lady o'gara left terry eating his curry—the castle talbot cook made a particularly good and hot curry—with a quickly recovered appetite, and went upstairs to where patsy kenny was sitting by the fire in the sick-room.

"he woke up an' took his milk," said patsy in an ecstatic whisper, "an' he knew me! 'is that you, patsy, ye ould divil?' says he. sorra a word o' lie in it! an' shot had twisted himself in unbeknownst to me, an' when he heard the master spakin' he up an' licked his hand."

"i've asked reilly to come on duty now, patsy. i shall be up to-night, so he has taken a short sleep."

"you think i'm not fit to be wid him," said patsy mournfully. "maybe there's the smell o' the stables about me, though i put on me sunday clothes and claned me boots."

"no, no; sir shawn wouldn't mind the stable smell. nor should i. i want you to do something for me. i'll tell you in the office. here's reilly now."

reilly came in, cat-footed. lady o'gara delayed to tell him what had happened during her watch. then she followed patsy downstairs, shot going with her.

in the office where patsy stood, turning about his unprofessional bowler in his hands, and looking quite unlike the smart patsy she knew in his slop-suit of tweeds, she told him how terry had found a dead man.

"murdered?" asked patsy. "sure it was no sight for a little young boy like him!"

"no; not murdered, fortunately. he was lying huddled up by the admiral's tomb. just as though in the dark he had stepped out over the edge of the mount, not knowing there was a sharp drop below. mr. terry thought his neck was broken by the way he was lying."

she had a thought that but for terry's rabbiting, which had led him anywhere without thought of trespass, the body might have lain there a long time undiscovered. very few people cared, even in daylight, to go close up to the tomb.

"what sort of a man?" asked patsy, beetling his brows at her.

"a tramp, mr. terry thought."

"it wouldn't be that villain."

"that is just what i thought of. the police have the key of the stable where the body is. they would let you see it if you asked."

"it would be a pity if it was some harmless poor man," said patsy, with fire in his brown eyes.

he went towards the door and came back.

"it might be the hand of god," he said. "i had a word with susan this mornin'. she was tellin' me miss stella does be cryin' out not to let some one ketch her, an' screamin' like a mad thing that she's ketched. supposin' that villain was to have put the heart across in the poor child, an' she out wanderin' in the night! wouldn't it be a quare thing for him to tumble down there an' break his dirty neck before he was let lay hold on her?"

it gave lady o'gara fresh food for thought, this hypothesis of patsy's.

she put away the thoughts with a shudder. to what danger had poor

fevered stella been exposed, wandering in the night? and what vengeful

angel had interposed to save her?

she went back to terry. he had made a very good lunch, she was glad to see, and was just lighting a cigarette.

he looked up expectantly as she came in.

"you said i should see stella if she would see me. it did not seem like it last time."

a shade fell over his face as he concluded.

she sat down by him and told him of stella's illness, of the disappearance of her mother and her return. of patsy's suggestion she did not speak. it would be too much for the poor boy, who sat, knitting his brows over her tale, his face changing as he looked down at the cigarette between his fingers. he had interjected one breathless question. was stella better? was she in any danger? and his mother had answered that dr. costello was satisfied that the girl would mend now.

"i suppose i must wait till she is better before seeing her," he said, when his mother paused. "poor little darling! i may tell you, mother, my mind is not shaken. i shall marry stella if she will have me."

"you can walk with me if you like to the waterfall cottage," she said, "and wait for me. there is something about the place that makes a coward of me. it will be worse than ever now after your discovery."

she laughed nervously.

"poor mother, you have too many troubles to bear!" he said with loving compassion. "you carry all our burdens."

"i have sent patsy to identify your dead man. i think he can do it."

she was saying to herself that never, never must terry know the charges that had been brought against his father. they might become a country tale—but the whole countryside might ring with the story without any one having the cruelty to repeat it to terry.

the night was closing down—christmas was close at hand, and it was already the first day of the shortest days—when they started. a few dry flakes of snow came in the wind as they crossed the park to the south lodge, silent now and empty. under the trees as they went down the road it was already dark.

the window of the little sitting-room of the waterfall cottage threw its cheerful rosy light out over the road. the bedroom window above showed a dimmer light.

"perhaps, after all," she said, "you might come in and wait for me. i see susan has lit the fire downstairs. she has not been lighting it since stella's illness—i have got a second key for the padlock, so we shall not have to wait, rattling at the gate."

"you think i may come in?" he asked eagerly.

"we shall consult mrs. wade."

susan received them with a great unbolting and unlocking of the door.

she apologized for her slowness.

"it isn't that lonesome now mrs. wade's come," she said. "yet i've had a fear on me this while back. maybe it's the poor child upstairs and her thinkin' somethink's after her. it fair gave me the creeps to hear her. she's stopped that since mrs. wade's come back. she takes her for her ma. now she's got her she doesn't seem scared any more."

susan had curtseyed to terry.

"i've that poor old soul, miss brennan, a-sittin' in my kitching, as warm as warm," she went on. "didn't you know, m'lady? 'twas 'er as went to look for mrs. wade. how she knew as mrs. wade would content a child callin' for 'er ma, passes me."

"oh, i am glad you have poor lizzie. i never liked to think of her alone in that wretched place. yet when we talked of her leaving it she always seemed so afraid her liberty would be interfered with. she is really too old to be running all over the country as she does, coming back cold and wet to that wretched place, where she might die any night all alone."

"she do seem to have taken a fancy to me," mrs. horridge said placidly.

"i might take her for a lodger, maybe. georgie's not one to annoy an

old lady like some boys might. i'd love humourin' her little fancies;

i could always do anythink for an old person or a child."

"i am going up to see miss stella," lady o'gara said. "do you think

mr. terry may wait by the fire? i shall tell mrs. wade."

"he'll be as welcome as the flowers in may, as the sayin' is," mrs. horridge said, briskly pushing a chair for terry nearer the fire and lamplight. "an' plenty o' books to amuse you, sir, while your ma's upstairs."

lady o'gara left terry in the cheerful room and went up the winding staircase. as she entered stella's room she had an idea that the place had become more home-like with mrs. wade's presence. mrs. wade was wearing the white dress of a nurse and a nurse's cap, the white strings tied under her chin. the room was cosy in fire and lamplight and yet very fresh. stella was awake. she turned her head weakly on the pillow and smiled at lady o'gara.

"my darling child, this is an improvement," lady o'gara said, quite joyfully.

"my mother has come back," stella whispered, and put out a thin little hand to mrs. wade, who had stood up at the other side of the bed and was still standing as though she waited for lady o'gara to bid her be seated.

"i am very glad," lady o'gara said, and bent to kiss stella's forehead.

it was cool and a little moist. the fever had quite departed.

"you should not have gone away and left her," she said reproachfully to

mrs. wade. "you see she cannot do without you."

"i shall not leave her again," mrs. wade said. "she chooses me before all the world."

oh, poor terry! there was something of a definite choice in the words. they meant that stella had chosen her mother before all the world might give her. and the poor boy was sitting just below them, bearing the time of waiting with as much patience as possible, listening to the sounds upstairs, his mother divined, with a beating heart.

"won't you sit down?" said lady o'gara. "i cannot sit till you do."

"thank you," replied mrs. wade, and sat down the other side of stella. her profile in the nurse's cap showed against the lamplight. it was a beautiful soft, composed profile, like stella's own. and her manner was perfect in its quiet dignity. a nature's lady, lady o'gara said to herself.

lady o'gara could not have told what inspired her next speech. it was certainly not premeditated.

"my son is waiting for me downstairs in your pretty room."

mrs. wade bowed her head without comment on terry's waiting. "we were sorry to hear of the accident to sir shawn. i hope he is better," she said.

how quietly they were talking! it might have been just conventional drawing-room talk. no one looking on could have guessed at the web of difficulties they were snared in, at the tragedy that menaced so many harmless joys. again lady o'gara felt surprise at her own attitude towards mrs. wade, at mrs. wade's towards her. she had no feeling of inequality, nothing of the attitude of the woman who has always been securely placed within reverence and affections, to the woman who has gone off the rails, even though she be more sinned against than sinning. mrs. wade met her so to speak on equal grounds. there was no indication in her manner of the woman who had stepped down from her place among honoured women.

and yet, the mere saying that terry was in the house had somehow affected mrs. wade. there was agitation under the calm exterior. in the atmosphere there was something disturbed, electrical.

she hardly seemed to hear lady o'gara's answer to her inquiry about sir

shawn. she got up after a few minutes, and, saying that she would get

some tea, went out of the room; to recover her self-possession, lady

o'gara thought.

when she had gone stella turned her eyes on lady o'gara's face.

"when i get well," she said, "i am going away with my mother. it will be best for everybody. i shall begin a new life with her."

"oh, stella, child! you can't give us up like that! you have made your place in our hearts."

there were tears in mary o'gara's kind eyes and in her voice.

stella reached out and patted her hand as though she were the older woman.

"you needn't think i shan't feel it," she said. "you have been dear to me, sweet to me; and i shall always love you. and poor granny——" a little shiver ran through her and for a second she closed her eyes. "i am sorry for her, too, poor woman! but it will be kinder to you all for me to go away. i did think that i was going to die and that would have made it so much easier for every one. only, now that my mother has come back and needs me, i must go on living—but at a distance from this place. terry will forget me and marry eileen and be very happy."

the tired voice trailed off into silence. evidently the long speech had been an effort.

"terry is obstinately faithful," said lady o'gara, with a sound like a sob in her voice. "but now, i think you have talked enough. go to sleep, child. we shall have plenty of time for talk, even if you do keep to your resolve to leave us all."

stella opened her eyes again to say:

"no one is ever to say a word against my mother. she never did anything wrong, my poor little mother, even if she was deceived. i honour her more than any one in the world."

"don't talk about it, child. no one will dare to say anything," lady o'gara assured her, eager to stop something which she felt too poignant, too intolerable to be said or heard.

almost at once stella was asleep. there came a little knock at the door. it was susan to say that, please would lady o'gara come down to tea, while she sat with miss stella.

again lady o'gara felt the strangeness of it all. there was mrs. wade pouring out the tea, handing cakes and toast, doing the honours like any assured woman in her drawing-room—except that she would not take tea herself and could not be prevailed upon to sit down with them.

once or twice lady o'gara thought she intercepted a soft, motherly glance, with something of beaming approval in it, directed from mrs. wade's eyes upon terry. there was light upon terry's dark head from mrs. wade's eyes. the boy was shy, ill at ease. he was dying to ask questions, but he felt that the situation craved wary walking. he fidgeted and grew red: looked this way and that; was manifestly uncomfortable.

none of them had heard the hall-door open nor any one enter, but keep, stretched on the hearthrug, growled. shot lying under the table answered him. from michael, in the kitchen, came a sharp hysterical barking. michael was not so composed, not so entirely well-mannered as his brothers of the famous shot breed.

the door opened. in came mrs. comerford, tall, in her trailing blacks, magnificent, the long veil of her bonnet floating about her. she looked from one to the other of the group with amazement.

"i am surprised to find you here, mary o'gara," she said. "but perhaps you come to see my child. where is stella? i have brought the carriage to take her back to inch."

"oh, the poor child is too ill to be moved," said lady o'gara tremblingly.

"you should be by your husband's side," mrs. comerford said, as though

mary o'gara was still the child she had loved and oppressed.

she had not looked at mrs. wade since the first bitter contemptuous glance. suddenly mrs. wade spoke with an air as though she swept the others aside. she faced mrs. comerford with eyes as steady as her own.

"stella will not go with you, she said. she stays with me."

"you! her nurse. i did not know the child was so ill as to need a hospital nurse."

"her mother, mrs. comerford. you did not satisfy her in all those years since you took her from my breast. i take her back again."