164 TEE SILVER FOX 



pale grey fox with a beautiful white-tipped 

 brush, and crossed the open towards the 

 barn where Tom Quin lay. As it did so, 

 Maria saw it, and sprang to her feet, her 

 mouth open and her eyes starting. The 

 cup and saucer fell with a clatter, and the 

 fox, which had seemed disposed to loiter as 

 it passed close under the wall of the shed, 

 glanced back, looked about it, and after a 

 moment of seeming indecision, turned and 

 trotted at its ease up the hill, heading ap- 

 parently for much the same point as that 

 from which it had just come. Grey as the 

 mist itself, it glided away, till it disappeared 

 among the clumps of gorse, while somewhere 

 overhead a seagull made its unhappy cry. 



Maria Quin fell on her knees with abso- 

 lute simplicity and spontaneity. She was 

 not frightened in the ordinary sense of the 

 word, but she acknowledged the power of 

 the unseen things that had worked together 

 to her brother's undoing, and she cast her- 

 self on a higher protection, half doubtful as 

 she was of its right to intervene. As she 



