It was all so strange!  The waiting-room was so bare, so cold, so grey, so like a sepulchre.  What could Sheela Dempsey with all her womanly understanding, with all her quick intuition, know of the things that happened beside her?  How could she have ears for the crashing down of the pillars of the building that Martin Cosgrave had raised up in his soul?  How could she have eyes for the wreck of the structure that was to go on through all the generations?  What thought had she of the wiping out of a name that would have lived in the nation and continued for all time in the eternities, a tangible thing in Heaven among the Immortals when the stars had all been burned out in the sky?

Martin Cosgrave drove home from the railway station with Sheela Dempsey.  He sat without a word, not really conscious of his surroundings as they covered the miles.  The girl reached across the side-car, touching him lightly on the shoulder.

“Look!” she exclaimed.

Martin Cosgrave looked up.  The building stood in the moonlight on the crest of the hill.  He bade the driver pull up, and then got down from the car.

“Who owns the house?” Sheela Dempsey asked.

“I do.  I put it up on the hill for Rose.”

There was silence for some time.

“How did you get it built, Martin?” Sheela Dempsey asked, awe in her tone.

“I built it myself,” he answered.  “I wonder has Rose as good a place?  What sort of a building is she in to-night?”

Martin Cosgrave did not notice the sudden quiver in the girl’s body as he put the question.  But she made no reply, and the car drove on, leaving Martin Cosgrave standing alone at the gate of the building.

The faint sweep of the drive lay before him.  It led his eyes up to the crest of the hill.  There it was standing shadowy against the sky, every delicate outline clear to his vision.  The beech trees were swaying beside it, reaching out like great shapeless arms in the night, blurred and beckoning and ghostly.  A little vein of their music sounded in his ears.  How often had he listened to that music and the things it had sung to him!  It made him conscious of all the emotion he had felt while he had put up the building on the hill.

The joy of the builder swept over him like a wave.  He was within the rising walls again, his hands among the grey-blue shapes, the measured stroke of the mallet swinging for the shifting chisel, the throb of steel going through his arms, the grind of stone was under his hands, the stone dust dry upon his lips, his eyes quick and keen, his arms bared, the shirt at his breast open, his whole body tense, tuned, to the desire of the conscious builder....  Once more he moved about the carpet of splinters, the grateful crunch beneath his feet, his world a world of stubborn things, rejoicing in his power of direction and mastery over it all.  And always at the back of his mind and blending itself with the work was the thought of a ship forging through the water at the harvest, a ship with white sails spread to the winds.  Had not thought for the building come into his mind when dead things sprang to life in the resurrection of his hopes?