gray pile at the foot 
 21 317
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 of the blue mountains, the vast woods, and the lake in the midst 
 of them, the wild waving grass, and the cry of the corn-crake, 
 in the wood, the soft air that had whispered of love and happi- 
 ness, singing in the tree-tops. This wind here that tore about 
 her ears as she walked slowly from the station to her lodgings, 
 shrieking from the sea, was not more different from the soft 
 wind that blew at Ranmore, than herself from the Ranmores. 
 It was a peasant she was; she had read the word in Carrie's 
 eyes. Yes, Derry had married her out of pity, out of infinite 
 great chivalry. Was the sacrifice to be only on his side? She 
 would give her life for him, she would lie down that he might 
 walk over her body, but what she was going to do was the 
 greatest sacrifice of all. 
 
 She was going to leave him. Then the Duchess would open 
 her doors to him, and Lady Ranmore her heart. Then he 
 would come into his kingdom, and be the greatest king of them 
 all, over there at Ranmore, where his people's people lived, 
 whose servants she and her father had been. 
 
 Because of the wild strain of superstition in her, and the 
 deeper one of melancholy, it seemed that it was she who had 
 brought the ill-luck upon them all, first upon Terence, now 
 upon Derry. It was in little Terence's light, too, she was 
 standing. She saw the flat in Westminster through Lady 
 Carrie 's eyes, and she knew that Derry and little Terence ought 
 to be in the beloved Irish home that belonged to them. Derry 
 had done everything for her; now she must do something for 
 him. She had thought and thought, but the thinking done 
 under that mountain pile of accumulating gratitude was dark 
 thought, bred in darkness. She could not see Derry 's love, 
 she only saw that she stood in his way, between him and 
 Ranmore. 
 
 He was on his way to Ascot, to Lady Carrie, but, above all, 
 to Ranmore. She never doubted that. The wind told her 
 this as it sang in her ears, and the pain was almost deadened 
 by the greatness of her sacrifice. She would rather have died 
 than separated herself from him; but she was going to do this 
 that he might be free. Could she but have died! That would 
 
 318
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 have been the greatest boon of all, to have been able to die for 
 him. Again that lantern-slide scene from the wilds of Siam 
 came back to her mind, and the great Sacrifice was illumined 
 before her. She saw Him on the Cross. Again and again she 
 had gone over this, and could bring not herself to it. Once 
 before, in the most awful, the most terrible of situations, she 
 had contemplated suicide, and thought wildly of the still lake 
 on Gabriel. But then it had been impossible, the life in her 
 was too young and strong to be quenched, and the flesh was 
 weak. Yet she would have left him that way, if it had not been 
 for a pale gleam of truth that threw a light on his relations with 
 Lady Carrie. The light was faint, but it enabled her to see. 
 After her wild cry, and the answer to it, that now rang falsely 
 in her ears, she had not doubted but that love and Lady Carrie 
 were incompatible. She did not reason, she knew. She would 
 have died for him, if it had been necessary, if she had been stand- 
 ing between him and a woman he loved, who loved him even 
 as she did. Her courage would have held, she was just the 
 woman who would have died for her man, but her fine instincts 
 told her that he could not care for such a one as Lady Carrie. 
 All she need do, therefore, was to go out of his life, to disappear, 
 and leave him to go free. It was only freedom he needed. 
 More than once, in the flat, when she had seen him stretch 
 out his long arms, widen his great shoulders, and throw back 
 his head, she seemed to hear him calling out for freedom. She 
 knew when he talked of air, and exercise and the cramped 
 London flat, it was really of Ranmore he was thinking. He 
 would be back there soon now, whether he met the Duchess at 
 Ascot or not. No longer would a barrier of shame stand 
 between Lord Ranmore and the home of his ancestors. The 
 peasant- wife that he had taken out of pity would be gone. 
 
 There was no hurry. She had a whole week before her. All 
 her plans had been laid before she left London. Daily she 
 saw the roses deepen on the baby's cheeks, and the brown on 
 his sturdy limbs. The blue of his eyes was a thing to wonder 
 at, and it seemed as if a bloom came over him, such a ripening 
 and sun-glow of health was his. 
 
 319
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "It's meself that will be sending them a fine present," she 
 thought, when she watched him digging in the sands in the 
 morning with his hat off, his red-gold head glistening, the curls 
 lying wet, his feet and legs bare, and his prattle never ceasing. 
 Not a child on the sands came near him for looks, he was a 
 king among the others. In the afternoons, in the beautiful 
 white frocks her hands had worked for him, his white socks and 
 white shoes, he would run about on the grass of the Leas, and 
 again he was beyond compare. Oh! it was a fine present she 
 was sending them. 
 
 There would be a letter coming to her from Ascot. She 
 could wait for that. Please God it would tell her the Duchess 
 was there, and that Deny was reconciled to her. The letter 
 came, more than one letter came, but it seemed the Duchess 
 was still at Dunstans. Surely, therefore, Rosaleen must send 
 her a peace-offering. All that week she lay awake at nights, 
 and the harsh wind shrieked and howled at the bedroom window. 
 But when she closed her eyes, or drifted into light half-sleep, 
 she heard the soft winds of Ranmore soughing in the trees. 
 
 It was to the Duchess she would send Terence's son. The 
 Duchess had no children of her own; she would cherish her 
 brother's boy, if his mother, that was the shame of them both, 
 of all of them, were out of the way. Rosaleen was slow with 
 her pen, but she would have to write to the Duchess. After- 
 wards she would write to Deny. Then she could go away and 
 trouble none of them ever again. 
 
 The landlady had been as good as her words, Rosaleen 's 
 appetite was tempted with rice puddings and junket, new-laid 
 eggs and tender chickens. The boy, waxing strong and sturdy, 
 was promoted from baby food to eggs, and bread and butter, 
 to a taste of minced chicken, and the junket he despised, and 
 dispersed about the floor and the table with his unsteady spoon. 
 But the roses that were to bloom in Rosaleen 's cheeks found no 
 soil to suit them. 
 
 The Swiss waiter and the maid-of-all-work confided in each 
 other, and Terence's nurse talked it over with the landlady, 
 and all of them were agreed that his lordship would be disap- 
 
 320
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 pointed, when he came down at the end of the week, to see her 
 ladyship as pale as ever. 
 
 "She takes nothing, or next to nothing, of the good meals 
 you send up, Mrs. Peach. I don't hold with waste, nor yet 
 with extravagance, but I'd try her with something different to 
 the chicken, a sole, now, or a sweetbread. It's my belief she 
 is fretting after him. The baby comes second to him don't 
 you, my bonny boy?" The nurse snatched him up and gave 
 him the meed of kisses his mother was supposed to deny him, 
 and he clutched at her hair, and did not seem the least impressed 
 by the secondary position of which he was told. "She worships 
 the very ground his lordship treads upon, and this is the first 
 time they have been separated; I heard him say so. I should 
 try her with the sweetbread. You might fry it in breadcrumbs, 
 Mrs. Peach, and I'll give him a taste of it with his gravy. He 
 enjoys his meals, don't you, my precious ? You never saw such 
 an appetite as the sea gives him!" 
 
 Mrs. Peach tried the sweetbread, and the sole, duck, and green 
 peas and the tenderest loin of lamb which the butcher in the 
 High Street could find. Yet Rosaleen's color did not improve 
 as the week wore on, and her eyes were sad to see. She sent 
 Deny the little daily notes for which he had asked, it was easy 
 to fill them. But her letter to the Duchess, and the other one 
 that she must write to him, were more difficult. She went to 
 bed, night after night, with the task still before her, to lie awake 
 and listen to the wind; to lie awake and think of Deny, never 
 again to lie warm and sleepy by her side. Sometimes a dumb 
 panic of desolation seized and shook her, at the thought that 
 he would lie by her side no more. But she would force herself 
 from such thoughts to follow him, in his freedom, back to Ran- 
 more. She could smell the woods sometimes, as well as hear 
 the sough of the soft winds. The Duchess would help him to 
 get there. Everybody knew it was the good heart the Duchess 
 had. Everyone knew, too, how greatly she had loved her 
 brother, and that it was half her life he had taken with him 
 that day when the horse threw him. The Duchess was not at 
 the Brinmores', as Deny and she had hoped, and Lady Carrie 
 
 321
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 had promised, so it was to Dunstans Rosaleen must send her 
 present. It was from Terence, this gift she was sending to 
 buy kindness for Deny. It was for Terence he had done it all, 
 and out of pity. But how could she tell how it came about 
 that she had this gift to bestow? There were no words at her 
 command for telling, but no words would be needed; they had 
 but to look at him; every day the likeness grew. 
 
 The letter got itself written at last, and bewildered the Duchess 
 when she received it, up there at Dunstans. 
 
 "YouR GRACE, Nurse is taking you this letter, and my 
 beautiful boy. I want you to have him. He is a red Ranmore, 
 and it's proud of him you'll all be, if you have him to yourself, 
 without me. I've wanted to write to Lady Ranmore, and tell her 
 that I wasn't ungrateful like I must have seemed to her when I 
 went away. My heart was just full of her goodness, and all of 
 your goodness to me. I haven't forgot she kept me all those 
 years in the convent, and let me come back to wait on her at 
 Ranmore. I would have liked to stay and wait on her for ever. 
 Won't you let her know that, and that I'm not ungrateful ? I'm 
 keeping her right in my heart for ever and ever, and the sorrow 
 of her. It's meself that's known sorrow, too. And I've never 
 forgotten dear, beautiful Ranmore, the woods, and the coppice, 
 and down where the little cascade runs, where Terence found the 
 heron with the broken wing, you'll mind the day. I know you'll 
 never tell the darlint that his mother was not a lady, only O'Daly's 
 daughter, him that was murdered for collecting the rents. 
 Derry only married me out of pity. I can't tell you the goodness 
 of him, and how he loves you all, and wants you to care for him 
 again. It was me that was standing in the way. But I'm 
 never going to see him, or any of you again; it's his freedom I'm 
 giving him back. How can I pray you to care for my little 
 Sonny, so that he doesn't ever miss that he has no mother, that 
 loved him well enough to give him up, so he might come into 
 his own. . ', ." 
 
 It was not all, nor half she had meant to say; but there was 
 Derry to write to as well; and already it was Thursday. Derry 
 seemed to be having a great time up there with the racing, and 
 
 322
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 it was only hurried notes he sent her, after all. He wrote that 
 there was so much to do, and there were so many people to do 
 it with he was never alone, he never had a minute to write, he 
 would tell her all about everything when he saw her. He was 
 "ever and always." But she read, through the hurry of the 
 letters, that he was happy, and enjoying himself. They were 
 glad to have him among them, no doubt. Now she had no 
 jealousy of Lady Carrie, who was of the party, but whom he 
 did not mention. 
 
 On Friday, instead of a letter, there came quite a long telegram, 
 answer paid. It was brought to her when her letter to the 
 Duchess was finished, and lay ready for nurse to take with her 
 to Dunstans to-morrow. She had waited to part from the boy 
 until the last possible moment. 
 
 "Do you mind very much if I stay week-end answer frankly 
 question of racquet match Brinmore pressing been so hospitable 
 don't like to refuse longing for you and will come Folkestone in 
 a moment if you say the word otherwise flat on Monday." 
 
 She knew he would come if she sent to him. There had 
 never been a flaw in his chivalry, or his desire to be good to her. 
 Now it was racquets he was playing, as he did in Siam; Derry 
 loved playing games. She saw him with his coat off, the silk shirt 
 clinging to his wide shoulders and deep chest, the head thrown 
 back, and the swing of the racquet. And to go back to the dull 
 flat instead, wearing out long days watching her mend his socks, 
 as Lady Carrie had said, with no alternative but Carrie's drawing- 
 room or Mossy 's club! Rosaleen was long past hesitation. 
 
 "Don't hurry back on any account. Leaving Folkestone 
 Saturday Letter follows." 
 
 "Letter follows." That was the trouble; it had to be written. 
 She could not write coldly, yet she must not let him see that it 
 was her heart she was tearing out by the roots to give him. 
 
 If she had written her letter to the Duchess a dozen times, 
 it was fifty times she tore up the sheet that held her trembling 
 last lines to Deny.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 DERRY enjoyed the racing, and the society of men 
 of his own breed. He played in a cricket match on 
 Saturday, and on Sunday he and Brinmore had 
 engaged Captain Foster and Major Lester at racquets. They 
 were the runners-up for the Military Cup two years ago, but 
 he and Brinmore had managed to give them a game. Then 
 again he was no ascetic. He saw baccarat played, for the first 
 time, and, courageous ignorance having stood him in good stead, 
 he had let his stake accumulate in a run of fourteen against the 
 syndicate bank. He won over 200. There were lavish tips 
 for everybody; there was 100 for Carrie, who demurred but 
 accepted, and there was jioo for him to take home to Rosaleen. 
 They would have a week together at Goodwood. He traveled 
 back to town with Major Lester, who was a married man too. 
 Major Lester and he thought it would be a good idea to share 
 a little cottage he knew of, two miles from Chichester. They 
 planned it all out, and what the whole thing would cost. Major 
 Lester had done it before, and for under 50 had included a 
 dog-cart. There was room for two dog-carts in the stable 
 attached to the cottage, he was almost sure. 
 
 Then Major Lester had spoken of his wife, and of what a 
 good "pal" she was, adding that anyone could get on with her. 
 And Deny had certainly not been backward in talking of 
 Rosaleen. They agreed that, although the Brinmores had a 
 fine place, and had "done" them magnificently, it was a pity 
 they made a habit of not asking husband and wife together. 
 All the couples had been disconnected, as it were, thrown together 
 haphazard. Derry had not been as attentive to Lady Carrie, 
 nor the Major to Mrs. McDougall, as had been expected of 
 them. It had resolved itself into something of a man's party. 
 
 324
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Comparing notes in the train, they said Brinmore was a good 
 fellow and Bet was all right; but the other women were rather 
 a nuisance. Major Lester carried his wife's portrait cut into 
 a circle, and pasted into the back of his watch. Deny thought 
 it a splendid idea; he would make Rosaleen sit for her likeness 
 the first thing he got back. Secretly he thought Major Lester's 
 Nell was rather plain, and would have given anything to have 
 been able to exhibit his beautiful Rosaleen. It was arranged 
 that Mrs. Lester should call at the flat, and the four of them 
 would have a little dinner together somewhere, and talk about 
 the Goodwood scheme. 
 
 They were only an hour getting up from Ascot, and the time 
 seemed quite short. But, once they were at Waterloo, Deny 
 did not linger in saying good-bye to Major Lester. He wanted 
 to tell Rosaleen all about everything, to see her, to have her in 
 his arms. Now it seemed to him that they had been separated 
 for a long time. 
 
 He had no foreboding. Why should he have? There had 
 never been any angry word between them; he had never looked 
 at another woman in admiration, or with anything but an 
 indifferent eye. Rosaleen had been his first love, was and would 
 be his last, and if she was dwelling sometimes on her memories 
 of Terence, and the old cloud, he put the thought firmly from 
 him. Terence was dead, and he was alive, and loving her 
 always. Now he was on his way home. 
 
 He was almost too impatient to collect his luggage at the 
 terminus. In his light clothes, standing on the platform, he 
 looked bigger than ever. He was imperious and cheerful in 
 his impatience; and the porters helped him with a will. He 
 told the taxi-cab driver to go as fast as "they'd let him." 
 
 It was June, and although he was no Londoner, London had 
 its charm for him this day. The Parks flung out their wealth 
 of green, and the trees in the Squares were bright with early 
 summer, the leaves were still young, radiant as they met the sun. 
 He had said that London trees were dusty and dreary, and he 
 felt no companionship with them as he did with the trees in 
 Ranmore woods, but to-day there was no dust upon them, and 
 
 325
 
 they sparkled as the light wind sported with their young green 
 in the sun, rippling shadows and light; the sky was blue, with 
 white clouds floating. Ah! it was good even in London to-day, 
 with Rosaleen at the end of the drive. 
 
 He left the commissionaire to pay the cab, and carry up the 
 portmanteau. He was even too impatient for the lift. His 
 long legs could scale the stairs more quickly than the slow lift 
 could mount. Possibly he expected Rosaleen to have met him 
 at the station. He had wired what time he would be home; 
 but not what time the train arrived. Surely she would meet 
 him at the door. She would have the stars in her eyes for his 
 greeting, and the flush under her white skin. 
 
 But, when he found the door of the flat closed, and, only 
 after prolonged ringing, he heard the dilatory step of the parlor- 
 maid, then the slow unchaining of the door, he did not know 
 what to think. Had she not expected him, and where was Lady 
 Ranmore, and had his wire not arrived? Half a dozen other 
 questions were poured out at once. The dishevelled parlor- 
 maid was rather flustered by them. Deny pushed past her. 
 The rooms were half covered up; they were disheveled, like 
 the parlormaid, and more than a stratum of dust seemed to 
 have settled on them. They had the air of being unoccupied. 
 The blinds were drawn down and no sun came through them. 
 Surely he had never before noticed what dull rooms they were, 
 and how close and stagnant. Mary brought him his own tele- 
 gram, unopened, from the hall table, and a few letters. There 
 was one in Rosaleen 's small, stiff conventional writing. 
 
 "Of course she is staying on, she has never got my wire. I 
 hope I haven't missed one from her. I hope there is nothing 
 wrong with her, or the boy." 
 
 His hopes and fears contended while he was opening the 
 letter. Perhaps a sense, or premonition, of trouble came to 
 him then. 
 
 He rubbed his eyes over the letter, read it, re-read it; took it 
 over to the window, bringing down the blind in dusty disaster 
 with the impatience of his pull. It made the desolation of the 
 room more complete. 
 
 326
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "I'm never coming back to the flat any more. I'm leaving 
 you to-day for ever and ever. You 're quite free now. It will be 
 no use looking for me, but perhape you won't be thinking to look. 
 And Sonny, too, I've left. It's me that isn't jit to be with either 
 of you, or at Ranmore." 
 
 A more desperate failure of a letter could hardly have been 
 conceived. It told him no hint, explained nothing, although 
 he read it again and again, wondering what was the matter with 
 his head, what had gone out of the world. 
 
 "I'm never coming back to the flat any more. I'm leaving you 
 to-day for ever and ever." 
 
 But what had he done to her, and where had she gone? It 
 was like a knock-down blow to him, it stunned him; he could 
 not collect his thoughts, he could not think at all. He called 
 the parlormaid. By now Mary had her own grievances to 
 support. She did not know he was coming home to-day, she 
 had not heard a word from the mistress. It was not her fault 
 that the rooms were in disorder, and nothing was prepared. 
 She wasn't used to such ways, and she murmured something 
 about "Irish." She exclaimed over the window-blind that had 
 come down, and "supposed" she would have to see to that, too. 
 Mary's mental attitude might be described as "tantrum." She 
 was a good servant, and had been caught napping, taken by 
 surprise. Certainly she had no information to give him, and 
 no comfort. 
 
 "Maybe you're wanting lunch at home?" she asked him, 
 prepared for another grievance. He only stared at her; he had 
 forgotten she was there, and that he had been talking to her. 
 
 "It's me that isn't fit to be with either of you." He had for- 
 gotten the old cloud. Incredible, impossible things, like winged 
 monsters, flew about, and tried to find entrance to his brain. 
 Mossy. How came Mossy to be in his head at all ? But once 
 the thought of Mossy found entrance, it could not be got rid of, 
 but buzzed and stayed, and moved him to action. He must 
 get rid of this buzzing; he was quite dazed, and stumbled in his 
 walk. 
 
 327
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 The portmanteau was still in the hall. Surely it must have 
 been yesterday he flung it down where it stood, and bolted up 
 the stairs. How everything had altered since then! It could 
 not be the same day. The commissionaire looked at him 
 wonderingly, and Deny returned the stare. He did not know 
 why, but everything was strange. 
 
 "What are you staring at me for?" he asked, dully. 
 
 The man apologized, he thought his lordship looked at him. 
 Was there anything he could do? Deny thought. He knew 
 he had come down here for something, now he had forgotten 
 what it was. Oh! of course, it was a cab he wanted, a 
 fast cab. 
 
 Mossy was not in at Grosvenor Square. The very polite 
 butler, who was quite sure Lord Ranmore had been drinking, 
 reminded him politely that Mr. Leon very seldom was at home 
 at that time. He was quite apologetic in mentioning such a 
 possibility, having always before lived in the best families, 
 but he thought Mr. Leon might be at his office. He had a 
 habit of going to his office. 
 
 Deny looked at him as if he did not hear what he was saying, 
 and redirected his cabman. 
 
 In Great Quebec Street the clerk hesitated, and said he 
 believed Mr. Leon had gone out to lunch. He, too, thought 
 Deny had taken more than was good for him, for his eyes looked 
 strange, and his voice was hurried and incoherent. 
 
 "He can't be out to lunch. I don't believe he has been here 
 at all." 
 
 "Oh, yes, milord, he was here quite early. We have the 
 Jarndyce case coming on; he may have gone down to the 
 Court." 
 
 "I don't care what case you've got on, don't stand there 
 talking. Go and find Mr. Leon, tell him I must see him." 
 
 The clerk knew quite well that Mossy was in the office, but 
 it was not a wholly unusual thing for a distraught client to rush 
 in, and insist upon an unwelcome interview. These distraught 
 clients had generally to be eased off gradually, the managing 
 clerk seeing them, or a later appointment made, or the writing 
 
 328
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN- 
 
 of a letter suggested. Seeing Lord Ranmore so unlike himself, 
 the clerk thought he had better gain time. He asked Deny to 
 take a seat, and he would make inquiries. Deny was much 
 too impatient to take a seat. This waiting-room of Mossy 's 
 had none of luxuriousness of the upstairs office. There were 
 two writing-tables, four chairs, and a bookcase with gilt wires, 
 like a bird-cage. He was offered the Daily Telegraph. He 
 had not even a word of civility for the courtesy. 
 
 Fortunately he was not kept waiting more than a minute. 
 
 "Ranmore! Lord Ranmore! Of course he can come up. 
 Not quite himself. What on earth do you mean? Rubbish! 
 Go and bring him up." 
 
 "Deny, old chap! Why, Deny!" 
 
 Mossy Leon was struck by the alteration in him, by the gray 
 pallor, and the stupid, half-dazed look. 
 
 "Where has she gone?" Deny asked. "Where is she?" 
 
 "What's the matter?" Mossy would not notice that Deny 
 had not shaken hands with him. He rang the bell that stood 
 on the office table, sharply. "See that we are not disturbed," 
 he said to the clerk. He knew there was something wrong. 
 Deny sank into the easy chair; he looked at Mossy, and the fly 
 in his head ceased buzzing. 
 
 "I'm a damned fool, I think!" said Deny, slowly. 
 
 "Well, that's nothing new, is it?" But Mossy saw it was no 
 case for humor. "Now, don't bother to talk, you've had a 
 shock of some sort, an upset, or a spill ? You shall tell me all 
 about it in a few minutes; but first I 'm going to mix you a whisky- 
 and-soda." 
 
 Mossy had all the material at hand. The reticulated Chip- 
 pendale bookcase held more than books. Deny sat in the 
 easy chair, and watched Mossy take the Tantalus out of the 
 cupboard, measure the whisky into a wineglass, then press the 
 syphon of soda, and let it fizz up. Mossy 's hand was quite 
 steady. Derry's shook when he took the glass from him. 
 
 "Having a go at it on your own; last night or this morning?" 
 Mossy asked, with apparent carelessness. He thought Deny 
 looked awfully bad. "Nothing wrong at home, I hope?" 
 
 329
 
 .LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Deny drank off the whisky; it cleared his head a little. It 
 was easier to clear his head now that buzzing had ceased, and 
 Mossy was standing opposite him, full of concern. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Rosaleen has left me. She has left me for ever," he said, 
 stupidly. 
 
 The words sounded incredible in the room. Mossy stared 
 at him, and he at Mossy. 
 
 "You don't believe me?" 
 
 "Pull yourself together. What do you mean?" Mossy 
 could not make him out; he looked as if he believed what he 
 was saying. 
 
 "Rosaleen has left me . . . she says she is never coming 
 back. ..." 
 
 It was so absurd and incredible, he began to revive; it was 
 impossible. Even before Mossy laughed, he saw, as clearly as 
 the little lawyer, that he was taking matters too seriously, that, 
 whatever was the matter, he had only to see her . . . Already 
 he was ashamed of being here, ashamed of his breakdown. 
 
 "Never coming back! Rats, she's devoted to you. What 
 was the row about? Pull yourself together, man, and let me 
 hear the trouble. What's the story? You gave me the jumps, 
 coming in like that. What have you been up to? I thought 
 you were at Ascot. Ethel has talked about leaving me half a 
 dozen times; whenever she doesn't get all her own way, in fact, 
 or someone sends her an anonymous letter, or any little thing 
 like that. Who is the woman? Whatever it is, we'll explain 
 it away. One can always explain things away. And, if not, 
 a bit of jewelry. . ;V. W 
 
 But he remembered of whom he was talking. Jewelry had 
 no charm for Rosaleen Ranmore. 
 
 "I thought there was something seriously wrong, and now it 
 turns out to be nothing but a little matrimonial squabble. You 
 are a fellow!" 
 
 Deny began to think he had attached too much importance 
 to Rosaleen's letter; and yet he was still bewildered by it. 
 
 "I came home this morning from the Brinmores'. I expected 
 
 330
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 her to meet me at the station, or to be at the flat. We've never 
 had a wry word. There was a letter there to say she was not 
 coming back, she was never going to see me again." 
 
 "But she knew you were going to the Brinmores', I suppose? 
 That's the woman Lady Carrie is so thick with, isn't it? a 
 racing woman who smokes cigarettes, and dresses in tweeds. 
 There was nothing in that?" 
 
 "She urged me to go; she begged me to go. I've a telegram 
 from her about stopping on, she said I wasn't to hurry." 
 
 "Did she write you while you were there?" 
 
 "Nearly every day only a line or two, I can't make it out 
 at all." 
 
 Mossy couldn't make it out either, although he made light 
 of it, and pooh-poohed its being serious. After a certain amount 
 of pressure, Derry showed him Rosaleen's letter. 
 
 "I'll tell you what, it's not one o'clock yet. We'll go out, 
 and get a bit of lunch, and I'll 'phone the stables and get the 
 car. We'll run down to Folkestone this afternoon, and pick 
 up the clue there. We shall hear something. She can't have 
 disappeared, and the boy, too, without leaving a trace. I 
 shouldn't be surprised if you found her just where you left her, 
 and some devil of a tale. ..." 
 
 Berry's was a grateful nature, he never forgot what Mossy 
 did for him that day. The whole thing, although it was so 
 inexplicable, grew so much more bearable when it was borne 
 in company, and talked over from every point of view, except 
 a really serious one. Mossy would not allow that there was 
 anything but a temporary misunderstanding, brought about 
 he knew not how, but bound to prove as simple as possible to 
 put right when once the two should come face to face. And 
 of course they would come face to face, probably this evening 
 at Folkestone. 
 
 Derry lunched with Mossy, the good food and the good drink 
 putting heart into him. They drove down to Folkestone in 
 Mossy's fine new Charron, a non-stop run. Long before they 
 had reached Ashford, they had both convinced themselves, and 
 each other, that Rosaleen would be there to meet them, already, 
 
 331
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 perhaps, sorry for her letter, longing to give the explanation they 
 were longing to hear. So sure were they, that they decided to 
 wire her they were on their way. But they reconsidered it> 
 for, after all, they would get there as soon as the wire. They 
 ought to have thought of telegraphing before they left London. 
 Deny grew a little more silent, and a little less certain, as they 
 drove past the marshes. But then, the low horizon, and flat 
 country, depressed him; he said if he couldn't have bog, he'd 
 have mountain. Derry found it difficult to keep up his spirits 
 during the last half-hour of the journey, but Mossy himself 
 had no doubt. Where should she be gone?" 
 
 "The Furnished Apartments" bill in the window of the 
 drawing-room at St. Leonard's Terrace, drove the blood from 
 Derry's face. 
 
 "Do you see it?" he asked Mossy, as they waited for Mrs. 
 Peach to answer the bell. 
 
 "They always put the notices back, a week before the rooms 
 are vacant," said Mossy, uneasily. "Pull that damned bell 
 again!" 
 
 Mrs. Peach herself opened the door, and was very pleased 
 indeed to see his lordship, until his lordship asked, or rather the 
 other gentleman asked for him, whether Lady Ranmore was 
 still there. 
 
 "Still here? Oh, no, milord! She went yesterday afternoon. 
 Baby and nurse went on Saturday." 
 
 "Didn't they go together?" Mossy put in. 
 
 "No, milord; leastways, mister." She did not know to 
 whom she was talking, but led the way, always talking, to that 
 drawing-room upstairs, where Rosaleen had sat in the long 
 evenings, and thought out each step in the dreary road she must 
 travel. 
 
 Mrs. Peach told them all about the little food she took, and 
 the letters she was always writing, "though she would tear them 
 up most of the times. Karl told me she used enough paper to 
 light the kitchen fire. ..." 
 
 "You haven't got any of those torn-up papers?" Mossy was 
 quick on a possible clue. 
 
 332
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "No, sir; they came in handy for the kitchen fire." 
 
 There were no papers, she had left no clue. They heard 
 she looked pale, and always paler, though the baby was a perfect 
 picture. Nurse and baby had gone on Saturday, and Lady 
 Ranmore had seen them off. Nurse said it was a long journey 
 for such a little child. . . . Again Mossy interpolated sharp 
 questions. Where were they going? How far? Did she 
 say what her destination was to be? Was it Ireland by any 
 chance ? 
 
 Mrs. Peach had not heard where it was nurse was going, 
 but she did happen to know it wasn't Ireland that is, if you 
 couldn't get to Ireland by land? She had heard tell you could 
 now with "these new wireless telegraphems. ..." Mossy 
 assured her she was mistaken, but could not help thinking it 
 would be a good line for the new play. 
 
 "For, I do remember nurse saying 'Thank goodness, it is 
 only a train journey, for the sea I can't abide,' " Mrs. Peach 
 went on. 
 
 There was only one other thing she said that arrested Mossy's 
 attention. 
 
 " W 7 herever it was she was sending him, she wasn't expecting 
 to see him for a long time, for, after she had said good-bye to 
 him, she came back, and Anna Maria, who went in with the hot 
 water, said she was lying on the bed, and crying, crying just as 
 if her heart would break." ^ 
 
 Derry could not bear to hear of it; he got up and walked 
 about. . . . 
 
 "Let's get out of this," he said to Mossy. "There's nothing 
 more to be learned here. Let's get out of it." 
 
 Mossy tried to hear all there was to be heard, but it amounted 
 to nothing. Lady Ranmore seemed to have been unhappy all 
 the week, Mrs. Peach now scented a mystery and wanted to be 
 part of it, to remember, or invent, incident. But Derry cut it 
 short; there was nothing to be learned in St. Leonard's Terrace. 
 
 They walked around to the Grand Hotel, quite silent now. 
 Mossy was for staying the night, and talking things over. Derry 
 said he should get back to London; he was terribly depressed. 
 22 333
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 It was impossible to ask the chauffeur to do the return journey, 
 so they decided to go by train. There was a train at 9.30 that 
 would land them before midnight. 
 
 They dined together at the hotel, and still Mossy talked 
 hopefully. He said: 
 
 "It's all rot, you know, people don't disappear. The world 
 isn't big enough. It's only a question of a day or two. Some- 
 body has been making mischief. Ten to one it's some woman. 
 I shouldn't be surprised if it was Ethel, put up to it by that 
 infernal Mrs. Jobson. What does Rosaleen mean by ' not fit ' ? 
 It's some damned bit of snobbishness, you mark my word. 
 We'll have to find out who has been down here, and what they 
 said to her." 
 
 Derry choked over his dinner, and bit into his cigar, and said 
 shortly that Mossy did not know what he was talking about. 
 Derry was seeing Rosaleen crying on her bed; he did not see 
 anything else. Over again he would recall his letters from Ascot 
 to her, and hers to him; he was searching into his conduct. 
 
 When they got to London, Mossy would not let him go back 
 to the deserted flat. He had sent a wire to Ethel, and she was 
 waiting up for them. 
 
 Grosvenor Square was alight to welcome Lord Ranmore, 
 the butler and footman were agog about the mystery that was 
 afoot. Ethel had changed her dress twice since dinner. At 
 first she thought she would receive him in grande evening tenue, 
 but afterward she had decided on a soft crepe de Chine tea-gown. 
 Mossy had only wired "Ranmore staying the night, send to flat 
 for portmanteau." 
 
 The portmanteau was unpacked, and its contents neatly 
 spread out by the time they arrived. Mossy kept expensive 
 servants, and saw that they were up to their work. 
 
 Ethel was effusive. She knew nothing of what brought him 
 here, but she looked forward to saying carelessly to Mrs. Jobson: 
 
 " Oh, yes, Lord Ranmore; he is staying with us, you know. . . " 
 
 She did not know why Mossy was bringing him home, but 
 she was careful to keep on the diamond tiara in which she had 
 dined in solitary state. For it looked well with the crepe de 
 
 334
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Chine tea-gown, and as if she were "going on," after she had 
 welcomed him. She meant to say to Lord Ranmore: "I don't 
 think I shall go out again . . . " as if she had many engage- 
 ments, but would give them up for him. 
 
 Mossy brushed all that away impatiently. 
 
 "Oh, for God's sake, keep out of the way, and don't make 
 speeches. He's had a nasty shock, and I've brought him here 
 for peace and quietness. Leave him alone. James, take his 
 lordship up some hot water, the whiskey and a lemon. I'll 
 come up after you in ten minutes," he said to Deny. 
 
 Mossy would have passed the night with Deny. But Deny 
 had enough sense left to send him away, after exhausting con- 
 jecture, about two in the morning. 
 
 "All right, I'll go, perhaps you're right. We're only saying 
 the same things over and over again. Don't get up too early. 
 I'll think of something. We haven't begun to look for her yet. 
 Keep up your spirits, old man. She can't have gone far."
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 DERRY passed a restless night, full of broken dreams. 
 Mossy Leon slept like a top, yet he was awake before 
 the other, with his brain alert and keen for the clue that 
 had escaped him at Folkestone. He had sent round to the flat, 
 to hear if there was any letter or message, before Deny had 
 opened his eyes. Deny did not wake until ten, and then it 
 was to see Mossy, in the most elaborate mauve-quilted satin 
 dressing-suit that had ever been devised by a West End hosier, 
 standing by his bedside. 
 
 "Hullo!" said Deny, who awoke with but dim remembrance. 
 It was a minute or more before he recollected where he was, 
 and all that had happened yesterday. Then he sat up quickly 
 enough. "You've got news?" he exclaimed. 
 
 "I sent round to the flat, and there was nothing, but at the 
 office I heard there had been a telephone from Carruthers' firm, 
 asking for your address. I thought that was good enough to 
 go on with, so I telephoned to know what they wanted it for. 
 It seems they've got a wire there for you. He's such a damned 
 ass, and a prig, that man, that he wouldn 't send on the telegram. 
 I've told James to get your bath, and have breakfast ready in 
 half an hour. It may be nothing on earth to do with her, but 
 then again, it might." 
 
 "She's gone to Ranmore! It's from Ranmore." 
 
 Deny was out of bed. He looked even bigger in pajamas 
 than in ordinary dress. "I'll engage that she has gone to 
 Ranmore." 
 
 "Well! we'll soon know. It's time one of you went there, 
 they've had it all their own way up to now. I'll get dressed, 
 it's damned cold this morning." Mossy shivered in his fine 
 
 336
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 suit. "What bath salts do you use, there's lavender and 
 mimosa in my room, Ethel has some other things, ask for what 
 you want." Derry had hardly even heard of such a thing as 
 bath salts. "We shall have to put up with the brougham, the 
 car hasn't come back." 
 
 "Can't I speak to Carruthers through the telephone, and 
 tell him it's myself? Then he could read me the wire." 
 
 "And suppose there is something in it you don't want him 
 to see? He is a cold-blooded dogfish of a fellow. If whoever 
 sent the wire had wanted Carruthers to know its contents, they 
 would have wired to him, instead of to you at his office." 
 
 Within the half-hour Derry had had his cold bath, shavec 1 , 
 dressed, and was ready for breakfast. He felt ever so much 
 better and happier this morning; sleep is a great restorative. 
 The telegram would tell him where Rosaleen was; he would 
 not doubt it. 
 
 Ethel's morning toilette had been thought out quite as care- 
 fully as her evening one. Derry was sufficiently himself to con- 
 gratulate her on looking like the top of the morning itself. 
 
 She bridled behind the coffee-pot, and apologized for the 
 absence of James. James combined the duties of valet and 
 butler; and Mossy took a great deal of valeting. Mossy, who 
 came dawn very late, said the tea was "hog's wash," and he 
 thought it was coffee. He then had half the dishes taken away 
 to be made hot, and, when they came back, he pushed them 
 away, and said everything was uneatable and he would have a 
 piece of cold ham. Derry wondered at his irritability, but Ethel 
 was used to it. There was generally a reason for Mossy 's 
 breakfast mood. Insistent bills, "third applications," or the 
 remembrance of overnight promises had a way of making early 
 appearances. This morning he had remembered, while in his 
 bath, that Carruthers said the telegram had been there since 
 Saturday. It could not, therefore, be from Rosaleen at Ran- 
 more. Derry gave quite a good account of breakfast, but he 
 was more than ready for the brougham when it came round. 
 
 Ethel had been told nothing of Rosaleen 's flight, nor of the 
 letter. She understood that Rosaleen was in Folkestone. 
 
 337
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 There was no use spreading the news about. Mossy said: 
 "Women did cackle so. What Ethel knew, Mrs. Jobson would 
 know, and it would be disseminated in Kensington. What was 
 the good of talking?" 
 
 He drove Deny to Carruthers' office, it was only a stone 's- 
 throw from his own. In the brougham he said to Deny: 
 
 "I feel it in my boots now that that little devil, Lady Carrie 
 Carthew is at the bottom of this. I can't tell you how I 've got at 
 it, but, you mark my words, she's at the bottom of it. There's 
 nothing like a night's sleep; it came to me when I woke up this 
 morning, first thing. I'd forgotten all about it; then, with the 
 first yawn, like a flash, all our yesterday was before me. I 
 know I'm right; you see. I could tell you some stories about 
 Lady Carrie. Here we are, I'll wait; you bolt in and get the 
 wire." 
 
 Deny went into the office. Mossy lolled back in the 
 brougham, smoked a cigarette, and thought of Lady Carrie. 
 A pretty type-writer girl, in the traditional black, tripped up 
 the steps. He leaned forward, tried to catch her eyes, and suc- 
 ceeded, even in obtaining a slight smile. 
 
 "By Jove! Carruthers does himself well," Mossy thought. 
 He had not noticed that the house into which the girl had disap- 
 peared was next door to Carruthers' office. He philosophised 
 about men and women while he blew out his smoke-rings, and 
 waited for Deny. He meant to write a book about women 
 one day. What a lot of them he had known! And he hoped to 
 know as many more. 
 
 Deny did not keep him waiting long; he was back before 
 Mossy had decided on a title. "Wickedness and Woman" 
 wouldn't be bad, "Coquettes and Cockettes" had something 
 to recommend it. ... Derry's face was perplexed, but 
 rather happy. 
 
 "He's got good news," Mossy said to himself. "I wonder 
 if I shall ever know what it was all about. Well?" he asked. 
 "What does it say?" 
 
 "Here's the wire. It's from my cousin Margaret. I can't 
 quite make it out, but it's all right." 
 
 338
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "Boy arrived safely, delighted to have him, but cannot understand 
 letter first I've heard that you are in England, do come down at 
 once and explain, carriage shall meet four-forty, wire Margaret." 
 
 "What do you make of it?" Deny asked. But he could not 
 conceal that he was pleased. "She is there all right," he went 
 on. "I don't understand it at all but if she is with Mar- 
 garet . . ." But Mossy had read the wire quickly, and dif- 
 ferently. He could not help but damp the other's expectation. 
 
 "My dear fellow, don't make any mistake. She has sent 
 the boy to the Duchess, and she has written her a letter. But 
 don't expect to find her there, or you'll be disappointed. If 
 Rosaleen had gone to Dunstans, what's the letter the Duchess 
 can 't understand, and why should she want an explanation of it 
 from you? Take my word, the Duchess knows no more than 
 you do, if as much. It's some move Carrie has put your wife 
 up to. I 'm not much clearer than I was before, but one thing 
 I am sure of: Carrie is at the bottom of it." 
 
 Derry talked through the telephone to Dunstans, announcing 
 his arrival by the earliest possible train. Then he asked if the 
 boy was there alone, or if his mother was with him. No, Rosa- 
 leen was not there; and she had written a most incomprehensible 
 letter. Derry asked if he might bring Mossy Leon down with 
 him. He might help them both to understand the letter she 
 spoke of. ... The Duchess was as cordial as possible before 
 she was cut off. She was saying that Derry could bring whom 
 he liked with him when . . . buzz . . . buzz . . . buzz 
 was all that came through. 
 
 Ethel had the immeasurable gratification of telling Mrs. 
 Jobson that Mr. Leon had gone to stay with "Her Grace the 
 Duchess of Towcester." "She really did not know how long 
 a visit he would be making; he had gone down with her cousin, 
 Lord Ranmore. It would probably be for some time. Lord 
 Ranmore was so devoted to Mr. Leon." 
 
 All the sisters had letters that night, and a luncheon-party 
 was immediately improvised, where it could be brought in 
 quite casually that Mr. Leon was at Dunstans; staying with 
 the Duchess of Towcester. 
 
 339
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 MOSSY LEON had never stayed with a duchess before, 
 but he was not in the least perturbed about it. Why 
 should he be? He had stayed with Letty Temple, 
 he said. He only hoped that at Dunstans he would find a man 
 who could look after him properly. He would have brought 
 James, but Ethel had a confounded luncheon-party she 
 always had when he wanted any of the servants. Mossy liked 
 to have a little grievance against Ethel. Their train was to 
 leave at 1.30 from Euston, and Deny was impatient. Mossy 
 brought more bags, and a greater variety of them, more port- 
 manteaus, rugs, and paraphernalia, than anyone Deny had 
 ever met traveling. When he exclaimed about it, Mossy said 
 that it was a damned nuisance to be without the very things you 
 were wanting, and as he never knew what he would be wanting, 
 he liked to be on t*?e safe side. They had a five hours' journey 
 before them. Well, of course, he had brought a luncheon 
 basket. Charles had gone to Fortnum and Mason's for it 
 while James was dressing him. 
 
 "I don't believe in roughing it," Mossy said. "I did all my 
 roughing-it before I was eighteen. My father was a reader 
 at the Synagogue. I don 't suppose you know what that means. 
 There were nine of us, and his salary was one hundred and twenty 
 pounds a year; he made as much more by teaching Hebrew, but 
 it was a tight fit." 
 
 Mossy was not often retrospective; the present and the future 
 were good enough for him, he used to say. The present, which 
 he would fill with eating and drinking, and pretty women; the 
 future, when he would realize all his ambitions. He hardly 
 knew what these ambitions were now, they had been so dissi- 
 pated of late among leading ladies, and ladies who wanted to 
 
 340
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 lead. Perhaps he was, after all, a little excited at the prospect 
 before him, and so reverted to the days, when he shared a bed- 
 room with his four brothers, and was clothed in their discarded 
 garments. 
 
 Mossy's eldest brother had paid for his education at University 
 College. 
 
 "He's dead now. Two of the others are in America. They 
 all made fortunes except me . . ." Mossy puffed at his 
 cigarette 
 
 "Come, you're not so badly off," Deny suggested, encourag- 
 ingly. 
 
 "My dear fellow! I'm spending fifteen thousand a year in 
 Grosvenor Square and making six! Ethel can't help thinking 
 she's got a position to keep up, it's that that plays the devil with 
 my income. I can always make money, but it comes in a spoon, 
 and goes out in a shovel. ..." He said a little more about 
 Ethel. It was curious that he saw through her pretensions, 
 and yet was proud of them. 
 
 "I've got three sisters," he went on presently, "three of the 
 nicest women you ever knew, but you never meet them at my 
 place. They're Jewesses, and they've married Jews, and they're 
 not good enough for Ethel. I often go and see them. I've 
 got one of my nephews in my office, a charming boy, keen as 
 mustard. . . . His father has that big tailor's shop in Conduit 
 Street, Kilt House they call it. The boy has been at Eton, and 
 I sent him up to Oxford. I took him to see Lady Carrie one 
 day, and she kept him to tea. That reminds me. . . . I've 
 meant to ask you half a dozen times. What sort of a hold has 
 she on you? I suppose it's a question of letters? Funny how 
 you and Terence both got into her toils. Not but what she's 
 an attractive little woman, in her way. The fact is, I'm not at 
 all sure I'm not responsible for some of this trouble, though I 
 give you my word for it, I never thought of it until I was on my 
 way here. I did give your wife a hint to put the brake on with 
 you and Lady Carrie. She must have had a devil of a lot of 
 money out of you one way or another. If Lady Carrie is at 
 the bottom of it, I believe it's my fault." 
 
 341
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Derry answered slowly: 
 
 "Lady Carrie has nothing to do with me and Rosaleen. 
 Nor is there any mischief she's after making. You know well 
 enough about me and Lady Carrie." 
 
 "Me! my dear fellow, how should I know? Don't forget 
 I never knew of your existence until the day I met you in her 
 drawing-room, and she asked me to look after things for you." 
 
 "But . . ." 
 
 "I suppose you are going to insist I know all about it?" 
 
 "But you were there ..." 
 
 "Where? In Carrie's drawing-room?" 
 
 "At the Club." 
 
 "What Club?" 
 
 "At the Ralyn Club; the night Sir Harry Carthew was killed." 
 
 "Was killed! What do you mean? The night he came to 
 the Club roaring drunk, and tumbled downstairs. Yes, I was 
 there, of course. I gave evidence at the inquest. What's 
 that to do with you and Carrie Carthew?" 
 
 "It was you saw Terence strike him." 
 
 "What? What? Terence never touched him. What put 
 that into your head ?" 
 
 "Terence never touched him!" 
 
 Derry stared at Mossy, and Mossy looked back at him. 
 An express train thundered past them. 
 
 "Thank God we can hear ourselves speak. Now, tell me 
 what you've got hold of. What bee have you got in your bonnet ? 
 Terence and I were standing together at the top of the stairs, 
 when Harry Carthew came staggering up. Carthew and I had 
 had business together, and he attacked me about it, but he was so 
 infernally drunk that it didn't matter what he was saying. He 
 wanted to make a scene, Terence wanted to persuade him to go 
 away quietly. I believe what he said was that he 'wouldn't 
 b y well stir until . . . ' something or other. I think he may 
 have meant to have a go at me. Anyway Terence put himself 
 between us. But he never touched the man, I'll swear to that. 
 Carthew had hold of the balustrade, whether he raised his arms, 
 and meant fighting, or whether he only let go, and hadn't the 
 
 342
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 sense to know he couldn't stand without holding on to something 
 or the other, I don't know. The stairs are marble, and for some 
 reason or another, the carpet was up, and he went down with a 
 sickening crash. You know what Terence was; he was off 
 like lightning, swinging himself down after him. I took my 
 time, I didn't want to mix myself up in it." 
 
 Derry drew a long breath. 
 
 "Is it the truth you're telling me, the whole truth?" 
 
 They were in the station now; a fat woman with a dog in her 
 arms tried the door. Mossy let down the window, and called 
 the porter. 
 
 "Keep her out of here!" He threw him half a crown. "Say 
 I'm a lunatic, traveling with my keeper; say I've got the small- 
 pox. Send the inspector." Mossy secured privacy for the rest 
 of the journey. 
 
 "Now, go on," he said to Derry. "I don't know what you're 
 getting at and I want to get clear about it. This is a devilish 
 old story; who has raked it up again?" 
 
 "To the day of his death," Derry said, seriously, "Terence 
 believed himself responsible for Harry Carthew's accident." 
 
 Mossy stared at him, leaving his cigarette to hang from his 
 lower lip ; it was a trick he had. Derry went on. 
 
 "On his death-bed Terence told me it was he that killed him. 
 Lady Carrie said it was you that hushed it up for her. ..." 
 
 Mossy recaptured his cigarette with his upper lip. 
 
 "Now, that's what I call a clever woman!" he exclaimed. 
 "A devilish clever woman! What a mind! What an invention ! 
 And Terence believed that, did he? And paid her to keep her 
 mouth shut? Well, I'm hanged if she didn't deserve all she got 
 out of him for thinking of it. It would make a play, wouldn't 
 it? Terence was just the sort of man to be blackmailed. God! 
 if men had no consciences, what a lot of women ah ! and some 
 men, too would be thrown out of a fat living. I never did 
 understand why Lady Carry sent for me in such a hurry; and 
 was so anxious to know what evidence I was going to give at 
 the inquest. By God! I do believe now she actually fooled 
 me!" 
 
 343
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 That seemed a great feat in Mossy's eyes; he could not 
 disguise his admiration. 
 
 "She made Terence go over to Ireland before the inquest. 
 I saw him for her, and urged it. I remember it now as if it 
 were yesterday. I was to tell him to keep out of the way, out 
 of decency, you know. Their names had been connected. Why, 
 she must have actually persuaded him he did give the fellow a 
 push . . . and then let him think I was keeping it dark. 
 . . . What a woman! She'd have married Terence if he'd 
 lived long enough. I'd bet my bottom dollar she'd have mar- 
 ried him. But you . . . where do you come in? She was 
 very interested in you, I know, when she brought us together; 
 and in the value of the estates. Of course she is an attractive 
 little woman. Up at Melton, before Carthew died, they used 
 to call her the Yellow Peril. But with a wife like yours . . . 
 I suppose we are all alike, whatever woman we've got, we want 
 someone else's. I know I've spent days thinking of one woman, 
 doing all I know to get her to go out to supper with me, sent 
 her notes, and flowers, and jewelry, thought and planned; at 
 last she has said 'yes,' and I've ordered the supper, and spread 
 myself out over the enjoyment I was going to get out of it, kept 
 the rendezvous with all the expectation in the world. . . . 
 Then I've seen another man at the next table with someone 
 else, someone I had never seen before, but who was prettier, 
 or had some grace, or cachet about her that was new; and all 
 my evening has been spoiled. Somehow or other, it's always 
 the other fellow's woman we want. I suppose that was the way 
 with you and Lady Carrie, it was Terence being there first that 
 attracted you?" 
 
 Deny had such different ideals from Mossy, and felt so 
 differently, that it was difficult for him to explain himself. He 
 never had a thought in his mind toward Lady Carrie that all 
 the world could not have known ; that is, as far as any personal 
 or amorous emotion was concerned. And he had never wanted 
 any other man's woman; never anyone but Rosaleen, whom he 
 had looked at, before Terence glanced that way, and from 
 whom he had never looked back. It took him all the way 
 
 344
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 from Grantham to Dunstans to explain himself to Mossy. Then 
 Mossy said he supposed it was all right, but he was damned if 
 he understood it. 
 
 " Do you mean to say you've supplied that little b . . . with 
 money, and given her the sums you have, that you run about 
 after her, and probably mind, I'm still as sure as I was before 
 that she is at the bottom of this trouble estranged yourself 
 from your wife, and brought about a devil of a hullabaloo, all 
 because Terence told you on his death-bed that he had killed 
 her husband? What if he had? Of course he hadn't, the 
 thing is ridiculous, he had no more hand in it than I had; less, 
 if the truth were known. I believe Harry Carthew meant to 
 have a go at me. A bill of his had gone back that morning. 
 It was nothing to do with me, I was only acting for the Levine 
 estate. I can't make it out at all. You're no fool, Ranmore; 
 and yet . . . well! every now and then I think you must be. 
 . . . What were you going to get out of it?" 
 
 "I did not want anything out of it. If, through Terence, 
 she was a widow, and with less money than she had been accus- 
 tomed to, and Terence asked me on his death-bed to look after 
 her, to take care of her well, you couldn't expect me to do 
 anything else. It's hard lines on a woman, Mossy, to be alone 
 in the world." 
 
 " Rot, my dear fellow, rot! That is second hand Lady Carrie, 
 I'll go bail. Women have the finest time possible, especially 
 when they are 'poor little widows, alone in the world.' It's 
 the best gag they can get; brings down the house every time. 
 I like the idea of Carrie Carthew 'alone in the world!'" 
 
 He gave Derry a short outline of Lady Carrie's career. Derry 
 still did not see how he should have acted differently, but he 
 did begin to wonder if Carrie could have anything to do with 
 Rosaleen's disappearance. There did not seem room between 
 him and Rosaleen for anyone to have made mischief, so close 
 they'd been together; yet, had not a sudden mad moment of 
 unreasoning jealousy wrought havoc with his own heart and 
 brain? Jealousy of Mossy Mossy Leon, of all impossible 
 people! Could his Rosaleen have been jealous of Carrie? His 
 
 345
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 beautiful Rosaleen, and Carrie Carthew! The idea of compari- 
 son was preposterous yet he had been jealous of Mossy! 
 Nothing was impossible it seemed. 
 
 The luggage-motor from Dunstans met them at the station, 
 with the phaeton and pair for Derry to drive. The Duchess* 
 intimacy with her brother had taught her the probable direction 
 of Derry 's tastes. After four or five hours in the train he would 
 like the reins in his hand, and two good horses in front of him. 
 But if she were wrong, then there was the groom to drive him. 
 Mossy was rather uneasy at trusting himself to Derry 's char- 
 ioteership, and asked if he were used to driving; he said he 
 thought he would rather go in the motor. Physical courage 
 was not Mossy 's strong point. But Derry laughed at him, 
 and made him jump up beside him, promising he should come 
 to no harm. 
 
 "Don't make any mistake about it," Mossy said. "I don't 
 want to run any risks. There is no such fool in the world as 
 the fool they call 'a brave man.' He is either too stupid to 
 realize the meaning of danger, or too unimaginative to see 
 where it leads. I don't want a broken leg, and to be laid up 
 for three months in order that someone I don't know should 
 write in the papers that 'Mr. Mossy Leon behaved with great 
 courage.' I'd rather be called a coward, and keep my legs 
 whole." 
 
 However, they got to Dunstans quite safely. The big, square 
 Georgian house, where John Gould Percival Vansittart, Duke 
 of Towcester, had been carried, after the railway accident which 
 had begun, and ended, his honeymoon, was still the scene of his 
 death-in-life. 
 
 Up and down the trim graveled paths of his celebrated 
 gardens, with the famous yew trees; his donkey-chair was 
 driven daily, an attendant in front, an attendant beside. The 
 inheritor of all these noble names, the owner not only of Dun- 
 stans, but of Brinston Towers, and Barstowe, the shooting-box in 
 Scotland, and the salmon river, the Villa Flora at Beaulieu, and 
 heaven only knows how many places beside, sat in the chair, 
 propped with pillows. He sat, huddled up like Jack-in-the- 
 
 346
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Box, with his heavy head drooping on his chest. He had no use 
 in his legs, nor in his arms; he dribbled when they fed him. His 
 mind was a blank, and his memory gone. He was paralyzed, 
 and powerless, and dumb, a mere lay figure that had to be washed 
 and dressed, and tended as if he had been a baby. Science had 
 done this for him, as it had tried to do for Terence Ranmore; 
 it had kept the spark of life in him. 
 
 The Duke of Towcester was married to the most beautiful 
 woman in England. A virgin bride she had been brought to 
 her husband's ancestral home, and faithfully she had kept the 
 marriage vows that had never held any meaning for her. She 
 lived out the tragedy of her loneliness, ever gaining in dignity, 
 never lacking in courage. There was nothing of herself she 
 could give the man to whom her life was bound, for there was 
 nothing he needed, but mere tendance. For years he might 
 live like this, ten years had already passed since first they 
 brought him here, and nothing seemed to have altered. 
 
 She bore his name only, and added luster to it. After the 
 first bitterness had passed, and she knew the meaning of the 
 hopes with which the doctor had lured her, she neither com- 
 plained, nor weakened. She accepted her fate. A week's 
 impulsive courtship, a six weeks' engagement, and this was the 
 end . . . the imbecile in the Bath-chair. It was only Terence 
 who had understood. Terence had had that gift of sympathy, but, 
 since Terence's death there had been no one who understood. 
 She was nineteen when she married, she was twenty-nine now, 
 and the donkey-chair in the grounds held all there was to love 
 and cherish her. It was fortunate that Dunstans was in a 
 hunting center, for hunting was the only thing that helped her 
 at all. She loved her horses, there was nothing else for her to 
 love. The very intensity with which their mother had cared 
 for Terence kept mother and daughter apart. Each was secretly 
 jealous of the other's grief. It is only a mother without a son 
 who knows what it is to grieve, the Dowager said. It is only a 
 girl who has never reached the crown of womanhood who knows 
 the loss of a brother's love, the Duchess thought. Her mother 
 had memories of happiness; while she had only memories of 
 
 347
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Terence. None but Terence had understood the whole tragedy 
 of the grand wedding, and the end in the donkey-chair. 
 
 But Deny had been often with Terence, and with her, in her 
 free, untroubled girlhood. He was so much younger, adaptable 
 and loyal, a willing slave to both of them. Later on he became 
 a good companion for Terence, steady and sober, loyally devoted 
 to him. They, she and Terence, had grown quite proud of 
 Derry, it was a younger branch of the house he represented, 
 but Terence said many a time he had the brains and sinews that 
 ought to have belonged to the elder. Derry was associated in 
 so many of her memories of Terence. 
 
 That day at Claridge's Hotel, nearly three years ago now, 
 when she had last seen him, she was still under the first shock 
 of her trouble. She had not been fair to Derry. Many and 
 many a time she had regretted it, and wanted her opportunity 
 to tell him so. But when she had inquired, she had heard he 
 was abroad; and that he had not cared to take up his residence 
 at Ranmore. She seemed to understand that; she knew nothing 
 of the legal difficulties that had been put in his way. She was 
 sorry, and sorry again, that she had not been kinder to him. 
 In her mind he was always the great boy who had been a dog 
 at Terence's heels, and that he could not bear to go to Ranmore 
 since Terence was no longer there, gradually made the thought 
 of him a dear one. She knew the improvements had all been 
 stopped, and the place was fast becoming a ruin; she had seen 
 it only last year when she went there on the anniversary of 
 Terence's death. But wasn't that as it should be? 
 
 Then, out of the clouds, as it were, bringing back all her self- 
 reproach, and her memories, came the child, and the letter from 
 Rosaleen. It was all mystery. She was bewildered with it, and 
 beneath her bewilderment ran something like fear. But Derry 
 was coming; he would explain, and she could tell him that she 
 had been sorry for her conduct to him, had thought of him 
 often, missing him out of her life. . . . 
 
 Then came the sound of the horses' hoofs in the avenue. 
 She went into the hall to meet him, the great hall of this great 
 cold English house of hers. One moment she heard his voice, 
 
 348
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 and the sound brought the quick tears into her eyes. It was 
 so long since she had heard the accent that never seemed to 
 alter, at which she and Terence had so often laughed. The 
 next moment, quite unexpectedly, he was holding both her 
 hands; her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were full of tears, and 
 so were his. Whatever had kept them apart was forgotten. 
 It was her youth she met again, just the tears in his eyes, and 
 those in hers, made them brother and sister. "Shure, and isn't 
 he the only brother I've ever had," Terence had often said, with 
 a mimicry of his Irish. Derry had her hands, and was looking 
 into her wet eyes, and kissing her on her cheek before she had 
 done more than remember Terence 's mimicry. 
 
 "Perhaps I oughtn't to have done that! But oh! it's glad I 
 am to see you, Margaret. And how like him you are still. . . . 
 And we'll never forget, neither of us, will we? . . ." Derry 
 began, incoherently. He hadn't altered a bit, he was only the 
 great boy still. There was a sob in his voice behind his inco- 
 herent words. 
 
 " I oughtn't to have done it, but he always said it was your 
 brother I was to be." She was quickly ashamed of her emotion, 
 but the kiss had been given, and not resented. It ended all the 
 estrangement that had been between them. Now, there was 
 nothing but welcome to Dunstans, and a quick return to com- 
 monplace. In the drawing-room Derry brought Mossy for- 
 ward, and introduced him. Mossy Leon arrested the attention 
 of the Duchess, taking it off Derry for the moment. Mossy 
 had forgotten to take his cigarette out of his mouth, and kept 
 it hanging on his lower lip, as he shook hands with his hostess. 
 
 "How de do; glad to meet you. You've got quite a nice 
 place down here. If one must live in the country, I suppose 
 this is the sort of place that makes it possible. That's a Har- 
 pignies, isn't it, in the corner there? I say, wouldn't the Lon- 
 don dealers like to get hold of that cabinet of china! I'd give 
 you a hundred pounds myself for that David Cox. Don't 
 mind me if you want to talk to Derry. I can amuse myself very 
 well here," Mossy said, continuing to look about him. He was 
 probably a little shy, and tried to hide it by an excess of volubility. 
 28 349
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "I hope we are going to clear up this mystery among us," he 
 went on. "It's an extraordinary thing, though, how tragedy 
 pursues a family, like a man with a writ, dodging about until 
 it gets in. There's the Duke now ... I suppose he's no 
 better?" 
 
 Derry hurried him off to his room as soon as he could. Even 
 he perceived that Mossy did not shine in this environment. 
 
 "I say! hullo! don't go away. I shall never be able to find 
 my way ..." But Derry, having piloted him to his room, 
 hurried off again. 
 
 "Send him up a man, will you?" he asked Margaret, when 
 he had rejoined her. "He can't do a thing for himself, and he 
 hates to be alone for a moment." 
 
 "What a curious person!" said the Duchess. 
 
 "He's the best fellow in the world," answered Derry, stoutly. 
 
 But oh! he was glad to be here with her again. Talk was 
 congested between them for a little, they had so much to say. 
 They were not oblivious to Mossy, they sent tea up to his room, 
 but they had such stories of memory in which, of course, he 
 could have no share. They had been together long summer 
 days at Ranmore, when they were all three of them but children. 
 She was a few years older than Derry, but, until within a few 
 months of her hurried marriage, her years had added no weight 
 to her spirits. She had ridden and hunted and fished with 
 Terence and Derry, forgetting that she was grown up. Ah 
 me! the years that had passed since then. 
 
 And hadn't they been together that fatal day at Sandown? 
 In all those long, slow weeks of Terence's dying, it was Derry 
 who had done all the comforting that was possible, who had 
 hoped with her, when there was no hope, who had despaired 
 with her, wept with her. And it was Derry who had gone 
 with them, when they carried Terence back to Ranmore, to 
 leave him in the cold of that stone mausoleum, where they had 
 all three played together. It was Derry who had knelt by her 
 in the chapel. Even now she felt his hard young hand put out 
 to grasp hers, and heard his sobs, that mingled with her own. 
 Together they had spent those few awful days, when all the 
 
 350
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 world had grown suddenly empty, and cold, cold, cold. Why 
 had she lost sight of him, the only warm thing in this cold, 
 empty world ? Now she would never let him go again. 
 
 "Your hands don't look like an engineer's hands any more," 
 she said, apropos of nothing, but remembering how they had 
 clasped hers in the chapel that day. Now, laughingly, he spread 
 them out, they were brown and shapely. For a moment her 
 eyes were piteous. Terence's hands had been so white and 
 small, so were hers. Derry took one in his own, and laid it on 
 the broad palm. Margaret's hands were famous. Small and 
 ivory-white, her hand lay in his a moment, it was tapering and 
 pink at the finger-tips, there was the hint of a dimple at the 
 knuckles. Terence had been proud of Margaret's hands 
 Ranmore hands, he called them and used to talk about them. 
 Sadness lay behind all their disjointed talk, there were tears in 
 all they remembered. It would get better soon, but at first 
 tears lay too near for talk. They forgot what had brought 
 them together, they forgot what had set them apart, Terence's 
 spirit was so near to them. 
 
 "He would have been sorry about the estrangement between 
 us," she said, brokenly. 
 
 "I've never thought of you but with love," he answered, with 
 no less emotion. The Dowager had been able to keep him out 
 of the estate, but she had not been able to banish either of them 
 from his affection. Derry could not alter. 
 
 "Where is she now?" he asked. 
 
 "She is in Dublin, busy about the orphanage. You have 
 heard about her orphanage; she doesn't get over her grief at all. 
 She is bitterly unhappy, and bitter in her unhappiness. She 
 has resented it with me, because I grieve, too, always. Derry, 
 we must try and get her here. She must see little Sonny. 
 Derry, how like he is, how wonderfully like Terence!" 
 
 Margaret saw the faint color rise in Derry 's cheek, the troubled 
 look come into his eyes. She only wondered at it then, but it 
 came back to her presently. They said a word or two about 
 Rosaleen and her letter, but they were agreed that nothing could 
 be done that night. They would discuss the matter thoroughly 
 
 351
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 the next day, with that odd friend of Deny 's. Meanwhile, did 
 he remember this ? . . . had she forgotten that ? . . . Surely, 
 Terence's spirit hovered about them, glad they were together, 
 joining in their reminiscences, as they talked and remembered. 
 
 The Duchess thought it would be dull for Mr. Leon alone 
 with them at dinner; she had, therefore, invited the vicar. 
 Derry assured her that Mossy would not be dull. 
 
 "He'll amuse himself, and you, too, if you'll only let him 
 talk," Derry said, but the invitation to the vicar had already 
 been issued. 
 
 Mossy came down to dinner in his shiny evening dress, with 
 brilliantine on his scanty hair and black moustache. The 
 country footman had not valeted him very well, but Mossy had 
 managed to tie his own tie. His stomach looked a little more 
 protuberant than usual in his double-breasted white waistcoat, 
 buttoned with enamel and diamond buttons. He apologized 
 to the Duchess for his sleeve-links. They did not match the 
 buttons; it was his fool of a man that had packed the wrong ones. 
 He gave Derry a look as much as to say "I told you so." As he 
 talked, his black Jewish eyes roved about the drawing-room, 
 appraising everything. 
 
 "Your cousin Deny thinks I travel with too much luggage. 
 I am sure you agree with me, Duchess, that you can 't have too 
 much. Look at these links, now. If I'd brought all the links 
 I'd got, I should have had the ones that matched the buttons." 
 
 Margaret agreed with him, and commiserated with him, 
 quite gravely. He grew more at home with her every minute, 
 offering her his arm when dinner was announced. He acknowl- 
 edged her introduction to the Rev. Mr. Mason with a curt 
 nod. 
 
 "I don't like parsons," he told the Duchess, on the way to 
 the drawing-room. "Somehow or other I always associate 
 them with cold boiled pork, and greens cooked in water. Hanged 
 if I know why. There are quite a lot of ' clergymen 's daughters ' 
 at the Frivolity, but they are not usually very devoted to their 
 parents!" He was amused himself at the number of parsons' 
 daughters who had gone on the stage, and he laughed about it 
 
 352
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "You've got a very decent cook," he said after the first entree. 
 "How do you manage to get good servants to live down here? 
 I thought there were only three private houses in Europe where 
 you could get volatile au truffes as well done as this, and one of 
 them is my own. I 'm told the Rothschilds have all their fowls 
 fed on chopped truffles for weeks before they are killed, to get 
 the right flavor; perhaps you do the same here?" 
 
 He told her a great deal about cookery during the dinner, 
 and more about the young ladies of the "Frivolity." Mean- 
 while Mr. Mason and Derry talked of sport. 
 
 Mr. Mason was an old Blue. Now he took great interest 
 in the village cricket, and tried to enlist Berry's sympathies. 
 But it was for rowing he had won his blue, and the talk drifted 
 easily to Henley, and the prospect of the Belgian carrying off 
 the Diamonds. That was where Mossy broke into the conver- 
 sation, he saw the Duchess' attention had wandered from him, 
 and that she was attempting to follow it. 
 
 "I never could understand why a man should sweat to pull 
 a boat for himself, when he can get a navvy to do it for him for 
 half a crown an hour. A ragged ruffian on the towpath, with 
 a good stout rope, could give him a start, and win every time. 
 You don't mind my saying so, I hope, Mr. Mason, but this 
 rowing seems to me such a fool's trick. A man might just as 
 well put himself in harness, and pull his own carriage along! 
 Tell me, now, have you ever been in a good motor-boat?" 
 
 The Rev. John Mason had never before met anybody who 
 held such curious views as Mr. Leon. He took him quite 
 seriously, and began to discuss the value of muscular develop- 
 ment, and the influence of athletics on character. 
 
 "The influence of athletics on character?" repeated Mossy, 
 "I like that! I know two old 'Blues,' as you call them, and 
 one boxer. One of the Blues has thirty thousand a year, and 
 spends his entire time in seeing how much of it he can save. 
 He used to enjoy a game of picquet at the Portland ; but he gave 
 it up one day when he lost three pounds. He cried about it in 
 the Club, and said he would be ruined if it went on. When he 
 took his son up to Scotland with him, he docked his quarter's 
 
 353
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 allowance of the railway fare. When he isn't saving money, 
 he is saving himself. He wouldn't visit his sister when she was 
 dying, because he had heard pneumonia was infectious. He 
 owns a yacht that never moves out of harbor unless it is a dead 
 calm; and a motor-car that is not allowed to go more than eight 
 miles an hour. The other fellow was superannuated from his 
 public school, and left Cambridge without a degree. Now he 
 stays in bed until twelve, and then loafs at the Bath Club until 
 he can get three fellows to play cards with him. That is what 
 he does for ten months out of every year. During six or eight 
 weeks he shouts through a megaphone. 'Coaching the crew,' 
 he calls it. I grant you he 's a charming fellow, and one of the 
 best companions in the world. I 'm fond of him myself, but I 
 don't know how you are going to make out that athletics have 
 benefited his character. In my opinion there is nothing in the 
 world he could not have done, if he had not wasted the best 
 years of his life in cultivating his muscles at the expense of his 
 brain. 
 
 "Then there is Bill Barrasford, the amateur boxing cham- 
 pion ; he is a son of Lord Facius. He married Flossie Delaporte 's 
 sister, and he proves the 'influence of athleticism on character' 
 by living on what she earns, and knocking her about when he 's 
 drunk, which is twice a day at least, and three times on Sunday. 
 I could give you a score more instances. Half the paper marked 
 'worthless' in Sam Levine's safe came from youngsters who 
 called themselves sportsmen. Thank God, I was born with 
 brains, instead of muscles. I get my exercise done for me." 
 
 He told many anecdotes of aristocratic blackguards, who 
 played cricket, or racquets, or polo. It was the strangest 'pos- 
 sible conversation to the Duchess and Mr. Mason, but the 
 butler was so interested that he forgot to fill the glasses, and the 
 footmen waited badly. 
 
 Mossy committed none of the solecisms of which Rosaleen 
 had been guilty at his table on the occasion of her first visit. 
 Yet there was a certain analogy in the position, and all of his 
 conversation was strange to his hostess. After the Duchess 
 had left the table she had no opportunity for word with Deny, 
 
 354
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 and withdrew as soon as it was possible Mossy grew still more 
 outspoken, and dogmatic in his speech. He felt he could hold 
 his own with any country parson. There was some allusion 
 to politics, and the so-called People's Budget. In truth, Mr. 
 Mason was hard-driven for topics. It seemed Mossy objected 
 to all direct taxation; he said it was nothing but swindling a 
 fellow out of his rightful earnings. 
 
 "Why the devil should I pay to keep up a fleet, when I am 
 always sea-sick crossing the Channel?" he asked, pertinently. 
 "They would get all the money they want if they put a tax on 
 women. ..." 
 
 When he really embarked on this theme his arguments became 
 eloquent. The clergyman followed the Duchess into the draw- 
 ing-room with what speed he could.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 MOSSY'S stay at Dunstans was not prolonged. 
 The Duchess had no fault at all to find with him, 
 she was sure he was most amusing, and had been a 
 good friend to Derry, but, nevertheless, she asked Deny to get 
 rid of him as soon as he conveniently could. 
 
 "I'm really not inhospitable, Derry dear, and I like you to 
 feel you can bring your friends here, but he is so obviously out 
 of his element." 
 
 Mossy was no more anxious to prolong his visit than she to 
 detain him. He was bored to extinction, or to practical extinc- 
 tion. Nothing would ever really extinguish Mossy. He 
 wandered about, talked and smoked and coughed, and 
 looked incongruous. He was a thorough good fellow, 
 and considered a wit in musical-comedy circles; but here, his 
 good fellowship was wasted, for he could only make guesses 
 as to where Rosaleen had hidden herself, just as Derry himself 
 could, and all his suggestions were met by the Duchess' doubts. 
 He was not of any use to anybody, although he had been brought 
 down here to be of use. His wit fell upon bewildered ears, 
 dulled a little, perhaps, by tradition. He had now made up 
 his mind that Rosaleen had only left her husband to try her 
 fortune on the stage. He brought interminable argument to 
 bear upon, and prove, his point. Look at the people she had 
 met at his house, all of them able to do something. She had 
 got jealous of Lady Carrie, and had joined some touring company 
 or other. Nothing moved him from this view once he had 
 adopted it, and he was only irritated by the incredulity of Derry, 
 and the negation of the Duchess. 
 
 "What the deuce can you know about it, compared to me?" 
 he asked Derry. "I've known more women who have run 
 
 356
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 away from more men and with them too ..." But, by 
 now, the Duchess was in possession of Rosaleen's letter to 
 Derry, and had compared it with the one she had received. 
 She scoffed at the idea that the writer of them was venturing on 
 to the boards. 
 
 " Get rid of him as soon as you can," she told Derry. 
 
 Deny, too, found Mossy difficult to entertain, although he 
 was ashamed of himself for the difficulty. He took him round 
 the stables, but Mossy said he knew nothing of horses, except 
 the odds, and he cared less. He said he disliked all animals: 
 they either kicked, or bit, made incoherent noises, or bred fleas. 
 The same objections held good when the home farm was 
 suggested: 
 
 "My dear fellow, what the devil do I care about cows and 
 pigs? Collect me all the newspapers you can find, I suppose 
 they get the London papers here some time or other? And I'll 
 amuse myself until you and the Duchess have gone your rounds. 
 We've settled what has got to be done, and I'll put it in train 
 directly I get back." 
 
 It had been agreed that Mossy should have all the provincial 
 companies interrogated as to a new recruit, and that he should 
 make every possible inquiry in the direction he suggested. 
 There was no harm in his making inquiries. Mossy was 
 nettled at the Duchess' doubts; he was quite sure he would 
 find Rosaleen. 
 
 After a day or two had passed, Mossy was quite as eager to 
 get back to London, as they were for him to go. He was really 
 a cockney, and never happy beyond the sound of Bow bells. 
 Dunstans was the back of beyond to him; he made no secret 
 of it to Derry. The famous yew trees, trimmed into the liknesses 
 of peacocks, and owls, various animals and birds, bored him, 
 the hot-houses gave him a headache. He did show a gleam of 
 interest in the great vinery, although he only cared for muscatel 
 grapes himself, he said. He added he could buy all the fruit 
 he wanted at Covent Garden; and that there was a tropical 
 scene in Nat Simon's new play, as superior to the hot-houses 
 here, as fine old English oaks to Japanese dwarf trees. Mossy 
 
 357
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 liked scenery in its proper place, he said, and that was on the 
 stage. The country drive they took him made him yawn. 
 He did not disguise any of his feelings from Derry. 
 
 "I say, you must get me out of this," he said to him already 
 on the third day of his visit. "I'm only wasting time here, I 
 could be getting on the track in London. And really and truly 
 I can't stand the country. It's so noisy ..." He was used 
 to traffic, but the birds woke him at four, and the barking of 
 the dogs kept him nervous and fidgety. 
 
 "Then you'll not be coming to stay with me at Ranmore, 
 when I've found Rosaleen, and we're getting back?" Deny 
 answered, jestingly. 
 
 Margaret had comforted him. He thought it wouldn't be 
 long now without his having news of Rosaleen; and when once 
 he had speech with her, he would persuade her she was fit to be 
 at Dunstans, or Ranmore, or anywhere. 
 
 " Oh, I shouldn't mind Ranmore so much," Mossy admitted. 
 "But this place is so infernally tidy and trim, it gives me the 
 hump. There is something warm and homely about Ireland. 
 You always feel there that it's washing-day, and everything is 
 in a muddle; that there won't be any meals, and if there are, 
 they'll be late; it is a nice comfortable mess all round. And the 
 Irish people talk all the time, and never leave you alone a 
 minute. I like their picturesque lies, too, and their blessings 
 when you give them things. I can't stand the eternal row there 
 is going on here all the time. Do you hear that infernal pea- 
 cock screaming?" 
 
 When the time came he thanked the Duchess for her hospitality, 
 and said that he and Ethel would be very glad to see her when 
 she came to London. 
 
 "And I can get you up a show that would really amuse you, 
 and will be a complete change for you. Give me a few days' 
 notice when you are coming, and make it Sunday, if possible. 
 None of your starch and stiff parties, but a few really amusing 
 people." 
 
 The Duchess said courteously that she should look forward 
 to it; she would certainly give him due notice. 
 
 358
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Mossy was quite sorry for Deny, left alone in that huge 
 barracks of a place, without a theatre or a music-hall within 
 miles, with only one post a day, and no newspaper with his 
 breakfast. Derry had driven him to the station, and when 
 Mossy had settled himself luxuriously in the train, he really 
 thanked God that he would be in town by the evening. He 
 felt he had been away for weeks. They had been the longest 
 three days in his life. 
 
 Having left Mossy at the station, Derry went back to his 
 cousin. The Duchess had her own theory about Rosaleen's 
 disappearance. It was quite different from Mossy's. She 
 thought Rosaleen had made away with herself. She would 
 not, for untold worlds, have let Derry know what she feared, 
 or why she feared it. She never dreamed that if she had the 
 clue to a secret, there were no secrets between Rosaleen and 
 Derry. Her mission was to comfort Derry, to be good to him 
 for Terence's sake, because Terence had been fond of him. It 
 was a mission she had neglected too long. She was very sweet 
 and tender and womanly to him in her mistaken pity. One 
 day, perhaps, she would tell him what she feared, and 
 why. 
 
 She had to listen for hours together, after Mossy left them, 
 while Derry told her what a wonderful wife Rosaleen had made 
 him. He told of the days at Petchaburi and Woh Poh Pra, 
 of cooking and catering in the wilds, of fine needework, and 
 sick-nursing, of bravery in discomfort, and courage in privation. 
 
 He was never tired of talking about Rosaleen's qualities, 
 and, apparently, the Duchess was never tired of listening. 
 She had such a great, such an overwhelming, pity for him, as 
 the days, empty of news went by, and Derry's face grew haggard 
 with doubt and uncertainty. They had not left everything to 
 Mossy. The Duchess' own lawyer was making inquiries, 
 and employing detectives, but the certainty that was at the 
 bottom of the Duchess' own heart seemed in some subtle way 
 to have been conveyed to them. They found nothing, they 
 seemed to be searching for someone in whose existence they 
 only half believed. 
 
 359
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 The suspense became harder and harder for Derry to bear. 
 It is no hyperbole to say he ached for Rosaleen. There were 
 times when he could neither sleep nor eat, when the horses 
 failed to interest him, when he wearied even of talking about 
 the past; when he was frankly and unmistakably miserable, 
 and Margaret was at her wits' end to find comfort for him. He 
 stayed on at Dunstans, as she begged him to; and "where else 
 would he be going?" 
 
 She made excuses to send him for a week or two to Scotland, 
 she said the keepers wanted looking after. He could not 
 refuse anything she might ask him, but he had no heart for the 
 grouse, he had no heart for anything. 
 
 Sonny stood between the Duchess and her talks with Derry. 
 She could play with the little fellow, love him, care for his 
 well-being, but she could not say to Derry, "Let the boy com- 
 fort you for his mother's absence." She could not say it. The 
 mere sight of the boy stirred in her some nameless feeling, some 
 feeling to which she would not give a name, that paralyzed 
 her tongue when she spoke of him to Derry. 
 
 Derry played with the child, too, but took little pleasure or 
 comfort from him, she noted that. And never again did she 
 say to him that Sonny was like Terence. In those red-gold 
 curls and blue eyes, an echo of a childish laugh, a carriage, or 
 a gesture, lay hidden the pain for Derry, the secret which she 
 would not, dare not try to penetrate. 
 
 The search went on, governess-agencies and hospitals, regis- 
 try offices, accident wards, even refuges and work-houses. 
 Not a stone was left unturned. Newspaper advertisements 
 were inserted, now cautiously worded, now boldly, private 
 detectives, and Scotland Yard, were requisitioned. Nothing 
 came of it all. The summer dragged on, the last Drawing 
 Room was over, Goodwood had come and gone, and the London 
 season was a thing of the past. The i2th of August saw the 
 grouse exodus, the ist of September supplanted grouse with 
 partridge. In October the beaters were out, and the pheasants 
 rose whirring in the coverts. But the mystery of Rosaleen's 
 disappearance remained unsolved. 
 
 360
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 By October Deny had lost a stone in weight. His eyes 
 were strained as from constant watching, he was almost intoler- 
 ably restless. He had followed a hundred clues and they had 
 all snapped in his hands. The Duchess thought the time had 
 nearly come to voice her fears. Surely any certainty was better 
 than this terrible doubt. And, if she could tell him that this 
 girl whose loss was killing him, had not been what he thought 
 her, if the wound were opened, could she not the better pour 
 balm into it ? 
 
 "There was never an angry word between us," Deny said, 
 for about the thousand and first time, walking restlessly about 
 the boudoir, taking up first one thing and then another. 
 
 "If she had a secret she was afraid you would guess, if there 
 was anything in her past . . . anything she had not told you?" 
 Margaret began, hesitatingly, desperately. 
 
 "There was nothing she would have kept from me. She 
 was the joy of my life, and the heart of my heart. We talked 
 of everything together." he answered. 
 
 "Deny," she began again, abruptly, and then again paused; 
 " I want to say something to you. . . . Yet I hardly dare ..." 
 
 "Is there anything you couldn't say to me, you that's been 
 the saint, and the angel in heaven, to me?" 
 
 "Sometimes girls, very young women . . . Rosaleen was 
 only a slip of a girl when she came to Ranmore ..." 
 
 "The prettiest colleen in the three counties, Terence called 
 her." 
 
 Margaret had the opening, but she could not use it. She 
 relapsed into silence again, dreading her own voice. Yet she 
 knew she must speak. 
 
 "Deny," she recommenced, summoning all her courage. 
 "You remember . . . that day in the tent . . . Terence 
 spoke of her to me, to us both. She was but a girl, Deny, and 
 Terence had the charm there was no one like him." 
 
 She did not know how much she was going to say or suggest, 
 what plea she must put forward. If Rosaleen had gone away 
 because she had a secret, and saw that secret being blazoned 
 out in red-gold hair, and blue eyes, and dimpled cheek, must 
 
 361
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Deny learn it without armor against it? Would not the clue 
 she was putting into his hands be some mitigation of his grief ? 
 She could not bear to see him fretting like this for a girl who 
 practically admitted herself unworthy of his devotion. Very close 
 to the secret, the Duchess failed in exact interpretation. She 
 was, as the children say in their games of hide-and-seek, warm, 
 but that was all; she was warm, but had not found the actual 
 key. It was just a dark glimpse she saw, not the great whole. 
 
 "She left you deliberately. Perhaps . . . perhaps we have 
 been wrong in trying to find her. She may have had a 
 secret . . ." 
 
 Deny turned, and faced her; there was that flush under his 
 skin. When had she seen it there before, or the look in his 
 eyes? 
 
 "And afraid you should come to know ..." 
 
 "What if she had a secret?" he said. The flush grew deeper. 
 "If she had a secret, it was no secret from me. It was one I 
 shared with her." 
 
 "You . . . you shared!" 
 
 " What are you thinking of her, Margaret of my Rosaleen ? 
 Is it she would be keeping anything from me; me that loved 
 her from the first . . . before ever he thought of her at all. . . " 
 
 "Deny, Deny, what are you saying?" she cried, half sick 
 at heart, and fearful, she hardly knew of what. 
 
 "Tell me what you've been thinking?" She put out a hand, 
 as if to ward him off. "Tell me," he persisted, hotly, "tell me." 
 
 "Give me a minute." She shaded her eyes with her hands. 
 He waited. It was Rosaleen he had to defend; Terence's 
 memory was as nothing in comparison. For the moment he 
 forgot that he must defend Terence, too. She spoke slowly; 
 but now she took her hands from her eyes, and faced him, 
 sadly enough. 
 
 "It's Terence I've been thinking of, Deny. And that Sonny 
 is the living image of him; that Rosaleen may have seen the 
 growing likeness, feared ..." 
 
 "Feared feared me/ who loved every hair of her head; 
 and of his, too?" 
 
 362
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "Feared lest you should suspect . . ." 
 
 "Suspect!" 
 
 "Forgive me. ... I hardly know what I'm saying, I'm 
 in a maze of doubts and fears. I seem to be standing on the 
 edge of a precipice I dare not look down. Yet if what I scarce 
 dare to think is nevertheless the truth! . . . She was under 
 my mother's protection, Terence could never have . . . 
 Derry, Deny, I'm wild with fear. Why is Sonny so like Terence? " 
 
 Derry grew quite white, and a little cold, for her eyes were 
 wild into his in her questioning. "Why did she go away, but 
 for fear lest you should see ..." 
 
 He made a step forward. 
 
 "It wasn't for that she went away, Margaret, it wasn't for 
 that. Margaret, don't be thinking hard thoughts of him, or 
 of her ... If it is his, if it was Terence's widow that I mar- 
 ried . . ." 
 
 " Terence's widow! but what are you telling me?" she cried 
 to him. 
 
 "I'm telling you nothing . . . it's Rosaleen's secret as 
 well as me own. I was brother to you both . . . and if he 
 hadn't time to do all he meant, and if I fathered the boy ..." 
 He was incoherent, but his eyes were wet, as well as pleading; 
 "it's not harshly you will think of him, or of Rosaleen. I 
 waited . . . you'll not be harsh in your judgment." 
 
 "Derry, Derry!" She put out her hands to him; she had 
 no words for him just then. He kissed both her hands, she 
 felt his e^es left them wet.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 WHAT had Derry done for Terence ? She looked at him 
 now with new eyes, they had been compassionate, 
 now they were wondering, but the love in them 
 deepened. She had heard of bearing one another's burdens, 
 Derry had shouldered Terence's silently, and she little less 
 than her mother, had resented his silence, misunderstood his 
 great loyalty . . . She forgot Rosaleen, it was only of Derry 
 she was thinking, and she could have kissed his hands. 
 
 Up there in Dublin her mother was planning the orphanage 
 that was to be built in Terence's honor. The Duchess knew 
 little of the estopped rents, and the threatening law-suits, and 
 all Mr. Carruthers was doing, and had done, in her mother's 
 name, and with her mother's sanction, to keep Deny out of 
 his own. But she knew that her mother harbored in her heart 
 a deep resentment against Derry, because he stood in Terence's 
 place, because he had left them alone in their trouble, taking 
 the girl with him. Margaret, too, had thought of Derry as 
 recreant from his inheritance, an absentee landlord, spending 
 the money abroad that should have been spent on the Castle. 
 For she did know something of what was happening over there 
 at Ranmore, and the ruin that was settling on the place. There 
 had been a coolness between her and her mother since Terence's 
 death, an unspoken, unembittered estrangement, that only 
 meant jealousy of each other's grief. She had not completely 
 realized that all this time, ever since Terence's death, the 
 Dowager had been planning, and scheming, intermittently 
 perhaps, and half-heartedly, except when Mr. Carruthers went 
 over to Dublin to strengthen her, for the ruin of Ranmore. 
 All the years of her life had gone to building it up, all the years 
 since Terence had been a baby. Now, "let the roof fall in," 
 
 364
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 was the burden of her cry. She would build an orphanage 
 in his memory, and never look, save once a year, when she had 
 the Mass in the Chapel, on the place where his children, and 
 his children's children, should have played. 
 
 So she was draining Ranmore of money for the orphanage, 
 depriving the estate, under Mr. Carruthers' tutelage, of all 
 the benefit of cottages she had rebuilt, and dilapidations she 
 had made good; the boats, and the sheds, and the drying and 
 salting-houses for the fishing, the coal-mine which, having 
 cost so much to open, had not yet entered on its paying stage, 
 claiming reimbursement for the new stables, and the repairs 
 to the Castle. All the workmen had been called off the day 
 that Terence died. Now the turret that had been taken down, 
 and was to have been rebuilt, let in the rain and the wind, and 
 the tower that had been shored up, had fallen again, carrying 
 the broken masonry with it, making a greater ruin than had 
 been before. Very little of the Castle was habitable now. 
 
 The Duchess had not quite realized what was going on, 
 but when Derry left her that morning, she seized her pen, and 
 wrote with a full heart to her mother, begging her to visit Dun- 
 stans, saying Derry was there with her, and Derry's son. She 
 wrote with a full heart; but her letter was not very long. It 
 would be better, she thought, to tell her mother by word of 
 mouth, or perhaps, not to tell her at all, of the strange new truth 
 that had come to light, but to let it dawn slowly on her. 
 
 The Dowager's reply was like a douche of cold water. She 
 said she would wait to pay her visit until Deny Malone had 
 left, and as for the boy, of whom her daughter wrote, she had 
 no interest at all in Dennis O'Daly's grandson. She went on 
 to say that she had just decided to accept the plans Mr. Ash had 
 submitted for the orphanage. It would cost about 25,000. 
 She said that she thought Margaret might like to bear part of 
 the cost, or of the endowment. It was of her brother she ought 
 to be thinking, not the black Protestant, with the heart that 
 matched his hair, who would never stand in Terence's shoes 
 as long as she could keep him out of them. She was surprised 
 Margaret had so far forgotten herself as to entertain him at 
 24 365
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Dunstans. "But, of course, you cannot understand a mother's 
 feelings," she had added, disconnectedly. The Dowager had 
 never been the woman she was before Terence's death. To the 
 Duchess this letter read as if the priests were taking advantage 
 of the confusion in her unhappy mind. 
 
 But, in thinking this, Margaret wronged the Church. It 
 was Mossy's unfortunate visit and threat, and the lever which 
 Mr. Carruthers had made of it, that had distracted her. 
 
 The Duchess, in hurried reply, urged that the orphanage 
 should be abandoned, and the money used to recommence the 
 restoration of Ranmore. 
 
 The Dowager sent her a verse on a postcard, written in a 
 shaky hand, the handwriting of old age: 
 
 "Let the roof fall in; let silence 
 On the house forever fall, 
 Where my son lay dead and heard not 
 His lone mother call" 
 
 "Deny, you had better go back to London for a time, or you 
 can go up to Scotland, if you would prefer it. My mother 
 will not meet you yet, and I want her to come here. You don't 
 mind being banished, do you, dear? I'm sure it is not going 
 to be for long," she said to him, quietly. 
 
 "I've inflicted myself on you an unconscionable time already. 
 But there's no one else I've got belonging to me," the poor 
 fellow answered. Time was doing nothing toward reconciling 
 him to his loss, and the look of him made the Duchess' heart 
 ache. Now she no longer thought that Rosaleen had made 
 away with herself; she had arrived at the far wiser, if still incor- 
 rect, opinion, that she was keeping out of the way until the 
 family knew the truth as to little Terence's birth. 
 
 As soon as Deny had departed from Dunstans, Margaret 
 wrote to her mother again. 
 
 The Dowager arrived in the dusk of the autumn evening. 
 Every time Margaret saw her mother, she was struck by the 
 speed with which age was overtaking her. Three years ago 
 
 366
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 her hair had been brown, her figure well preserved, the light of 
 youth still lingered in her eyes, and when they fell upon her son, 
 they were always bright. Now her hair was quite gray, she 
 stooped, and halted a little in her walk. Her eyes, though they 
 were bright still, wandered, and seemed to be forever seeking, 
 she knew not what. These three years seemed to have added 
 twenty to her age. Margaret was her only daughter; she ought 
 to have been all the world to her. Margaret alone knew how 
 Strangely the tragedy of her marriage had affected her mother's 
 feeling toward her. Terence knew of it, and they had some- 
 times spoken of it, under their breath, for it was not a thing they 
 could talk of openly. Once she said to him, brokenly, that he 
 was mother and brother in one to her. He had kissed her, and 
 answered that he would make mother see with his eyes one day, 
 there was no hurry. Poor Terence, who was so hurried in the 
 end! It was as if Lady Ranmore resented the misfortune, 
 more than she pitied the victim of it. It was Margaret's brave 
 fine acceptance of her circumstances that her mother had 
 resented. When Lady Ranmore knew that the Duke's case 
 was hopeless, that it was only a travesty of marriage her daughter 
 was enduring, she had urged upon her to try to get a dispensation 
 from the Pope, or a decree of nullity from the Courts. When 
 Margaret would not listen to such a proposition, when she 
 expressed her absolute decision to keep what she could of her 
 mutilated marriage vows, Lady Ranmore had been angry. 
 The incompleteness of her daughter's life hurt her, and her 
 surface calm acceptance of it turned pity to exasperation. 
 Since Terence's death the resentment seemed to have grown. 
 It was bitter to her that her seed should die out. And it was 
 only obstinacy on Margaret's part, surely she, her mother, 
 ought to know what was right und best for her to do. The 
 strawberry leaves she wore could be no substitute for the woman 's 
 crown of which her head must be forever bare. 
 
 The Dowager came in time for dinner, and her daughter 
 welcomed her at the station, and drove home with her in the 
 brougham. Already she felt there was a new antagonism 
 between them. She was struck again by the alteration three 
 
 367
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 months had made, and she was full of self-reproach that she 
 had let her mother be so long alone. Margaret had never 
 failed in love. 
 
 Lady Ranmore was growing old, but she was not at peace 
 with her daughter, nor with Providence, nor the world. She 
 had been ill-used, and all she could do now was to strike back. 
 Misery had turned her bitter. Even this orphanage she would 
 build and endow in Terence 's name, was not being contemplated 
 in a loving spirit. It was not the care of the little ones, without 
 mothers or fathers, that moved her heart in planning it. It 
 was to despite the heir of Ranmore, who would find his castle in 
 ruins, and his lands laid bare. She was spending the money 
 as a measure of self-defense, that no softening should come to 
 her at the last, and lead her to restore the revenues she drew, 
 and the lands,that had always gone with the title, it was to add 
 embarrassment to embarrassment. Yet it must be supposed 
 that there was some halting weakness or doubt, for the scheme 
 had lingered all these three years; everything had been settled, 
 and nothing had been done. Now, it seemed to her there 
 must be no further delay. Her daughter's letters about Derry 
 had precipitated action. 
 
 The Duchess felt it, and was meant to feel it, all through that 
 first dinner and evening. Lady Ranmore talked of little else. 
 She had brought the plans for the orphanage with her, and 
 wanted Margaret to look at them that night. The land had 
 been secured, and a deposit paid until the lease should be signed. 
 It was not as a philanthropist, as a benefactor to the little riff- 
 raff of the Dublin slums, that Lady Ranmore talked. It was 
 as one who at least was accomplishing a deed of vengeance. 
 She was pulling down the temple she had builded with her hands; 
 and she gloried in the deed. All the money that could be screwed 
 from Ranmore was to be put into this orphanage, royalties 
 from the mines, and rents from the cottages, the profits from 
 the fisheries, and all that had been done to clear the estate. 
 Margaret's indignation grew apace as she listened, and under- 
 stood that Derry would be the victim of her mother's misdirected 
 philanthropy. But presently her pity blotted out her indigna- 
 
 368
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 tion. This was her mother's first evening under her roof, and 
 she knew nothing of what Margaret knew. The Dowager 
 talked quickly, in order to give no opportunity for argument, 
 or persuasion, but the Duchess had no thought of either. Tri- 
 umphantly the Dowager told how, with Mr. Carruthers' aid, 
 she had mulcted Derry of all that was possible, and would mulct 
 him of more yet; claiming against him for all that had been 
 done in the long years of Terence 's minority, and after Terence 
 had come of age. 
 
 It seemed dreadful to the Duchess that this sad old age 
 should come to her mother, bringing with it only unkindness. 
 
 "But why, why, mother, should you want to do this, to ruin 
 poor Derry for the sake of some orphans that you have never 
 seen? Derry was the orphan you made a home for when 
 Terence and he were boys together." 
 
 The slow flush came into the old face. 
 
 "I won't have you speak your brother's name to me; you, 
 that want to put another in his place." 
 
 "But, mother darling, I never wanted him to be there. God 
 knows, Terence was all and more to me that brother could be 
 and the world is empty without him. But it is Derry 's place 
 now, by right. . . ." 
 
 "And he'll never stand in it while I can prevent it." 
 
 The old hands were trembling. It was as if some malignant 
 spirit had been born in the travail of her grief, and now it 
 was only that which she mothered, and it had become part 
 of her. 
 
 "Derry Malone will never stand in my son's shoes while I've 
 life to keep him out." 
 
 The Duchess' anger warred under her compassion, while 
 yet she realized that her mother was not wholly responsible for 
 what she said; grief had bred a maggot in her brain. It was 
 Mr. Carruthers who was influencing her conduct, the Duchess 
 understood that, too, although, of course, she did not understand 
 his motive, and that "costs" for himself and his firm was the 
 pivot upon which turned all his evil advice to her poor sorrow- 
 weakened mother. 
 
 369
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Since Mossy Leon had been imported into the case, as Lord 
 Ranmore's representative, Mr. Carruthers had been doubly 
 keen in protecting his client 's rights, as he worded his keenness 
 for costs. There were sufficient intricacies and difficulties in 
 the succession, for the whole matter to be brought into Court. 
 This was the end Mr. Carruthers had in view; a long, intricate 
 law case, with pleadings and inter-pleadings, endless applica- 
 tions and adjournments, costs always mounting up, and accumu- 
 lating, with no possible benefit to anyone but himself, and the 
 legal profession generally. Already he had briefed counsel, 
 and decided upon juniors. That Mossy Leon had delayed so 
 long in opening proceedings, was a great vexation of the spirit 
 to Mr. Carruthers. It was most irregular; and it proved Mossy 
 to be a solicitor of no standing. To protect one's client's 
 interests by keeping a good case out of court was really an 
 irregular proceeding in Henry Carruther's eyes. Mossy had 
 a good case; so had he. But Derry would not go to law with 
 his relations, he said from the beginning that he would not fight 
 against them. He would wait for the possession of Ranmore 
 until they welcomed him there. Mossy knew his views; other- 
 wise he might have been tempted, knowing as well as Carruthers 
 did that a law-suit would benefit everybody but the litigants. 
 Mossy was quite as alive as Carruthers to what was expected 
 of him, but he had not yet issued that writ for which the other 
 side was waiting. 
 
 The Dowager came down to breakfast in the same mood as 
 that in which she had gone to bed. She wanted to talk of Ran- 
 more, and let her daughter see how firm she was in her decision 
 to keep Derry out of it. 
 
 She was disappointed if she expected to be persuaded. The 
 Duchess asked how she had slept, and spoke of common friends 
 and acquaintances, ignoring the argument that was expected 
 of her. She saw that nearly all her mother's grievances against 
 Derry, and half the rancor, was bred by talk. All that day she 
 held her peace. She might plead, but she would not argue. 
 She cared for her mother's physical comforts all that day. She 
 saw to her sofa cushions, and footstool, and every now and again 
 
 370
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 she would say a loving word, put a soft cheek down against the 
 wrinkled one, trying for a wordless caress. The response was 
 very small; 
 
 "He has been here, then?" 
 
 "Yes, mother, Derry has been staying here." 
 
 "I wonder at you, I do!" 
 
 "You wouldn't wonder if you saw him. There is nothing 
 in his heart but love for you, and for us all." 
 
 "Was it love for us that made him send that Jew lawyer to 
 me, threatening to bar me from saying me prayers where me 
 husband and son are lying? Not that I'm wanting his love. 
 Didn't he come to us at Ranmore when he was a bit of a boy, 
 and now isn't he wanting it for himself, and trying to bar me 
 out?" The trembling, impotent anger of old age shook her as 
 if with palsy. 
 
 "Mother, it is his own," she urged gently. 
 
 "His own, is it?" And then she began to cry, and rock her- 
 self to and fro. "Ranmore, that was for Terence, and for 
 Terence's son! Me, to be turned out in me old age! Me, 
 that's without a son. ..." 
 
 "He would have been a son to you, if you had let him. Ter- 
 nece loved him, mother, and he loved Terence." She pleaded 
 well. 
 
 "Didn't he leave us in the first week of the trouble, running 
 away to London from the sorrow he had helped to bring on the 
 house?" For, by now, she had persuaded herself it was Derry 
 who had urged Terence to ride on that fatal day. 
 
 "I won't argue with you, mother dearie. I want you to be 
 as happy as possible with me while you are here. It is an 
 abiding grief to me that you care so seldom to come to me, or to 
 have me with you. We must not quarrel; both of us so alone 
 in the world. But I know Derry, and so do you; and if he left 
 us abruptly, and, as it seemed then, heartlessly, he had some 
 good reason for it. I am convinced of it now, some reason for 
 which, if you knew, you would honor him. There is not a 
 thought in his mind against anyone of us, not even against you, 
 for all you have done, and are doing, to thwart him." 
 
 371
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "He, to dare to be angered against me! Deny Malone 
 and him scarcely a Ranmore at all! . . . What's this? . . . 
 What '5 this? ..." Her voice broke into a high quaver. 
 
 This was an impudent little figure, with blue eyes that 
 laughed, and red-gold curls clustering about his head, who 
 came to say "good-night" to Auntie Margaret, as he came 
 every evening, unchecked, sure of a welcome. Such a gay, 
 dancing, little figure, in a white frock, and with bare feet. There 
 was something in his hand, he had run out to gather daisies for 
 Auntie Margaret; and he had gathered some of the grass with 
 them, too, they were all crumpled together in his hot hand. 
 But he was quite proud of his offering. 
 
 "For you, for you!" he cried. And then, because he was full 
 of life and spirit, a little boy that no one had ever scolded, he 
 threw them at her, and they fell on her dress, and on the ground. 
 She caught him up in her arms, she could swing a baby in her 
 arms, and toss him until he crowed, and crowed again, for all 
 she had none of her own, and her life was barren. This one 
 gave her pain and pleasure; but to-day the pain seemed in excess. 
 She held him close in her arms for an instant, for she knew the 
 moment had come. She told him he was a bad boy to throw 
 the flowers at her, and he must say "good night" properly, and 
 say that he was sorry he flung the flowers instead of presenting 
 them, like the young gentleman that he was. And now he was 
 to show he knew how to behave, for she was going to present 
 him to a lady. Her eyes were full of tears; and he looked at 
 her wonderingly. He knew he had been naughty, but he did 
 not want her to cry. 
 
 " This, mother, this . . . is Deny 's son. Is it no Ranmore 
 you're calling him? Look at him." 
 
 She put the boy down, and he stood there a moment, shyly. 
 Then he ran quickly to the old lady in the chair, for her eyes 
 drew him. He did not understand the wonder and yearning 
 in them, but he went to her. Never a word had she said since 
 that cry, and she was breathing unevenly. 
 
 "Terence good now; don't cry." He put up his face for a 
 kiss. "Terence good now," he repeated. She laid a trembling 
 
 372
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 uncertain hand on his head. Oh ! the curls she had felt like that 
 under her hand, the silk and gold of them ! 
 
 "Is it . . . is it Berry's son you're telling me?" Her 
 voice was quite broken. 
 
 " Yes, it is Deny 's son. He has called him Terence. Mother, 
 you are not going to refuse to kiss him ? See, his lip is quivering, 
 he is going to cry, he doesn't know there is such a thing as hate 
 in the world. You can't carry it on to him." 
 
 Then all at once she ran to her mother and put her arms 
 about her; for the words that came were like the broken words 
 of delirium. 
 
 "What's that you're telling me? It's Terence's son, my 
 son's son!" Her voice rose to a wail. "Oh, God, the day! 
 My boy's son! Let me be, I tell you, let me be." She shook 
 off the encircling arms. "I want to see his face, to feel the curls 
 of him. . . . Oh, my boy, my son, my dear, dead son." The 
 old head went down on the red curls. She was shaken with 
 sobs; dry, wordless sobs. 
 
 The Duchess hesitated, paused a moment, and then went 
 out softly, closing the door behind her.
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 IF the Duchess had expected her mother to exchange con- 
 fidences that night, she was disappointed. The Dowager 
 kept the child with her for a long time, until the nurse went 
 for him, in fact. She did not appear at dinner, and she refused 
 her daughter 's offer to go up and sit with her. She sent down 
 word that she wanted to be alone, she had a sick headache. The 
 next day, and the next, Margaret waited for question or comment. 
 None came. Her mother was singularly quiet, sitting about 
 in her black silk dress, and lace cap, with her shawl over her 
 shoulders, saying no word of what had happened. She com- 
 plained of the cold, and Margaret was solicitous about her 
 health, asking her if she would like to see a doctor. 
 
 "Why should I see a doctor? I am quite well," she answered. 
 "You are forever thinking people are ill, there is nothing the 
 matter with me." She always resented the Duke's nurses, and 
 the fuss that was made about him. 
 
 "Would you like the child to come in and see you this morn- 
 ing?" This was Margaret's next attempt to draw her into 
 talk. 
 
 "And why not?" Now the Dowager's eyes began to watch 
 the Duchess, even as the Duchess, but differently, was watching 
 her. The Duchess was uneasy about her mother; she did not 
 understand this quiet attitude, she was waiting to be questioned, 
 she began to fear lest her hopes for Deny would be disappointed. 
 It seemed to her that, if her mother had become withered, and 
 arid, and old, this was a fountain of life from which to drink. 
 Must she trace its source, and see from what muddy inlet the 
 stream had birth? Was it not enough that now it was clean 
 and sweet, an Irish stream, that ran clear from the mountains? 
 It had welled out through the fronds of a hart's-tongue fern, 
 it would widen through flowers and plants, slipping round 
 
 374
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 boulders, clattering over stones, now cool and deep with sleeping 
 golden showers, now gliding in a thin line of silver. She could 
 drink and drink again from it, she had but to look, to see it was 
 undented. 
 
 The Duchess thought to see something of her mother 's active 
 middle age come back to her, those proud and happy days when 
 she had been the mother of a son. She had looked to see the 
 maggot in her brain die, and butterflies spring from it, gossamer- 
 colored, playful, and pursuing in the sunshine. 
 
 The last thing she had dreamed was that the secret of Sonny 's 
 birth was one that the Dowager thought must be kept at all 
 hazards from her daughter, lest she should resent it, especially 
 lest she should resent it to him. Already there was only one 
 "him" for the Dowager, as there had been in Terence's life- 
 time. The Duchess took a long time to read the cunning that 
 began to gleam in those old eyes; or to see that her mother would 
 be a miser over the treasure that she thought was known only 
 to herself. Nobody must know. How it had come about she 
 had no time, or wish, to think, but that this was her son's son 
 she had no doubt. And nobody must guess it. She planned 
 and contrived, using subterfuge and feints, to have the child 
 with her, or to spend an hour in the nursery with him. She 
 would say : 
 
 "Are you going out in the carriage this afternoon?" 
 
 "Just as you like, mother. I will do whatever you are 
 wanting me to." 
 
 "I'll not be going out at all, then, I like to sit about in the 
 grounds." With the boy playing beside her. Or it was: 
 
 "If you're not using the carriage this afternoon, I'd not mind 
 driving into town. There 's some shopping I'd like to be doing." 
 Then she would add, indifferently, quite as an after-thought: 
 "I might take the child along with me, he won't be in my way 
 at all." 
 
 She would smuggle toys to the nursery, watching, out of those 
 cunning eyes, to see if her daughter noticed anything. Once, 
 when Margaret surprised her with the child in her bedroom, 
 talking baby-talk, it was quite apologetically she had said: 
 
 375
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "It isn't unlike Terence he is!" while she looked to see if 
 Margaret had noted the words. 
 
 The Duchess began to understand. She was drinking of the 
 well ; she was holding herself more erect, some of the years were 
 slipping away from her, and some of the sorrow. But she was 
 drinking surreptitiously, not because she feared the source, but 
 lest others should query it. 
 
 Meanwhile Derry was being kept away from Dunstans, and 
 his rights were in abeyance. Margaret thought the time had 
 come when she might venture again to introduce the subject of 
 Derry 's rights. She missed him; she knew he would be more 
 desolate away in Scotland than here, within reach of her sym- 
 pathy. Chance aided her, but she would have spoken soon, 
 even if all the chances had been the other way. 
 
 Dunstans was an ordered English home, with wide, terraced 
 lawns, close-cropped, rare tropical trees as well as the trimmed 
 yews, great banks of flowers, pergolas where still the late roses 
 lingered. There were hot-houses full of flowers and fruit, but 
 these were the gardeners ' preserves. Sonny 's toddling, straying 
 feet took him from the green lawns to the tempting open door 
 of a greenhouse; he thought flowers grew for the plucking. 
 Already there had been complaints that little Terence was 
 bringing disorder. He was not always satisfied with daisies 
 and grass, nor could Nurse always quickly restrain him from 
 dragging at a leafless rose-tree, upheld in its decrepit path by 
 a stouter twig, or from pulling at a narcissus that the soft weather 
 had brought into late flower. Master Terence was not to be 
 trusted in the garden, and the head gardener laid his formal 
 complaint. He intercepted the Duchess in the grounds when 
 she was walking with her mother, and brought his charge. 
 
 "And why shouldn't he pick the flowers if he wants?" the 
 Dowager interrupted, indignantly. "Are the flowers only to 
 be looked at? And what if his feet disturb the beds? Can't 
 they be planted again? . . ." 
 
 Margaret said a quieting word or two to the gardener. The 
 man was within his rights, and doing what he thought was his 
 duty. She said she would tell Nurse to let Master Terence 
 
 376
 
 take his walks a little further afield, then Thomson need not 
 fear that anything within view of the house would be spoiled. 
 But the Dowager went on muttering her indignation. She 
 asked for whose benefit the flower gardens were maintained. 
 
 "Is it for the omadhaun in the donkey-chair?" 
 
 It was then that Margaret took the first firm step, without 
 pausing to see where the next would land her. 
 
 "It's in Ranmore woods he ought to be playing, mother, and 
 you know it as well as I. It's wild roses, and woodbine that 
 call to him, climbing about Ranmore. He should be roaming 
 in the freedom of his own home. Dennis McCreagh, and Peter, 
 and all of them, would well like to be watching over him. They 'd 
 not be checking him when he gathered the flowers, or broke 
 down the beds. . . . " 
 
 She stopped at that, hurrying a little so that her mother need 
 not answer, but the Dowager had no answer ready. She looked 
 at her daughter sharply, and then turned away. How easily 
 she saw him, as Margaret had said, flitting through Ranmore 
 woods, playing in its untidy grounds, free from English 
 trammels, the ordered meal-times, the starched white clothes, the 
 regularity that irked herself. 
 
 That night, at dinner, as carelessly as she was able, and as 
 if the subject of Deny had never been approached between 
 them, and she had never spoken an unkind word of him, she 
 asked, with that strange new cunning which had come upon her, 
 "And when is Derry coming to visit you again?" She eyed 
 her daughter, when she asked this, as if she were her antagonist, 
 as if it were she that was purposely keeping Derry away. 
 
 Margaret did not mind how it came about, at least it had 
 come about, that her mother wanted speech with Derry. She 
 answered just as carelessly as she had been asked. 
 
 " Some time next week, I hope. The first meet is on Tuesday, 
 and we have a hunt breakfast here. I would like Derry to 
 come down for that, if you didn't mind." 
 
 "It's not a very devoted father he makes, I'm thinking. 
 How conies it he leaves the child here all the time with you? 
 I suppose if I'd be carrying him off with me to Dublin, 
 
 377
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 nobody would be missing him? His mother is away from 
 England, Nurse tells me. It's attentive parents he has, poor 
 baby!" 
 
 Her daughter suspected her of knowing a little more about 
 Rosaleen's absence than she pretended. Nurse was something 
 of a gossip, and her mother not above listening, she felt sure. 
 
 However, it was her policy now to let her mother come to 
 the point at which she was surely arriving, in her own circuitous 
 way. Certainly there had been no talk of the orphanage lately, 
 and that was a good sign. That she wanted to see Deny was 
 even better. The Duchess felt sure it was with the idea of 
 asking him to let the boy go back with her to Dublin that she 
 wished to see him. But it really did not matter with what inten- 
 tion she was inquiring for him. The Duchess walked warily and 
 delicately among the quicksands of her mother's humors. 
 She told her quite simply, and without comment, that Derry's 
 wife had left him. The Dowager examined, and cross-examined, 
 her as to the cause. Margaret had the girl's letter to Deny, 
 as well as the one to herself. She showed the Dowager both 
 of them, and the Dowager read, and returned them. 
 
 "And I suppose he's glad to be rid of her?" she commented. 
 
 "Oh, no, mother! He is heart-broken about it; Deny is a 
 miserable man to-day." 
 
 "And why shouldn't he be miserable? Hasn't he got his 
 deserts ?" but there was no longer any rancor in her voice. 
 
 "Oh, mother! you don't think that any more; you don't 
 think poor Deny has got his deserts among us! ..." 
 
 If her mother did not think so, she could not be brought to 
 admit it. 
 
 Deny, who was summoned quickly from Scotland, was 
 warned that he, too, must walk warily. 
 
 "My mother has altered very much since Terence's death, 
 Deny. You'll hardly know her, and I'm sure not . . . well, 
 I think I ought to tell you that I am not quite sure her head is 
 as clear as it used to be. She takes things differently from 
 what one would expect." 
 
 "What is it you're trying to tell me?" 
 
 378
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "Nothing, except to behave as if nothing has happened, not 
 to be surprised or disturbed at anything she may say, or ask 
 you. ..." 
 
 But there was nothing to surprise, or disturb, him when his 
 aunt came into the hall, and he went forward to meet her. 
 
 He said he was very glad to see her, and, because he thought 
 she was looking old and ill, he exclaimed how young and well 
 she was seeming. "It's a long time since I've seen you, surely!" 
 he went on awkwardly. She retorted that he had always 
 known where she was to be found. He had no answer ready 
 for that, and the Duchess intervened pleasantly, and suggested 
 he had had a long journey, and perhaps he would like to go to 
 his room and change. 
 
 At dinner they talked of grouse, and something of to-morrow's 
 meet. The first meet of the season was traditionally at Dunstans. 
 The Duchess told Deny jestingly that she was glad he had lost 
 weight, he would be easier to mount. 
 
 "He is not a great figure of a man," the Dowager said, eyeing 
 him unfavorably. She was trying to maintain her attitude of 
 antagonism to him, but there was no antagonism in her eyes 
 when she thought no one was observing, and they fell upon him 
 unawares. As it had been with the Duchess, so it was now 
 with the Dowager. She could not keep from looking at him, 
 and remembering how familiar a feature of the house he had 
 been in those days when they had all been happy, and there 
 was no weight at the back of her head, no secrets she had to be 
 keeping. 
 
 Derry and Margaret talked during dinner, and in the drawing- 
 room through the quiet evening that followed. The Dowager 
 was listening to them, although she sat as if she heard nothing. 
 She was back in the days when he and Terence and Margaret 
 had shaken the old walls with laughter and prank; when, as 
 quite little boys, they had gone off with their fishing creels, or 
 their guns, or on their rough ponies. She remembered calling 
 after them that they were to be careful and Terence impatiently 
 crying out to Derry to "Come on! what did the mother think 
 was likely to happen to them?" But Derry had often stayed a 
 
 379
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 minute to answer, "Shure, an' I'll be looking after Terence all 
 the while." 
 
 She had always known that he worshiped Terence, would 
 guard him with his own life, if need arose. Her hatred and 
 rancor were dropping from her so quickly. What was that 
 Margaret and Derry were telling? Some old hunting exploit 
 of wild Terence, when he had heard the call of the huntsman 
 in the distance, and had rushed to the field where the horse 
 was grazing, leaping on his back. . . . 
 
 She broke into their talk. 
 
 "You mind he was not twelve years old then, and it was 
 neither saddle nor bridle he had ..." 
 
 "It wasn't the want of a saddle or bridle would have stopped 
 Terence, when he heard the hounds," Derry ejaculated. 
 
 She had not meant to be joining in their talk, but all the 
 ice about her heart was breaking up, and it was true that the 
 maggot in her brain was breeding butterflies. 
 
 When it was bedtime, it was Derry who lit her candle, as he 
 had done for her so many times. 
 
 "I'll walk upstairs with you," he said; "we mustn't be 
 dropping the candle-grease about here, like we do at home." 
 He fell so easily into the old ways, as if there had never been 
 bitter feeling between them. But Derry had had no bitter 
 feeling against her. 
 
 "How old she looks, and altered," he said to Margaret when 
 he came downstairs again, "and how sad! When I got her to 
 her room, I just said, 'You'll not be having any bad feeling 
 against me any more, Auntie?'" 
 
 "Oh, you shouldn't have said that, Derry! You shouldn't 
 have reminded her." 
 
 "It didn't do any harm. I gave her a kiss with it; she seemed 
 very shaky and frail. Biddy was there, she said, 'Ah, Mr. 
 Derry, and you're a sight for sore eyes!' It's all right. I came 
 away quickly, but I know it's all [right. Oh, Margaret, Mar- 
 garet! what's the good of it? What's the good of it all, with 
 Rosaleen not here!" 
 
 380
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 THE first meet of the Oakmore Hunt always took place 
 at Dunstans. Lord Brampton, who was the Duke's 
 cousin, was Master of the Hounds. He was the most 
 eligible bachelor in the three counties, yet the most persistent 
 mothers and chaperons had given him up as hopeless game. 
 Everybody knew how it was with him and the Duchess, except, 
 perhaps, the Duchess. She only knew he was persistently kind 
 to her. Hunting was her one and only unalloyed pleasure, 
 and he facilitated her enjoyment of it in every possible way, 
 that was all she knew, or would know, while the Duke lived, 
 she had his name in her keeping. Vansittart Brampton was 
 no seducer of women, hardly a preux chevalier. He was a short, 
 spare man, with a cropped red head, clean-shaven, hard- 
 featured, weather-beaten, something over forty, and not talkative. 
 But he had a genius for friendship, and was the most popular 
 M. F. H. the Oakmore Hunt had ever had. 
 
 The meet was at twelve, and already by eleven, carriages 
 began to drive up, dog-carts, and even the unpopular motor. 
 In the field beyond the gardens there were grooms leading 
 horses, some with side-saddles, and a couple of small boys, sons 
 of a local farmer, were impatient on their caracoling ponies. 
 
 The Duchess was dressed and out early, she was at her best 
 on horseback, one with her mount. The fine chestnut she rode 
 this morning seemed to feel the honor that was being done to 
 him; he tossed his head and played with his bit, and curvetted at 
 the touch of her light hand on the rein. Her dark habit defined 
 the lines of her molded figure; the red-gold hair was wound in 
 plaits under her womanlike felt hat. These were the days 
 when her blue eyes still shone as when she had been a girl in 
 her mother's house, and the color flushed in her cheeks. Deny 
 25 381
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 was in top-boots, cut-away coat, and white tie. She had pro- 
 vided him with a raking great bay horse that promised to keep 
 him fully employed. Derry, too, could sit a horse. He was 
 in a reckless mood this morning. Sometimes he did not care 
 whether he came to grief or not. Without Rosaleen life seemed 
 to have lost its savor for him. Time had done nothing to 
 mitigate his loss. 
 
 The field gathered slowly; now the grooms with the led 
 horses were being replaced by pink-coated masters, by ladies 
 in faultless hunting get-up. The picturesque huntsmen arrived 
 with the hounds. The hounds gave tongue causelessly, put 
 noses to ground, or sniffed the air, moving about the hunts- 
 men. There seemed many more of them than there really 
 were. Greetings were exchanged, friend meeting friend, after 
 long absence, and there was much to be gossiped about and 
 discussed; the chances of the day, for instance, and the weather. 
 Dunstans was always a sure find. It was a true hunting morning, 
 gray and soft, the dew hardly off the grass, and the sun behind 
 the morning clouds. At twelve to the minute the master rode 
 into the field. His first glance was at the hounds, but his second 
 was at Margaret. She rode up to him, and after a word or two, 
 led the way to the house. Quite a number of people followed 
 them. Those who had driven over for the meet only, and to 
 breakfast at Dunstans, would linger over their meal; while the 
 others took a glass of wine, or a biscuit, standing, were all 
 impatience to be off. 
 
 Lady Carrie Carthew was among the latter. She and Derry 
 had not met for months, not since they had been at Ascot 
 together. But the Goodwood week had made a great change 
 in Lady Carrie's prospects. An American multi-millionaire 
 had been of the party she was with, the type of person one only 
 meets in books. In real life American multi-millionaires have 
 wives and children, generally a divorce or two to their names, 
 and a whole history of misdemeanor or fraud. Cyrus J. Wood 
 was unattached, he had been too busy making money to have 
 time for making history, matrimonial or criminal. Lady Carrie 
 had heard that American men never married English women, 
 
 382
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 and this, combined with Derry's defection, had given impetus 
 to her wooing. For, of course, it was she who wooed Cyrus in 
 her yellow-perilous way, not he her. First, by bemoaning her 
 incapacity, and playing the fluffy fool that is usually a strong 
 man's objective. Afterward, when she discovered it was more 
 efficacious, showing her real ability. Finally, when she became 
 sure of her ground, she exhibited a quite impressive and unique 
 comprehension of figures and of the vagaries of the American 
 stock-markets. Cyrus J. went down slowly, he had been a 
 shrewd man until then; but it is notorious that America will be 
 the first to suffer from the Yellow Peril. The very last sensation 
 of the season had been the announcement of Lady Carrie 
 Carthew's engagement. She had had no time to think of 
 Deny, and no need of him. She knew from Mossy of Rosaleen's 
 disappearance. But her new prospects had lessened her 
 interest in Derry and his affairs. Also she had resented his 
 attitude to her during that Ascot week at the Brinmores. She 
 had given him every encouragement and "oaf" was the name 
 she attached to him when he proved dense to her allurements. 
 
 She exclaimed at his altered appearance to-day, standing 
 up with her glass of claret in her hand. Lady Carrie was 
 genuine where hunting was concerned, any horse could carry 
 her, the smaller the better, if it were swift; to-day there was 
 nothing reminiscent of the tea-gown in her neat well-cut habit. 
 
 "What on earth have you been doing with yourself?" she 
 asked Derry. "You have gone to a shadow; you are not half 
 the size you were." She still looked kindly at him. What a 
 fine fellow he was, even although he had grown so thin! It 
 was a pity Cyrus was only five feet six or seven, and the color 
 of a dried pea. Carrie felt suddenly that, after all, she was 
 very fond of Derry Ranmore. There was no reason he should 
 not help toward her trousseau. 
 
 "I'm very glad to see you here, you know. In a way, I 
 suppose you owe your reconciliation with your family to me." 
 
 "Do I?" he said. It was difficult for him to respond to Lady 
 Carrie's cordiality. Seeing her, brought back the remembrance 
 of what Mossy had told him in the train. 
 
 383
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "The Dowager is here, too, isn't she? I hope she has given 
 up that absurd orphanage of hers. Well, all's well that ends 
 well. I suppose you are reconciled to them all, and on your 
 way to Ranmore. And you've never congratulated me, although 
 I'm congratulating you. I knew it would all come right if she 
 took herself out of the way. Mossy tells me you've no idea 
 where she is . . . " 
 
 She took another sip at her claret, never noting how pale 
 Berry's lips had gone. 
 
 "It's nothing you've got to congratulate me upon," he said. 
 Could he have heard what she said aright? 
 
 "Nothing! That's good. Why, you were always longing 
 for your aunt and cousin to forgive you, and now, here you are, 
 in the bosom of your family. I knew exactly what was wrong. 
 The day I went to see your wife, before Ascot, you know, I 
 told her she had only got to make herself scarce ..." 
 
 The Dowager had come up, and seemed to be listening. 
 Lady Carrie gave her an affable nod, and went on. 
 
 "I told her they wouldn't have her at any price. I explained 
 to her that she was standing in your way." 
 
 Deny had gone pale, now he got red, and his breath came 
 quickly. He said, although his words came with difficulty: 
 
 "You, you told her that?" 
 
 "That, and a few things more," Carrie went on, coolly. 
 "It was time something was done, you know. You were all at 
 a deadlock. She took it very well. ... I said she had only 
 got to remove the chain, and give you head room. ..." 
 
 "Set you up, Carrie Carthew, set you up! And what had 
 you to be doing with Derry's wife, or Deny, either? You tell 
 me that. You, that's Wickford's daughter, and him the greatest 
 blackguard in the three counties!" The Dowager's voice was 
 shrill, and already there were others listening. 
 
 Lady Carrie paled. 
 
 "Has she gone out of her mind? Is she mad? What does 
 she mean? Let's get away," she said to Deny. 
 
 "Was it you that drove my Rosaleen from me!" Derry 
 stammered, making no move. 
 
 384
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "She would do that, she would," the Dowager went on, never 
 heeding her growing audience, or that the Duchess herself, seeing 
 something amiss, was hurrying over to them. 
 
 "Isn't it time we started?" Lady Carrie said to her nervously, 
 hastily putting down her glass. 
 
 "A bad and cruel woman you are, Carrie Carthew, and a 
 bad child you were, like your father before you. . . . What 
 did you say to her? What dared you say to Derry's wife?" 
 
 "My dear Lady Ranmore, pray don't make a scene. Deny 
 and I were great friends. I knew he was longing for his own 
 people. ... I really forget exactly what I said. Old mad- 
 woman!" she murmured; but it was impossible to get away. 
 
 "Up in Dublin I've heard how you used, and misused, Harry 
 Carthew; that he, who had been a sober man until his fortieth 
 year, was a drunkard before he had been married to you two 
 years; that he, who had been a saving and a solvent man, died 
 a bankrupt, with his good name in the dust. Many a time I 've 
 talked to Terence about you, and about your father. ..." 
 
 "Mother! mother, dear. ..." The Duchess interposed, 
 although she had no liking for Lady Carthew. She tried to 
 draw her mother away, she had not realized what the scene was 
 about; only that there was a scene and the time inappropriate. 
 It was Deny now who startled her, for his eyes were bloodshot, 
 and his voice hoarse. 
 
 "Margaret, it was she who told Rosaleen she was standing 
 in my way, chaining me up." 
 
 "Another time, dear, another time!" But she could not still 
 her mother's voice. 
 
 "Haven't I known you since you've been a girl, Carrie Car- 
 thew, always mischief-making, with that smooth tongue of 
 yours ? Haven 't I wondered they tolerated you in this county, 
 you that's caused more women's tears wantonly, more heart- 
 aches, dissensions, and disunions, than if you had been the 
 Yellow Peril they name you! Didn't Terence tell me he wished 
 he 'd ne Ver seen you ? Now it 's Derry you 've made the unhappy 
 man he is to-day. What was it you told his wife ?" 
 
 Then all at once her voice seemed to waver, and her virulence. 
 
 385
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 She looked from Carrie to her daughter, and then at Deny. 
 She seemed to have forgotten suddenly what she was saying, 
 to have grown uncertain and wavering. . . . 
 
 "I wanted to speak to Berry's wife meself, she isn't here, is 
 she ? . . . What was it I wanted to ask her ? About Terence 
 ... I can't remember . . . Berry's wife ... is Berry's 
 wife here?" A flush came over the old face and a film before 
 her eyes. Her voice slowed, and stopped, like a clock that has 
 run down. The Buchess's arm was about her, or she would 
 have fallen. 
 
 "She hit me on the head! Someone hit me on the head!" 
 The words came thickly, incoherently, as she slid through her 
 daughter's arms. 
 
 Now all was confusion. 
 
 "It's a stroke." 
 
 "Apoplexy." 
 
 "Of course she did not know what she was talking about." 
 
 "She ought not to have been allowed to excite herself." 
 
 " Get a doctor, someone, quick ! Can 't someone get a doctor ?" 
 
 "Open all the windows!" 
 
 "Give her brandy." 
 
 "Put a pillow under her head." 
 
 Lord Brampton and Berry carried Lady Ranmore upstairs. 
 There were nurses in the house, who knew better than old Biddy 
 how to undress her gently, and lay her in her bed. Everything 
 was done quickly and quietly, once they realized what had 
 occurred. 
 
 Lady Ranmore had had a stroke of paralysis. But apparently 
 it was very slight. As soon as it was seen that she was already 
 recovering consciousness the Buchess expressed her wish that 
 the hunt should proceed. 
 
 Bownstairs, people were hurrying out of the house as quickly 
 as possible. Lady Carrie was explaining what had happened, 
 explaining it in her own way, but people looked at her coldly, 
 or wonderingly. More had been heard, more had been under- 
 stood, or misunderstood, than she could explain away. There 
 had been ugly stories of Lady Carrie before this. Berry Ran- 
 
 386
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 more was popular, and many people knew that his wife had 
 left him. Now it was all at once in the air that Lady Carrie 
 was responsible. 
 
 It would be spoken of everywhere, and it would have a far- 
 reaching effect. Lady Carrie would never again be accepted 
 at her own valuation. The half-heard words would be repeated, 
 and would stand for justice; there was so much in them that was 
 true. The weal of the Dowager's words across Lady Carrie's 
 reputation was worse than the weal of a hunting-crop would 
 have been across her face. Rosaleen, had she but known it, 
 had her vengeance in that hour. 
 
 Lady Carrie put a bold face on it, as she rode with the hounds 
 that day, but she did not underrate what had occurred. She 
 even decided, before the hounds had found, and they had really 
 got going, that she must rearrange the scheme for her wedding. 
 No chance now for that picturesque hunt-wedding she had 
 planned, and of which she had already spoken to Cyrus. She 
 must be married in London. In those first quick ten minutes, 
 over Hallam, and then in the Gilkes fields, pressing on the 
 hounds, without a break, and without a stop, she had made up 
 her mind to sell her house here, and go for a time to the States, 
 as Cyrus had suggested. 
 
 Lady Ranmore recovered consciousness completely before 
 the evening. She had some loss of power in her right hand, 
 and her mind worked slowly, but that it did work there was no 
 doubt, because she asked where she was, and what had happened 
 to her. She thought she had been struck on the head. It was 
 a small blood-vessel in her brain that had given way, and all 
 the symptoms pointed to a recovery. Her health would always 
 be precarious, of course, but the probabilities were that from 
 this first attack she would recover completely. Bromides and 
 quiet were prescribed, nature being allowed to do its healing 
 work; and the result was as had been predicted. 
 
 At the end of a week she remembered things that had happened 
 before her seizure. Her speech was a little affected, but it was 
 evident that her mind was working, and, to Margaret's aston- 
 ishment, she asked her, quite as if it were an ordinary question, 
 
 387
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 if Derry's wife were in the house. At the end of a fortnight 
 she was sitting in her easy-chair by the window, complaining 
 of nothing but the nurse, and the visits of the doctor. She said 
 she was quite well. It was still a little difficult to know how 
 much she knew. Margaret began to suspect it was more than 
 she talked about. It was obvious, for instance, that she liked 
 the child brought in to her night and morning. Presently the 
 Duchess realized that her mother sat up in her easy-chair by 
 the window just so long as he played in the garden, and she 
 could follow the little figure flitting about in the distance. 
 After that she arranged he should be often in front of the house, 
 in spite of Thompson and the flower-beds. 
 
 The doctors said Lady Ranmore was making a wonderful 
 recovery, wonderful. The power was coming back to her arm, 
 and her speech clearing daily. 
 
 "Where is it that Deny has been seeking his wife?" she 
 asked, abruptly, one day when the Duchess was sitting with 
 her. The question was quite unexpected, the subject had been 
 naturally avoided, orders having been issued the patient was 
 not to be in any way excited. The Duchess hesitated, but the 
 question was repeated. It was evident she had been brooding 
 upon it, and therefore it seemed wise to give her the information 
 she asked. 
 
 She heard of everything that had been done, from the dra- 
 matic touring companies, to the private detectives. 
 
 "And has he tried the Convent of the Sacred Heart, where 
 I put her to school ?" 
 
 Derry had come in while they were talking, and now stood 
 behind the easy-chair, listening, with his heart beating in his 
 ears when he found what they were discussing. 
 
 "The fool that I am! the fool! I never thought of it." 
 
 "He has not been there? Nor to the farm in Tralee, to her 
 aunt, O 'Daly's sister, the farm from which Dan Maguire was 
 evicted. ..." 
 
 Derry had never even heard of the farm in Tralee. It was 
 new hope that was beating up from his heart. 
 
 "And if he hasn't tried the farm, nor the convent, has he 
 
 388
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 been over to Ireland, and seen Father Prout, who was the con- 
 fessor at the convent? Rosaleen was a Protestant born, and 
 she kept her religion, as I promised her mother on her death-bed 
 that she should, but she would have known where to go for 
 kindness." 
 
 Derry's heart was leaping; it was as if the sun was dazzling 
 before his eyes. He had never thought of the convent, he had 
 never heard of the aunt, Father Prout was a new name to him. 
 It was England they had been searching, from London to the 
 Land's End. 
 
 "I never thought of her going back to Ireland, without me 
 by her side, me that brought her over . . . and putting the 
 water between her, and me, and the boy!" he exclaimed inco- 
 herently. But now he felt he had been blind and dull, now he 
 was mad to be off. He would find her, he would send no one, 
 but go himself. The voice of the invalid in the easy-chair was 
 as the voice of an oracle to him. 
 
 He would go over to Ireland that very night; soft, gracious 
 Ireland that was guarding her for him. He'd never leave it 
 again, but with her by his side. He felt like the Chinese prisoner 
 must have felt, who, after languishing for many years behind 
 the iron doors, suddenly found they had never been barred, and 
 all the time he had been free to turn the handle, and walk out. 
 It was Ireland he ought to have been searching, while Mossy 
 had been investigating touring companies in England, America, 
 and the colonies. Mossy Leon never thought but that a woman 
 who left her husband and had her living to earn, a woman as 
 beautiful as Rosaleen Ranmore, for instance, would be found 
 as an aspirant for stage honors. All his fears had been lest she 
 should have fallen into bad hands, among agents, or derelict 
 entrepreneurs. But Derry knew, all at once, that he had been 
 mad to listen to him. Of course, she had gone back to the dear 
 country. To-night he would follow her, with never a doubt 
 but that he would find her.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 DERRY sped upon his quest with fresh hope, and fresh 
 life. Never had he longed more acutely for his wife, 
 never it seemed had he such need of her. He went 
 first to the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Brandon. The 
 convent lay on a rising slope; it was built of gray stone, square 
 and solid, high above Kinsale Harbor, surrounded by rich 
 pasture-land, set in the generous green of its wide gardens. To- 
 day when Derry drove up in hot haste, there were girl-children 
 playing about the lawn in their dark uniform dresses, as Rosaleen, 
 in her day, must have played, flitting among the trees. He saw 
 them here in couples with arms entwined, and there in groups; 
 now a solitary figure detached from the others. His heart 
 went out to them all, for it was among such as these that his 
 Rosaleen had grown up. He pictured them all as something 
 of what she had been and was, gracious girl-children, growing 
 to beautiful womanhood, helpful and loyal and loving. All 
 this she had been to him, his dark Rosaleen. He never dreamed 
 of disappointment. She was surely here with the Mother 
 Superior. How his heart leapt! 
 
 Mother Superior, interviewed in that stiff oak parlor, with 
 its ordered chairs in a row, its table without a cloth, and for only 
 ornament the crucifix over the mantlepiece, showed angular in 
 her long black robes and white coif, with the cross hanging on 
 the brown rosary. It seemed she had only been appointed a 
 few short weeks. She had no memory of one Rosaleen O 'Daly, 
 nor knowledge of Rosaleen Ranmore. She had no human inter- 
 est in his errand, nor did she show commiseration for the bitter 
 look of disappointment and misery that clouded over his face. 
 She was set apart for the service of the Church, she had no other 
 service or sympathy to give. As for Father Prout, he, she 
 
 390
 
 believed, was in Rome. Father Maguire was now the confessor 
 to the convent. She was in haste for Derry to leave, it was 
 time for matins. 
 
 Father Maguire was portly, his tonsure had spread, until 
 now only a little scant stubble of gray hair lay between it and 
 the creases of fat at the back of the neck, between it and the 
 benevolent forehead. He did not know who this gentleman 
 was that come hot-foot to his house from the convent; but he 
 saw that he was tired and eager, although prepared now for 
 disappointment, and unhappy. 
 
 Father Maguire was standing at his garden gate when Derry 
 came up. He would not hear nor answer any questions, until 
 he had led the way into the parlor. Then his guest must have 
 wine and cake, or a glass of milk, after his drive; but, when 
 Father Maguire heard Derry 's story, or an outline of it, he was 
 full of comforting words. 
 
 Derry said that he was searching for his wife, who had left 
 him under a misapprehension, and who, he thought might 
 perhaps have sought shelter under the roof that had nurtured 
 her childhood. Father Maguire was sure she had not written 
 to Father Prout, all Father Prout 's letters came here first, and 
 were forwarded by him, or kept, as their contents suggested. 
 For Father Maguire was here temporarily, holding his office 
 only as trustee for Father Prout. He knew positively there had 
 been no letter, and no visit, but Lord Ranmore for now he 
 knew his visitor's name must not be disheartened by that, 
 for she was sure to be found soon, and quite safe. Derry had 
 had a wild thought, when he heard Father Prout was in Rome, 
 of going over there and wresting information from him. The 
 idea died in its birth. 
 
 Now it was only the farm at Tralee that lay between him and 
 despair. He did not want to eat or drink or rest, he wanted 
 only to get to Tralee. 
 
 Father Maguire made inquiries about trains and connections, 
 but persuaded him to lie in his house that night, since he could 
 neither walk nor fly, and there were no trains that left until 
 to-morrow. There is no hospitality like the Irish hospitality. 
 
 391
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Father Maguire was delighted to have a guest, and the particular 
 O 'Toole that waited upon them, an ancient widow woman, who 
 had her husband's pedigree at her gnarled old fingers' ends, 
 was as good a cook as is to be found in the south of Ireland, 
 although that may not be saying very much. 
 
 Deny was disheartened and tired, and eager to be seeking 
 further, although now he was depressed with misgiving, and no 
 longer was sure that on the morrow he would hold Rosaleen in 
 his arms, as the priest had predicted. Meanwhile, he was fed 
 with bacon and potatoes, and cauliflower that came out of the 
 garden and was just ripe for cutting; also biscuits, cheese and 
 radishes. Later on, there was a glass of hot whisky and water, 
 mixed by Father Maguire himself, to help Derry to sleep. All 
 the time there had been kindly, comforting talk either addressed 
 to him, or between his host and the relict of the four hundred 
 and seventieth O 'Toole, "in direct descent, mind you," who 
 discussed the position, and who were full of optimism. "Where 
 should she have gone but to the farm; he would find her there 
 for sure on the morrow, and wouldn't her heart leap to see 
 him! ..." 
 
 Father Maguire had a sense of humor, and drew his house- 
 keeper out to amuse his guest. It was a king her departed 
 husband would have been in his own rights, this last of the 
 O 'Tooles, if the murdering Saxons, and the rebellion, and a few 
 other things, had not intervened. Derry tried to repay all that 
 was being done for him by sympathizing with the throneless 
 O 'Toole, and answering the twinkle in Father Maguire 's eye; but 
 really he was only thinking how early he could get away. 
 
 He was up betimes the next morning, but not before his host. 
 He heard that the outside car had been ordered, and would be 
 round in no time at all. He was told that the train would be 
 waiting for him at Dunmanway, and from Dunmanway he'd 
 get easily to Bantry. Then it was but a step, surely, from 
 Bantry to Killarney; and from Killarney to Tralee he could 
 travel in half a day. 
 
 There was breakfast ready for him before he went, and a 
 basket with sandwiches and cake was thrust into his hands at the 
 
 392
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 last moment. There was the heartfelt "God-speed" from the 
 priest, and a wish, from both of them, that his journey would 
 be successful. Father Maguire asked a blessing on his journey, 
 and the widow of the O 'Toole echoed it. Being an Irishman 
 himself, Deny knew better than to offer them anything for their 
 hospitality save thanks, and a wring of the hand for the priest; 
 but they had lightened his wearisome journey with their kind- 
 ness. Again he pictured himself coming up with Rosaleen at 
 the journey's end. 
 
 "Journeys end in lovers' meeting." This snatch of quota- 
 tion, heard he knew not where, came back to him, and lilted 
 in his brain, hopefully, while he was in the slow train between 
 D unman way and Bantry. 
 
 At Bantry he found there were no trains at all to Tralee. 
 
 He was offered a passage in a boat, which unfortunately was 
 bound for somewhere quite different. Outside cars were 
 pressed upon him, with spavined horses, and eager drivers. He 
 was persuaded to get into slow local trains that led nowhere, 
 hearing always too late that by some other way or route he could 
 have saved time and fatigue. He was being constantly mis- 
 directed, and always encouraged; everyone seemed to want to 
 detain him with desultory talk. The statement that it was 
 "but a step" led him from one fatigue to another. He was 
 nearly two days getting from Bandon to Tralee. Afterward he 
 found it could have been accomplished in a few hours. 
 
 And when he got to Tralee, it was only to hear that Widow 
 O 'Brian's farm, she that was O 'Daly's sister, was not at Tralee 
 at all, but at Listowel; and strongly they advised him not to go 
 there. For she and her niece that was staying with her were 
 surely being boycotted. Widow O 'Brian's farm was, rightly 
 speaking, Dan Maguire 's farm. 
 
 Deny had hard work to get away from the inn at Tralee 
 without hearing a complete history of the feud between Dan 
 Maguire and Widow O 'Brian. It was all about a bit of land 
 that did not amount to half a dozen Irish acres. It had led the 
 two belligerents, and their respective sympathizers into unheard 
 of raids and reprisals. The feud between Dan Maguire and 
 
 393
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Widow O 'Brian was the topic of the whole country-side, but 
 now things were getting serious. For Dan's rick had been 
 fired, and there was talk of cattle-maimers, and one of the 
 widow's men had been shot at from behind a hedge. All 
 Tralee congregated in the public-house to tell him about the 
 feud and the farm, once the news got about that there was a 
 gentleman inquiring. 
 
 But the only word of it Deny heeded was that the widow had 
 a niece staying with her. 
 
 Widow O 'Brian 's farm was as little like an English homestead 
 as the fair domain of Dunstans was like the wild disorder, and 
 picturesque ruin, of Castle Ranmore. Deny saw broken 
 hedges, and a field that seemed to be bearing only a fine crop of 
 stones. It was a cloudy November day, murky and lowering. 
 Turkeys and scraggy fowls, with scraggier, scuttling chickens, 
 made the foreground of what might have been a cattle-pen, but 
 turned out to be a mean stone house, standing too high for its 
 width, although of only two floors. The front was as flat as an 
 Italian house in poor quarters, without any ornament at all 
 of portico or veranda. There were weeds, or cabbages, about 
 the front door, and lines with clothes hanging out to dry. Some- 
 where in the immediate vicinity there must have been pigs, 
 there was a muck-heap close against the side of the house, its 
 aroma reaching him where he stood. Was this where she had 
 sheltered ? 
 
 Rosaleen saw him coming a mile away, it seemed. Who 
 else was there who would drive up like that, and get down so 
 quickly, and shout so lustily ? Jim and John O 'Moro, and the 
 boys, and all of them, threw down what they were doing, and 
 ran to see what the bother was about, expecting Dan Maguire, 
 with a fine skirmish on the way. Rosaleen had been working in 
 the field in her scant cotton dress, with the big, flapping bonnet, 
 cotton, too, that protected her head, and covered her white face. 
 Deny had not seen her, for all his anxious, roving eyes; but she 
 had seen him. He had come in pursuit of her. How her 
 heart stopped beating, and then went racing! 
 
 At first she was for running away and hiding, then she was 
 
 394
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 for running forward, and now for standing still. Her legs 
 wouldn't carry her, and she could neither run nor stand. It 
 seemed no time at all since she had first seen his figure in the 
 distance, and her heart had leapt, and stopped beating, and 
 started again at racing speed, yet here he was, already out here 
 in the field. For a moment she neither saw nor heard anything: 
 "And it's yourself!" she thought she heard him say. "Is it 
 yourself? Oh, God!" 
 
 She had not thought there was so much happiness in the 
 world as to stand here, with his arms about her, and know that 
 his heart was beating as fast as hers, here against her own. 
 It wasn't November at all, and no rain was beginning to come 
 down. It must be spring, with the birds singing, she heard 
 them; it wasn't anything else at all she heard. 
 
 Neither Deny nor she heeded the gaping, curious little crowd 
 that gathered, open-eyed and wondering, about them where 
 they stood, and presently began to throw sentences to each 
 other, and exclamations. But the Irish peasant has an extraor- 
 dinary tact; the people seemed to melt away, to dissolve in the 
 rain and mist which Rosaleen never saw at all, but which was 
 there all the time. 
 
 "How did you think of finding me here?" 
 
 "How could you leave me?" 
 
 But feeling came too quick for query, it was hot in Derry's 
 lips, and in the arms he was holding round her, it was deep in 
 Rosaleen's eyes, and at last he could read what was in them. 
 
 "How could you do it?" 
 
 "But I was between you and Ranmore." 
 
 "If it was between me and Paradise you'd stood, wouldn't 
 I have given up Paradise?" 
 
 And she had never known that he cared for her, only that 
 he had married her out of pity! Now she let happiness surge 
 over her like a warm wind, scented with flowers, a wind that 
 excited her pulses, flushed her eyes and cheeks, took away her 
 breath, intoxicated her. 
 
 "It's yourself that was caring for me all the time?" 
 
 "But what have you been thinking?" 
 
 395
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "I thought ..." 
 
 And then he caught her to him again, and she was too close 
 for thinking. 
 
 The oblivion to their surroundings lasted a long time, but 
 they found themselves in the shanty presently: the cottage was 
 little but that, and the smell of the pigs pursued them. 
 
 Then he did not wait at all, he was quite beyond talk, and 
 he wanted no explanations. With one hand he pulled at the 
 string of her bonnet, until it fell back behind her hair, with the 
 other he held her face up, and looked again and again into her 
 eyes, until they fell beneath his, and she blushed and blushed. 
 Then he laid his lips upon hers, and both his arms around her 
 and kissed and kissed. 
 
 What talk need there be between them, now he had got her 
 for himself again? He questioned her, and never listened to 
 the answer. It wasn't Lady Carrie's name he wanted upon 
 her lips, but his own. She stammered out something of what 
 Lady Carrie had said, but words were never an easy medium 
 for Rosaleen. 
 
 "I'll never let go of you," he said. "You'll never be out of 
 the reach of my arm again. It's not fit to be trusted you are.!' 
 He laid his lips on her hair. "And how I've hungered for you! 
 And you say you never knew that I cared! And how is it then 
 that I've never told you? Don't talk, it's your lips on me own 
 I'm wanting, I can't believe it's true yet, that I've found you 
 and that you're here in my arms." 
 
 He whispered into her ear that he did not want to know why 
 she had left him, he only wanted to stand here holding her 
 against him. He would never let her go again. Another long, 
 long kiss he must have, on her lips this time. What were words 
 between them? 
 
 This state of affairs lasted until Rosaleen's aunt, Mrs. O'Brian, 
 came home, full of exclamation and surprise, but indomitable 
 hospitality. 
 
 "An' hasn't she offered you so much as a cup of tea, or the 
 taste of the pot? To think of it! And come all the way from 
 Tralee to find her!" 
 
 396
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 She was very flustered, and full of the "paper" she had got 
 against Dan Maguire, and all that had happened. But that her 
 niece's husband had had neither bite nor sup in her house was 
 the immediate thing that mattered. Not because he was Lord 
 Ranmore; it would have been the same if he'd been John 
 Moro, or Dennis O'Flanagan. She busied herself over the 
 peat-fire, talking and exclaiming all the time. 
 
 Deny was all haste to carry his newly found wife off with 
 him, but he had to wait for the meal that was being prepared, 
 which he shared, by the way, with the driver of the outside 
 car, whom Mrs. O'Brian "couldn't be thinking to lave outside 
 there with nothing in his stummick but the rain," that now 
 was coming down heavily. During the meal he heard first 
 how Rosaleen had come to the farm, and the surprise it had 
 been. 
 
 "I hadn't seen her since she was a baby, since me poor 
 brother was killed, and I went all the way to Dunmanway only 
 to hear that her ladyship was taking care of the child, bringing 
 her up to be a lady, and a companion to herself when she was 
 old enough." 
 
 Something was said about the convent, and the surprise it 
 was that her ladyship had carried out her promise that Rosaleen 
 should remain a Protestant. There was a whole, long, running 
 story of how the O'Dalys came to be Protestants, and about 
 Rosaleen's English mother. Derry scarcely listened; he was 
 watching Rosaleen, thinking how beautiful she was, and reading 
 now quite easily that it was love of himself that filled her eyes 
 and heart. 
 
 That her niece had made a grand marriage, and then come 
 back to the farm at Tralee, and asked to be taken in, seemed 
 to have made very little impression on Mrs. O'Brian. Wasn't 
 she her own brother's child? Rosaleen had her quiet word of 
 gratitude for the home that had been given her without question, 
 but Mrs. O'Brian brushed that aside. She talked endlessly 
 about herself and Dan Maguire, and it was to that the man 
 who drove the outside car wanted to listen. He would go back 
 to Tralee primed with the very latest intelligence. 
 26 397
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Deny controlled his impatience as well as he was able; but 
 all he wanted to do was to get back quickly to the town, to 
 send a telegram to Dunstans, and be alone with his wife. 
 
 They were too late for trains at Tralee, and they lay that 
 night at the inn, where the innkeeper, and the boots, the osier 
 and the shock-headed boy, who was supposed to assist every- 
 body, but who was in everybody's way, took the deepest interest 
 in them, though not more interest than they displayed in the 
 Maguire-O'Brian feud. It was the one comedy of the country- 
 side, all they had to amuse them. The rick-burning and the 
 cattle-maiming were really imported melodrama. 
 
 The innkeeper's wife wanted to tell the whole story over again 
 while she was serving them with supper, but it was Rosaleen's 
 story, and his own, Deny wanted to hear, and to tell, and he 
 rid himself of her volubility as soon as was possible. 
 
 It was long and sweet in the telling, lasting far through the 
 night, into the dawn of the morning. 
 
 "You thought it was out of pity I'd married you? It was 
 only the pity made me dare to ask it. I'd loved you from the 
 first moment my eyes fell upon you." 
 
 "And how could I know?" 
 
 "But who could be seeing you without loving you? Lie 
 dose." 
 
 " But it's me that's only a peasant. ..." 
 
 "And it's me that's only your lover. Put your heart against 
 my heart and your lips to my lips. ..." 
 
 "I was between you and Ranmore." 
 
 "And now you're between me and the world! You'll never 
 get away again. Lie closer. How came you not to know? 
 I thought I told you all the time. The sweet breath of you! 
 . . . don't stir. And how much is it you love me ?" 
 
 "Enough to leave you. It tore me heart out by the roots." 
 
 "You'll not be doubting again? You feel how close I'm 
 holding you." 
 
 "You have never loved anyone but me? Breathe it to me 
 in me mouth, it's that I'm thirsting to hear." 
 
 "I'd not know what love was, without you'd taught it me. 
 
 398
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 I'd spend my days in cold and shadow, thinking of you in the 
 sunshine. I'd kiss the place your feet have trod, many a time 
 I've kissed where you walked." 
 
 "And it was only of me you were thinking, when I've seen 
 you sad ?" 
 
 "Only of you. And that I wasn't worthy of you; I wasn't 
 fit." 
 
 " You're fit for a queen! Don't think to take your lips away 
 for a minute. It's husband and wife we are, thank God!"
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 THEY went as far as Killarney, and lingered there, honey- 
 mooning. Deny had to have his re-found wife to 
 himself for a while. It seemed that only now had they 
 completely found each other. Something had been missing 
 from the fullness of their lives together, some completion of 
 confidence or understanding. He had to realize how little 
 Terence had ever counted with her, save for what she had 
 suffered through him, and that from the first it was he, and he 
 only, who had held her heart. 
 
 He learned this during long mornings, when the gray mists 
 hung low against the mountains, whose blue tops lost themselves 
 in the darker skies. He learned it when the lake before them 
 lay mist-shrouded, and only the patter of the rain broke the 
 silence of the deserted grounds of the hotel. They felt they 
 were all in all to each other for evermore, when the shadows 
 were purple in the cold evenings that fell so quickly, and the 
 wind soughed through the stripped autumn trees about them. 
 Their feet sank in the sodden ground, deep among the fallen 
 leaves of the year's decaying. For they had caught Killarney 
 in its most sombre mood, and all the beauties of its scenery 
 were shrouded in the melancholy of weeping skies and waning 
 days. Rosaleen had ever a streak of melancholy in her, her 
 womanhood had been born in bitter travail; never could she 
 forget the manner of its birth 
 
 Unveiling her soul to her husband, that fearful and trembling 
 soul, she let him see that it had emerged from tribulation, and 
 was as a fitful light that came and went, swayed by his every 
 breath. It was he that had kept it alive. Now it would burn 
 steadily, and ever more brightly. In the dust Terence had 
 stamped her, and from the dust Deny had raised her. She 
 thought of this always, but Deny could teach her there was no 
 
 400
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 raising, for nothing essential had been trampled. The gray 
 days and nights closed softly around them, and ever the skies 
 wept, yet beyond the gray days was the sure promise of a rose- 
 lit dawn. Always amid the gray and the shadows, they felt 
 the sun would shine out. 
 
 They lingered in Killarney eight or ten days. Then the word 
 came for which they had waited, and they started for home. 
 The shabby family coach met them at the station, and they 
 turned under that carved stone gate, set so strangely at the 
 entrance to the park. They skirted the woods, on the left lay 
 the chapel, with the stone mausoleum beyond it. Now Castle 
 Ranmore itself lay before them, the great pile, with its turret 
 and towers half fallen in, and in ruins, with the scattered masonry 
 and the ivy overgrowing old walls. There were no roses, al- 
 though even in November the green of the grass that grew breast 
 high, where in England would have been ordered lawn, was 
 rich and vivid. If it was neglect that they read in wild gardens 
 and in the front of the new stables, where a water-pipe had 
 burst, and already green fungi had started to run along the 
 damp, it was a picturesque and beautiful neglect. 
 
 "Isn't the green of it dazzling! isn't it beautiful it's looking 
 in the sunset! Oh! my Rosaleen, to be bringing you home with 
 me here !" 
 
 Berry's heart was so full, some of it came spontaneously 
 through his lips. 
 
 "They'll be here, Deny, I'm I'm afraid." 
 
 "Hold tight to me hand, don't be afraid of anything. But 
 it's Ranmore we've come to?" 
 
 "What will they say to me?" 
 
 "Me aunt's but an invalid, and it's Margaret will be welcom- 
 ing you; there's nothing to fear. Shall I tell him to stop? Will 
 we be walking up to the house ? You mind the woods . . . ?" 
 
 "Yes, let us get out, let us walk." 
 
 They walked quickly. The time had been, the time would 
 come again, when they would love to linger. But Deny was 
 impatient to be in the house, and it seemed to Rosaleen that her 
 ordeal was all to come. 
 
 401
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 They were nearly there, the carriage had preceded them, 
 and was standing at the door, when she said, with white lips that 
 trembled a little: 
 
 "Deny! do they know?" 
 
 "Don't be speaking of it. Margaret knows." 
 
 "And his mother?" 
 
 "Knows nothing. Be still now! Don't I see them through 
 the trees?" 
 
 "Does she still think it was the saint he was, and the young 
 sun-god?" 
 
 "She's still thinking it." 
 
 "And what must I do? What will I say to her ... me 
 that waited on her. Derry ?" 
 
 Her courage gave way all at once, gave way completely. 
 She wasn't Lady Ranmore at all, she was only the poor girl to 
 whom they had been so good. A panic seized her, she said she 
 could not go on. He took her into the shelter of his arms, and 
 talked to her and persuaded her, and comforted her. He said 
 again and again it was only a girl she had been . . . and 
 wasn't she the heart of his life ? She let herself be comforted 
 presently, and went on with a little new courage, a little more 
 confidence; it wasn't much further they had to go. 
 
 "Derry, wouldn't it be to Sonny it would all be belonging, 
 and not us at all, if they knew?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 Terence's act had placed Terence's son outside all human 
 rights and relationships, it was Derry who had restored them to 
 him. Only as Derry's son could little Terence inherit his own, 
 Derry explained it as well as he was able. 
 
 "And it's you that has given it back to him!" 
 
 He had done his best; no man can do more. 
 
 The Dowager had been fatigued from the journey, and had 
 gone to her room. The Duchess was awaiting them on the 
 terrace. She called out to them as they came slowly in sight. 
 
 "You must hurry, or the tea will be getting cold. I told them 
 to wait with the cakes until they heard the carriage drive up; and 
 that was ten minutes ago! Deny, how well you're looking!" 
 
 402
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 She kissed Rosaleen; stooped, and kissed her quickly. "You've 
 done him good already; he has quite a color in his cheeks. 
 Rosaleen, after tea you must go up and see my mother. She's 
 been asking for you. And you will want to see the boy. Oh! 
 that's right; here he comes. I told Nurse to be on the watch. 
 Well, haven't I taken care of him for you ?" 
 
 The Duchess behaved as if nothing had happened, as if it 
 were all as simple and natural as possible; as if Rosaleen had 
 never waited upon the Dowager, nor run away after Terence 
 had died, and now come back to be Lady Ranmore; as if it were 
 all ordinary and natural. The color that had left Rosaleen's 
 lips came back to them. 
 
 "Oh! but it's beautiful he looks! And how he's grown! 
 Indeed, and indeed, it's the grand care you've taken of him ! " 
 she exclaimed. 
 
 Then came tea, with Sonny chattering; he had learned so 
 many new words and ways, he was on his best behavior, but 
 he seemed to be on wires all the time. Now here, now there, 
 darting about the room, and filling up any little awkwardness, 
 or pauses, in the talk, though the Duchess took care there 
 should be little pause, or awkwardness. It was she who sug- 
 gested that Rosaleen should carry Sonny off to the nursery, 
 and that Derry should see Mike, and Pat, and Peter McCreagh, 
 who were all waiting to welcome him. She told her which rooms 
 had been set aside for nurseries for Sonny. 
 
 "They are near my mother's; they are Terence's old rooms. 
 You'll make your own arrangements, of course, when you've 
 had time to look around you; but, for the present, he's in the 
 west wing, near my mother." 
 
 The tact with which she acknowledged it was Rosaleen who 
 was the hostess, and she the guest only, was inimitable. This 
 was the way to help her to fill her place here. The Duchess 
 knew Rosaleen must grow to fill it; she had all the qualities, 
 only, just for the moment, perhaps, a lack of self-confidence. 
 She had yet to face the Dowager, Terence's mother. And what 
 she should say to her, was the question that beat in her beating 
 heart. 
 
 403
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Up there, in the room she had shut against them all, and out- 
 side of which Biddy had keened the night they brought Terence 
 home, the Dowager waited. She had been very quiet, very 
 patient, but at the back of her patience there trembled an im- 
 mensity of overwhelming, overpowering restlessness. It was 
 Rosaleen she wanted; it was only Rosaleen who could tell her 
 what she wanted to know. 
 
 "I had thought to hear thy children 
 
 Laugh with thine own blue eyes, 
 But my sorrow's voice is silent 
 
 Where my life's love lies." 
 
 Was it? Was it? Was it? 
 
 She had been so quiet, so patient, trying to get strong, ques- 
 tioning no one, hardly speaking, except to ask if Rosaleen were 
 found, if Derry had come with his wife. She must know, she 
 must. 
 
 She had borne the long journey from Dunstans to Ranmore 
 quite well. The Duchess had discovered that her mother 
 would keep quiet, taking her nourishment, obeying directions 
 of nurse and doctor, if only Sonny were in sight or hearing. 
 Therefore he shared their saloon with them in the train, was 
 allowed to run in and out of their cabin on the boat. And 
 here he had Terence's old rooms, where she could hear him 
 at play. 
 
 But it wasn't for little Terence she was listening now. She 
 had heard the carriage drive up ten minutes ago, a quarter of an 
 hour ago, half an hour ago. Her patience was all exhausted, 
 her quiet was all broken up. 
 
 "Biddy! Where are you, Biddy?" And old Biddy hurried 
 panting to her call. 
 
 'And haven't they come? Go and fetch her to me. Why 
 doesn't she come?" 
 
 "An' why must they be hurrying so? An' why don't you 
 sit still, and not be tiring yourself?" 
 
 But, before Biddy had time to answer question with question 
 
 404
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 in the true Irish way, Rosaleen was in the room, the same room 
 where, three years ago, she had knelt, and called out in her 
 anguish, and been scorned. It was the same room, but it was 
 not quite the same girl who knocked with quick nervousness, 
 stood a moment on the threshold, and then came swiftly over 
 to where old Lady Ranmore sat, and flung herself on her knees, 
 as she had flung herself that night. 
 
 The Dowager was in the easy-chair before the open window. 
 It was past five o'clock on a November evening, but the sunset 
 still lingered behind the mausoleum. It reddened that gray 
 stone cairn where Terence lay sleeping. When his mother 
 heard the quick, nervous knock, she sent Biddy away. Now 
 it was coming; now the truth was coming. Her trembling 
 limbs could not support her, and she had sunk into the easy- 
 chair. Yes, there was his tomb; there, in the dim, shrouded 
 distance, against the dying sunset. But here, here at her 
 knees, lay the truth. It had lain there before her, long ago, in 
 the dust, on the ground, and she had spurned it, turned it 
 away, rebuffed it. Now there was no rebuff; now her trembling 
 hands were laid on the girl's head. How cold it was in the 
 room: 
 
 " Cease crying now; cease crying. Tell me." 
 
 "I've come back ..." 
 
 " Cease crying now. It's his tell me it's his! I'm whisper- 
 ing to you no one can hear us. It's his?" 
 
 "What'll you be thinking of me?" 
 
 "It isn't of you I'm thinking at all. Tell me. It is his son, 
 my boy's son?" 
 
 "Yes." Her voice was so low, but the mother heard it, and 
 triumphed in hearing it. 
 
 "Terence's little son!" 
 
 "Terence's son." 
 
 "Now my God be praised! His own son! My son's son!" 
 
 Rosaleen's sobs quieted down gradually; but still she knelt 
 at the Dowager's knees. Now she felt the old hands trembling 
 on her hair, caressing her, and she heard the words, too, although 
 they were mumbled words, not very clear, coming slowly: 
 
 405
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 "In my old age to be a son to my old age! To me that 
 doubted His goodness. Mary, Mother of God, I thank you, 
 I didn't deserve it, didn't I doubt? And then I saw him, Ter- 
 ence himself, and the quick smile of him . . . come back to 
 me. My baby boy, with the sunny hair, and all the pretty 
 ways of him. Not dead at all, never dead. What had I been 
 thinking about?" 
 
 She had lapses of memory, not only that night when Rosaleen 
 knelt at her feet, with quieting sobs, and quieting heart, but 
 often in the after days. Presently the knowledge came to Rosa- 
 leen that her ordeal was over, and done with, and that, without 
 words, or any explanation that must cover her with shame, 
 or stain the memory that Deny had helped to keep white, 
 Terence's mother had accepted Terence's son. 
 
 Often, after that night, they had to humor her, and bear with 
 her. The broken blood-vessel in her brain leaked, and obscured 
 her judgment. It became difficult, later on, sometimes to 
 make her understand why they called Deny Lord Ranmore. 
 She never resented his being there. On the contrary, she came 
 to depend upon, and to consult him, and lean upon him, but 
 never as Ranmore's lord. The sturdy strength of middle age 
 the Duchess had hoped would come again to her was not hers; 
 but its passion came back. Again she wanted nothing but 
 that Ranmore should stand fair and clear for Ranmore's heir. 
 That she saw the heir in Terence's son, and not in Deny, mat- 
 tered little, while yet he was but a baby. For him the work- 
 men were recalled, and the pick of the miners echoed in the 
 valley. For him the rents were released, and the fishing-boats 
 sailed once more from out the harbor. For Sonny, the roof 
 that had fallen in was restored; tower and turret rising again 
 to be a landmark in the valley. 
 
 But before the end came, the time when it might have been 
 awkward and difficult for any of them to set before her, however 
 gently, that it was Deny, and not Sonny, to whom all the land 
 belonged, God spoke. He spoke abruptly, but who could 
 doubt it was His voice speaking, when the horses took fright 
 in the thunderstorm, and the fatal accident happened that swept 
 
 406
 
 LET THE ROOF FALL IN 
 
 Terence's son, and Terence's mother, into His own safe keeping, 
 with the secret still untold, and the title and estate still undivided ? 
 
 All that Terence's mother would have done for him, she did 
 for his son, that would have had neither name, nor father, had 
 not Deny fathered him. But, in the end, it was Deny, and 
 Derry's sons that profited, for that was God's way. 
 
 There are three of them already, worthy children of their 
 parents, sturdy and strong, black Ranmores all, Protestant 
 and fearless, with their wills in their own keeping, obscured 
 by no incense, directed from no confession-box. They are 
 loyal to their King, and faithful to their faith; spreading peace 
 upon their land, singing "God save Ireland" with a single 
 heart. 
 
 (l) 
 
 THE END
 
 NOVELS BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS 
 
 "The most popular writer in the cotmfry. "NEW YORK WORLD. 
 
 Ailsa Paige. Bound in green cloth with gold title. Eight 
 full-page illustrations by F. Vaux Wilson and wrapper 
 in colors and gold. $1.50. 
 
 This book contains not only the striking pictures of fashionable life for 
 which Mr. Chambers is famous, introducing a hero as strong and as inter- 
 esting as Malcourt in "The Firing Line" and a heroine as fascinating as 
 Sylvia Landis in "The Fighting Chance," but with these personalities is fused 
 a theme of noblest patriotism, animating the vivid, graphic pictures of the 
 preparations for and the grim fighting in our Civil War. Throughout the 
 whole story, the influence of a strong, passionate, uplifting love is shown para- 
 mount in the lives of a wondrous woman and a vigorous man. 
 
 The Danger Mark. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 This new society novel presents another side of the wonderful art of 
 Mr. Chambers. The background is woven of the same delightful, casual, 
 happy-go-lucky people, moving among the same sort of fascinating scenes and 
 incidents to which the former novels owe much of their popularity. The 
 theme is in many respects the most important Mr. Chambers has yet handled. 
 
 The Firing Line. Illustrated. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 This is unquestionably the best novel Mr. Chambers has ever written. 
 The scenes are laid in Palm Beach, Florida ; New York, and the Adirondacks, 
 and the story presents the accomplishment of a great novel which was promised 
 by the author's preliminary trials in "The Fighting Chance" and "The 
 Younger Set." 
 
 The Younger Set. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " The Younger Set " is a novel of the swirl of wealthy New York society. 
 The hero, forced out of the army by domestic troubles, returns to New York 
 homeless and idle. He finds a beautiful girl who promises ideal happiness. 
 But new complications intervene and are described with what the New York 
 Sun calls Mr. Chambers' "amazing knack of narrative." 
 
 The Fighting Chance. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 One of the most brilliant pictures of wealthy American society ever painted; 
 one of the most interesting and appealing stories ever written ; one of the 
 most widely read of all American novels. The novel that brought Mr. Cham- 
 bers to the front rank. 
 
 "After ' The House of Mirth ' a New York society novel has to be very 
 good not to suffer fearfully by comparison. ' The Fighting Chance ' is very 
 good and it does not suffer." Cleveland Plain Dealer. 
 
 " There is no more adorable person in recent fiction than Sylvia Landis." 
 
 New York livening Sun. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK
 
 NOVELS BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS 
 
 " The most popular <wrfter in the country." NEW YORK WORLD. 
 
 The Green Mouse. Illustrated in Colors by Edmund 
 Frederick. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 A novel founded on a most whimsically entertaining notion of a wireless 
 machine that catches and brings into contact the psychic waves of persons 
 of opposite sex. 
 
 Special Messenger. Illustrated, Colored Inlay on Cover. 
 Cloth, $1.50. 
 The romantic love story of a woman spy in the Civil War. 
 
 lole. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.25. 
 
 " Think of eight pretty girls in pink silk pajamas and sunbonnets, 
 brought up in innocence in a scientific Eden, with a ' House Beautiful ' in 
 the background, and a poetical father in the foreground. Think again of 
 those rose-petalled creations turned loose upon New York society and then 
 enjoy the fun of it all in ' lole.' " Boston Herald. 
 
 Some Ladies in Haste. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 Mr. Chambers has written most delightfully, and in his charming satire 
 depicts the plight of five society girls and five clubmen. It is by far his best 
 work in the lighter vein. 
 
 The Tracer of Lost Persons. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 The captivating account of the strangely absorbing adventures of a 
 "matrimonial sleuth," "a deputy of Cupid." 
 
 "Compared with him Sherlock Holmes is clumsy and without human 
 emotions." Chicago Inter-Ocean. 
 
 The Tree of Heaven. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 If you looked squarely into a mirror and saw your PROFILE instead 
 of your full face; if you suddenly found yourself %5 miles away from yourself, 
 you would be in one of the tantalising situations that give fascination to this 
 charming book. 
 
 " Robert W. Chambers has brought his great charm of story telling to 
 bear in ' The Tree of Heaven,' wherein he treats of the occult and mysticism 
 of the East. His vivid descriptions make his scenes strangely real, and his 
 argument is convincing, almost against the will." Milwaukee Sentinel. 
 
 The Reckoning. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 A story of northern New York during the last fierce fights between 
 Tories and Revolutionaries and the Iroquois Indians, by which tribe the hero 
 had been adopted. 
 
 "It would be but an unresponsive American that would not thrill to 
 such relations." New York Times. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK 
 
 ~466
 
 BOOKS BY DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS 
 
 The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig 
 
 The story of a strong, virile personality, set among the frothy super- 
 ficialities of society life in Washington: Joshua Craig is a young lawyer who 
 is striving to make a name for himself in national politics. He is big, rough, 
 and crude, repelling and yet compelling. He fights quite as hard to gain the 
 love of a lady as he does to attain his coveted political goal. 
 
 Illustrated by A. B. Wenzell. J2mo, clot A, <$/.^o 
 
 Old Wives for New 
 
 A daring title. The story is just as daring, but nevertheless it rings true. 
 It is a frank and faithful picture of married life as it exists to-day among cer- 
 tain classes in this country. It is the story of a young couple who loved as 
 others do, but whose love turns to indifference, and Mr. Phillips shows us why 
 their married life was a failure. 
 
 izmo, cloth, $1.50 
 
 The Second Generation 
 
 It is a double-decked romance, telling the love stories of a young man 
 and his sister, both reared in great extravagance and suddenly left without 
 means by their father, who, being a self-made man has come to feel that his 
 wealth has been a curse to his children, and would prove their ruination if left 
 to them. The young man and the young woman find life very hard sledding 
 for a time, but gain strength and courage and make a good fight for love, 
 happiness, and life. 
 
 Illustrated, i2mo, ornamental cover in colors inlaid, $1.30 
 
 Light-Fingered Gentry 
 
 In this story Mr. Phillips has chosen the inside workings of the great 
 insurance companies as his field of battle ; the salons of the great Fifth Avenue 
 mansions as the antechambers of his field of intrigue; and the two things 
 which every natural big man desires, love and success, as the goal of his lead- 
 ing character. 
 
 Illustrated, ornamental cloth, $1.30 
 
 The Worth of a Woman A Play 
 
 "It is a remarkable piece of work, showing keen, logical thought, a 
 daring rush to conclusions, a bold and sportsmanlike grip of an ugly problem. 
 I admire the pluck of this author." Alan Dale in the N. Y. American. 
 
 J2mo, cloth, $1.25 net 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK 
 
 444
 
 BOOKS BY DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS 
 
 The Husband's Story 
 
 I2mo, Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 A clean, straightforward novel, interesting from page to page, and ' 
 as a whole most interesting because Mr. Phillips has with great skill 
 written it so that the millionaire husband not only shows the character 
 of his wife but lays his own character before the reader as if uncon- 
 sciously. A faithfully true picture of the social climber in American 
 womanhood, the Passaic undertaker's daughter who climbs to Euro- 
 pean chateau life. The most cold-blooded and accurate presentation 
 of a certain type of money-making, hard-working commercial man. 
 And yet the man tells his own story. 
 
 The Hungry Heart 
 
 I2mo, Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " Mr. Phillips's book is at once an interesting piece of fiction and a 
 trenchant dissection of some of our most dearly loved self-deceptions. 
 And it is a work that can be read with profit one is almost inclined 
 to say that should be read by any who are old enough to be able, and 
 honest enough to dare, to seek the truest meanings of life by teaching 
 themselves to look life unblinkingly in the face." y. B. Kerfoot in 
 Everybody's Magazine. 
 
 "The most profound study of the emotions of men and women 
 attempted in latter-day fiction is found in 'The Hungry Heart.' It 
 should touch the sensibilities, the judgment and the emotions of every- 
 one who reads it." Philadelphia Record. 
 
 White Magic 
 
 Illustrated by A. B. Wenzell, Color Inlay by Harrison 
 Fisher on Cover. i2mo, Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 A wayward girl, heiress to a great fortune, falls deeply in love with 
 an artist of small means, who does not seem to reciprocate her feeling. 
 Her father intervenes. The girl, who, like her mother, has always been 
 accustomed to bow to her father's aggressive will, now defies him utterly 
 and leaves her home. The artist remains unaware of the havoc he has 
 created. He is friendly in a manner toward the girl and tr'es to act as 
 a sort of elder brother and counselor in her perplexities. The working 
 up and working out of this tangled situation is accomplished in i masterly 
 way, and with the intense and dramatic situations which readers have 
 learned to look for from Mr. Phillips. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK
 
 ill II [||| || | I I | | | || 
 
 A 000 131 514 2