"Mother, is it always to be like this?" Of course the mother knew what
was needed. It was needed that the girl should go out into the world and
pair, that she should find some shoulder on which she might lean, some
arm that would be strong to surround her, the heart of some man and the
work of some man to which she might devote herself. The girl, when she
asked her question, did not know this,--but the mother knew it. The
mother looked at her child and said that of all living creatures her
child was surely the loveliest. Was it not fit that she should go forth
and be loved;--that she should at any rate go forth and take her chance
with others? But how should such going forth be managed? And then,--were
there not dangers, terrible dangers,--dangers specially terrible to one
so friendless as her child? Had not she herself been wrecked among the
rocks, trusting herself to one who had been utterly unworthy,--loving
one who had been utterly unlovely? Men so often are as ravenous wolves,
merciless, rapacious, without hearts, full of greed, full of lust,
looking on female beauty as prey, regarding the love of woman and her
very life as a toy! Were she higher in the world there might be safety.
Were she lower there might be safety. But how could she send her girl
forth into the world without sending her certainly among the wolves? And
yet that piteous question was always sounding in her ears. "Mother, is
it always to be like this?"

Then Lieutenant Neville had appeared upon the scene, dressed in a
sailor's jacket and trowsers, with a sailor's cap upon his head, with
a loose handkerchief round his neck and his hair blowing to the wind.
In the eyes of Kate O'Hara he was an Apollo. In the eyes of any girl he
must have seemed to be as good-looking a fellow as ever tied a sailor's
knot. He had made acquaintance with Father Marty at Liscannor, and the
priest had dined with him at Ennis. There had been a return visit, and
the priest, perhaps innocently, had taken him up on the cliffs. There he