“Afther me bein’ in prison an’ all!” he said to himself mournfully.  “I had a right to be givin’ up thinkin’ of her altogether.”

He left the cabin presently and climbed the hill, entering the ruins and seating himself on the great stone slab on one side of the banqueting-hall.  By-and-by, he would have to go to Monavoe to see his parents, but he would wait for a little while first; he shrank from the meeting with Roseen.  He intended to convey to her straightway his sense of the distance between them, and his determination to take no advantage of their former intimacy; but it was hard, and Mike, crushed and shaken by the trouble and anxiety of mind which he had recently undergone, suffering in every fibre from an unaccountable sense of desolation, felt that his heart failed him.

But all at once a light foot sounded on the stone steps behind him, and Roseen came quickly forward to the rocky recess.  Her face was pale, and there were tears in her eyes; her attire, by no means so magnificent as that which Michael had depicted to himself, was somewhat disordered; she had not even taken the trouble to assume a hat, and her curly hair was blown about her brow, so that she looked very like the little Roseen of old.

“Michael Clancy,” she cried, “what did I do to ye that ye wouldn’t come to see me?”

Mike rallied all his self-possession.

“Ye never done anything that was not kind, Miss Rorke,” he said, standing up and removing his hat, “and I am truly grateful.”

Roseen’s face quivered.  “Why are ye talkin’ to me that way, Mike?  I’m no more Miss Rorke to you now nor I have ever been.  Sure, ye are not angry,” she added piteously, “at me not goin’ to meet ye on the car?  I was afeard that every wan would be talkin’ an’ tormentin’ us.”

“Indeed, it wouldn’t have become you at all,” responded Mike, still standing, hat in hand, and speaking with a kind of aggressive humility, “and it ‘ud be far from me to be expectin’ such a thing.”

Roseen knit her brows and tapped her foot impatiently, the angry tears now standing on her cheeks.

“What is it ye are driving at at all?” she cried; “I can’t for the life of me make out what it is ye be up to.  It ’ud have become me well enough to go meet ye, if it wasn’t for the way people ‘ud be goin’ on.”

“Indeed, of coorse, ye’ll have to be mindin’ yourself,” agreed Mike, with cold politeness.  “People’s always ready enough to be gossipin’ and gabbin’ about any young lady.”

“Young lady, fiddlesticks!” cried Roseen.  “If ye go on that way I’ll take ye by the two shoulders an’ shake ye—­it’s all I can do now to keep me hands off o’ ye!  What in the name of goodness would ye be at?  I’m not a young lady no more nor ye are, I am just Roseen, the same as ever I was.  It’s you that’s turned nasty and contrairy.”

“Not at all!” replied Mike, still frostily.  “I’m only wishful to let ye understand that I know me place, miss, an’ would never think of being presumptious.”