a curious
quietness steal upon me and numb me. Despite the sweet, warm air of the
summer night I was cold. In the quietness I heard the Abbey clock strike
twelve; I heard soft stirrings in the leaves outside; a thousand little
sounds which I would not have noticed at another time, that were
distinct in the stillness that had come upon me.

I went on making my preparations for bed as though nothing had happened.
I omitted nothing, but all the time I felt as though I were somehow
outside my body and knew the dull numbness of it as a thing apart.

When I was ready at last I unlocked the door so that the maid who came
with my morning tea and my bath-water should not find it locked. Then I
blew out the candles, and, taking the letter in my hand, I crept into
bed.

That night I was awakened by the crying in the shrubbery outside which I
had not heard for a long time, and I listened to it, cold in the
darkness, till the cocks began crowing and then it ceased. I knew that
the ghosts always came for trouble at Aghadoe, and I prayed hard that
the trouble might be only mine and might spare the two dear old people.
The thought of Theobald, and that I had not even noticed the absence of
his letters, stung me sharply. What if harm should come to Theobald? As
the cocks crew and the grey turned to blue and then to gold in the room,
I lay staring up at the ceiling, praying that harm had not come to
Theobald, that he might be well and happy although I must be miserable
for ever.

CHAPTER XX

AN EAVESDROPPER

The morning sun was in my room when I awoke and my godmother was by my
bed.

"You have been crying in your sleep, Bawn," she said. "I thought I heard
you several times during the night, but was not sure. Are you anxious
about Theobald, child?"

"There is some trouble in the air," I said, turning away my head. "But I
don't think it was I who cried."

"I would not say that to Lady St. Leger, Bawn," she said, lifting my
face and making me look at her.

"It is not for a death," I said, "or we should have heard the coach."

"God forbid!" I noticed that her face had a new look of care since
yesterday, that there were rings round her fine eyes as though she had
not slept. "Yet it may be bad enough, although not for a death."

"What is it?"

"Why, Bawn, child, that is the strangest thing of all. You are no longer
a child, Bawn, and I bring my burden to you to lighten it by sharing.
They will not tell me what the tro