“Dear Lady Innisfail,” said Mr. Durdan, “I know that you feel indignant, fancying that we have been disappointed. Pray do not let such an idea have weight with you for a moment.”
“Oh, no, no,” said Miss Stafford, who liked speaking in public quite as well as Mr. Durdan. “Oh, no, no; you have done your best, dear Lady Innisfail. The dance was lovely; and though, of course, we should have liked to hear a native bard or two, as well as the Banshee—”
“Yet bards and Banshees we know to be beyond human control,” said Mr. Airey.
“We know that if it rested with you, we should hear the Banshee every night,” said Mr. Durdan.
“Yes, we all know your kindness of heart, dear Lady Innisfail,” resumed Miss Stafford.
“Indeed you should hear it, and the bard as well,” cried Lady Innisfail. “But as Mr. Airey says—and he knows all about bard and Banshees and such like things Great heaven! We are not disappointed after all, thank heaven!”
Lady Innisfail’s exclamation was uttered after there floated to the cliffs where she and her friends were standing, from the rolling white mist that lay below, the sound of a long wail. It was repeated, only fainter, when she had uttered her thanksgiving, and it was followed by a more robust shout.
“Isn’t it lovely?” whispered Lady Innisfail.
“I don’t like it,” said Miss Stafford, with a shudder. “Let us go away—oh, let us go away at once.”
Miss Stafford liked simulated horrors only. The uncanny in verse was dear to her; but when, for the first time, she was brought face to face with what would have formed the subject of a thrilling romance with a suggestion of the supernatural, she shuddered.