Blind Love

It was nearly five o'clock when they reached a place at which a by-road

branched off, through a wood, from the highway which they had hitherto

followed. Mrs. Lewson found a seat on a felled tree. "We had better not

go any farther," she said.

Iris asked if there was any reason for this.

There was an excellent reason. A few yards farther on, the high road

had been diverted from the straight line (in the interest of a large

agricultural village), and was then directed again into its former

course. The by-road through the wood served as a short cut, for

horsemen and pedestrians, from one divergent point to the other. It was

next to a certainty that Arthur would return by the short cut. But if

accident or caprice led to his preferring the highway, it was clearly

necessary to wait for him within view of both the roads.

Too restless to submit to a state of passive expectation, Iris proposed

to follow the bridle path through the wood for a little way, and to

return if she failed to see anything of Arthur. "You are tired," she

said kindly to her companion: "pray don't move."

Mrs. Lewson looked needlessly uneasy: "You might lose yourself, Miss.

Mind you keep to the path!"

Iris followed the pleasant windings of the woodland track. In the hope

of meeting Arthur she considerably extended the length of her walk. The

white line of the high road, as it passed the farther end of the wood,

showed itself through the trees. She turned at once to rejoin Mrs.

Lewson.

On her way back she made a discovery. A ruin which she had not

previously noticed showed itself among the trees on her left hand. Her

curiosity was excited; she strayed aside to examine it more closely.

The crumbling walls, as she approached them, looked like the remains of

an ordinary dwelling-house. Age is essential to the picturesque effect

of decay: a modern ruin is an unnatural and depressing object--and here

the horrid thing was.

As she turned to retrace her steps to the road, a man walked out of the

inner space enclosed by all that was left of the dismantled house. A

cry of alarm escaped her. Was she the victim of destiny, or the sport

of chance? There was the wild lord whom she had vowed never to see

again: the master of her heart--perhaps the master of her fate!

Any other man would have been amazed to see her, and would have asked

how it had happened that the English lady presented herself to him in

an Irish wood. This man enjoyed the delight of seeing her, and accepted

it as a blessing that was not to be questioned. "My angel has dropped

from Heaven," he said. "May Heaven be praised!"