Kenny Part 59

"Oh, Brian," she said. "I shall love it, I know!"

Kenny climbed the stairway in a daze and packed his suit case.

Everywhere he felt the eyes of Adam Craig upon him--less and less unkind. They stared at him from the windows by the orchard. They stared over the creaking banister as he stumbled down the stairway with his courage ebbing. They stared from the library where the porch light glimmered through the windows. . . . Fall was in the wind to-night.

The old house creaked. Adam's spirit swept in always with a sighing wind. Kenny s.h.i.+vered. A bleak place--the ridge--and haunted.

With a shock he found himself upon the porch. At the foot of the steps Garry waited in the car, his gauntleted hands drumming nervously upon the wheel. If for a minute stark, incredulous terror swept through Kenny's veins, his laughing lips belied it. Then he kissed Joan lightly on the cheek and went, whistling, down the steps with Brian.

"And you, Brian?" he said, halting on the lower step to light a cigarette. "What shall I tell John?"

"Tell him all," said Brian. He talked hurriedly of his plans.

Kenny held out his hand.

"G.o.d speed, boy!" he said.

Garry--unsentimental Garry--blinked as the car shot down the lane. He clashed his gears and shuddered.

Brian stared.

"Phew!" he whistled as Joan came down the steps. "Garry's driving like a blacksmith."

They clung to each other in the dark and watched the headlights play upon the trees.

From the end of the lane came Kenny's final gift of rea.s.surance. His rollicking voice swept into the quiet, soft with brogue, as care-free in song as it had been earlier in laughter:

"'I'll love thee evermore Eileen a roon!

I'll bless thee o'er and o'er Eileen a roon!'"

Brian laughed softly.

"Joan! Joan!" he exclaimed in a rush of feeling. Their lips met.

"'Oh! for thy sake I'll tread Where plains of Mayo spread.'"

Brian's heart went out to the irresponsible penitent rocketing in song.

"Dear lunatic!" he said.

Fainter in the night wind came the end of Kenny's song:

"'By hope still fondly led, Eileen a roon.'"