Marsh did not keep the appointment. Soon after one o'clock, a boy came to Henry, and asked him if he were Mr. Quinn, and when Henry had assured him that he was, he said, "Mr. Marsh bid me to tell you, sir, that he's not able to come. He says he's very sorry, but he can't help it!"

The lad repeated the message almost as if he had learned it by heart. "Oh, very well!" Henry said, offering money to him.

"Ah, sure, that's all right, sir!" the lad said, and then he went away.

"I suppose," Henry said to himself angrily, "he's at his damned drilling again!"

He lunched alone, and then took the tram to Kingstown, and walked from there to Bray along the coast. He felt dispirited and lonely. Jordan and Saxon were out of Dublin ... Jordan was in Sligo, he had heard, and Saxon was staying with his uncle near the mountains. He knew that Crews lived in Bray, but he had forgotten the address. "Perhaps," he thought, "I shall see him in the street...."

"Lordy God!" he exclaimed, "I'd give the world for some one to talk to. John Marsh might have tried to meet me. Fooling about with his ... penny-farthing volunteers!"

"In a little while," he said to himself, as he descended into Killiney and walked along the road by the railway station, "I shall be married to Mary, and then!..."

He remembered what she had said to him at Boveyhayne, "I'd like you to go, Quinny ... I can't pretend that I wouldn't...."

He stood for a while, leaning against the wall and looking out over the crumpled sea. "I don't know," he said to himself, "I don't know!"