Asshlin looked slightly distressed.
"You're tired after the journey," he said. "And, anyway, it's one of her bad days. They come oftener than ever now. To-morrow she'll enjoy seeing you more."
A quick recollection of her aunt on her bad days swept over Clodagh's mind; and she looked up suddenly into Larry's handsome, spirited face.
"Is she often cross now, Larry?" she asked, as she might have asked when they were children.
Asshlin turned at the sound of her voice; his diffidence forsook him; the old comradeship, the old sense of sympathy and understanding, came rushing back.
"She is harder than ever to get on with," he said. "And every day seems worse than the last. Sometimes——" He stopped; but a shadow of discontent, of depression, had darkened his face.
"Poor Larry!" Clodagh said very softly. And without further comment, she turned the horse's head in the direction of Orristown.
The cousins spoke rather less during the drive along the low, flat road lying parallel to the strand; but, despite the silence, each was conscious of an awakened fellowship; and as they descended the sharp hill that led to the gates of Orristown, Clodagh pointed with her whip to where the sky hung low and brooding over the glassy line of the horizon.
"This heat will break in a storm, Larry," she said, aware of having spoken the same words a hundred times in almost the same spot.
Asshlin scanned the sea thoughtfully.