March had come in weeping to brighten to a promise of spring. Primroses shone pale gold in more than one sheltered hollow; the wild anemones were blue in the woods; green grass was nosing through the rusty fronds of yesteryear. The catkins danced over the banks of the little trout stream.
In France, men wearying of bitter cold, welcomed the first warmth of the spring, for there they had frost in their very bones, and the cold chill of mud had clung to them as day by day they held on doggedly and waited for the advance which they were told was to be. The wild interest in the day's papers had died to a dull endurance. People got fewer wires.
While the great monster War went on drinking blood and swelling hideously, March would see the end of the hunting, and a dreary summer only enlivened by constant hopes that something must happen to end it all would be before them.
Gheena generally went away from home. This year her friends were fighting or in mourning, and she meant to stay at Castle Freyne.
"Well, if you can't go any further," said Gheena, "I'll come out myself."
"When?"
Gheena said that she did not know, because she meant to search by herself or with Psyche the sprite.
"I'll look down here now," said Gheena, dropping over the cliff.
Mrs. Weston, left alone, kicked off one shoe and rubbed her brilliant foot ill-humouredly. Then she sketched idly on a small block, a neat little sketch absolutely devoid of any claim except that of neatness; and she put that away and yawned and moved her released toes.
Gheena and Crabbit were scrambling in and out of caves, swinging along the cliff, with the tide nosing in sluggishly close to high-water mark. The sea was silvery grey under a silver sky, lapping and gurgling calmly. When a voice close by remarked that it was "airly to be lookin' for, say, birds' eggs," she turned to see Guinane, a particularly intelligent-looking youth, with bright blue eyes and a cunning mouth.