The drip of the rain and the gusty noise of wind that by daylight had been no more than a melancholy adjunct to the poetry of wet blossoms, became suddenly sinister and tragic and irresistibly atmospheric.  Kenny stared with new vision at the dreadful old man in the bathrobe.  One by one Kenny was fated to solve his mysteries when he wanted to keep them.  He knew now in a flare of intuition why the old rooms had been abandoned, why Joan ferried folk from the village in the valley to the village across the river, why her gown of the morning and the rags of the runaway had been pitifully patched and mended.  And he remembered the mystery of her color, when, questing an inn, he had glanced at the house on the cliff and hinted that her uncle might consent to be his host.

“I know he would!” Joan’s low voice rang in his ears again with new meaning.

Adam Craig was a miser.

He shrank at the thought.  Annoyed to find the old man’s eyes boring into him again, he cleared his throat and looked away.

“So,” said Adam Craig, “you are a famous painter!”

“I am a painter,” said Kenny stiffly.

“With medals,” purred Adam.

“With medals.”

A fit of coughing seemed for an interval to threaten the old man’s very life.

“Yonder in the closet,” he said huskily, “is a bottle and some glasses.  Bring them here.”

Kenny obeyed.

“Sit down.”

With the old man’s eyes upon him, hungry and expectant, as if he clutched at the thought of companionship, Kenny reluctantly found a chair for himself and sat down.  Pity made him gentle.  Year in and year out, he remembered with a shiver, Adam Craig sat huddled here in his wheel-chair listening to wind and rain, sleet and snow, the rustle of summer trees and the wind of autumn.  It was a melancholy thought and true.

Smoothly hospitable, the invalid poured brandy for himself and his guest and chatted with an air of courtesy.  Kenny found himself in quieter mood.  Reminiscence crackled in the wood-fire.  Nights in the studio by the embers of a log many a Gaelic tale had glowed and sparkled in his soft, delightful brogue for the ears of men who loved his tales of folk lore and loved the teller.

Ah, Ireland, dark rosaleen of myths and mirth and melancholy.  The thought of it all made him tender and sad.

Well, he would give this lonely man by the fire an hour of unalloyed delight.  He would tell him tales of Ireland when brehons made the laws and bards and harpers roved the green hills.  Kenny made his opportunity and began.  He told a tale of Choulain, the mountain smith who forged armor for the Ultonians.  He told a lighter tale of three sisters whom he called Fair, Brown and Trembling.  With the brogue strong upon him he told how Finn McCoul had stolen the clothes of a bathing queen and he told in stirring phrase the exploits of Ireland’s mighty hero, Cuchullin.