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Carmen had a feverish cold which Norah caught, and the little girls wanted their Mamma. Neither Lucy nor Miss Glennister sufficed at a time like this. Then Lucy went down with the cold which settled on her chest. No one knew exactly what Lucy’s age was, but suddenly she looked very old, almost as old as Aunt Ben. Katharine made her stay in bed and was impatient with her when she rebelled, the silly independent creature.
    Aunt Ben, too, was particularly demanding. Reluctant to begin the long dull afternoon of the old and enfeebled, she delayed her dear Katharine as long as possible, wanting last minute things done or some small problem discussed at length. It only needed Willie to come home with one of his attacks of gout, Katharine thought, and she would be virtually a prisoner. She was restless, frustrated, irritable with the servants, unable to eat or sleep.
    She was crazy. She was developing an obsession. It surely was not normal to see nothing but that pale face with the compelling eyes, to hear nothing but one voice.
    She must forget him. She must not see him again. She must tell Willie that Mr. Parnell was all the things people said of him, unmannerly, unsociable, ruthless, cold, and she preferred not to entertain him again.
    But the little girls recovered. Aunt Ben decided to detain poor Mr. Meredith instead of herself, and she was driving to London on a cool sunny afternoon.
    She had scarcely taken her seat in the Ladies’ Gallery before he was beside her. There was going to be a long dull debate which didn’t require his presence, he whispered. Would she care to come for a drive? He needed some fresh air before getting back for the more important business of the first reading of a Compensation for Disturbance Bill which was being introduced by Mr. Forster, the Chief Secretary for Ireland.
    She rose without a word. Her frustration was over. She had so much wanted to be alone with him and at last he had created the opportunity. She might have known that he would.
    Mr. Parnell told the cab driver to drive down the Embankment in the direction of Kew. At first he was full of the new Bill being proposed later that day. Forster, he said, was hated in Ireland as much as he hated the Irish. No good would come out of any Bill he proposed.
    “I abhor violence,” he said. “We must find more effective and more subtle ways to get what we want.”
    “What causes the violence?” Katharine asked.
    “Evictions, evictions, always evictions,” he said passionately. “You won’t travel down a road in any county without meeting a pathetic little group of outcasts, the baby in its mother’s arms, the older ones, and never a shoe among the lot, walking weary miles, their bits of belongings in the handcart. Nowhere to sleep that night, no bit of land of their own. They’re hungry for land, Mrs. O’Shea, just an acre, just ten square yards. But they’ve no rights to anything they till, and if the potato crop fails and they don’t pay their rent, out they go.”
    “If they refuse?”
    His profile was hard, pure, dedicated.
    “Their wretched cabin is burned down—over their heads if they’re too stubborn to move out. I’ve seen a woman begging English soldiers to wait just an hour until her dying husband breathed his last. I’ve seen a mother thrown out to give birth to her baby in a wet field. I’ve seen—” he paused, wrenching himself back from his bitterness. “Forgive me, Mrs. O’Shea. I didn’t intend to harrow your feelings. I only meant to explain that I don’t have much faith in a Compensation Bill made by the English. Who has ever compensated my people for their children who have died from exposure or plain starvation? But I hate violence. Burning down the landlord’s property only leads to prison or the gallows. We’ll find a better way to win. And we will win, don’t you doubt it.”
    “I don’t doubt it,” said Katharine. “But look! It’s a lovely day. You’re not prejudicing your cause by