f tears, and I noticed that my grandfather's hand
shook so that he spilt his wine. There was not a word spoken, and after
a time the silence got on my nerves, so that I began to dread I knew not
what, and could almost have burst into tears from the tension.

We had dined where we often dined when we were alone, in a little room,
panelled with black oak, which opens off the hall. It is bright enough
when a fire leaps and sparkles in the grate, but it was then too warm
for fires, and the room seemed cheerless even while the white cloth was
on the table and the lit candles made the silver and glass sparkle.

And presently, when Neil Doherty had taken away the cloth and we sat
around the polished black table with nothing on it but a couple of
candles and a decanter of port wine and glasses, the room looked very
sad.

My grandfather tapped with his hand on the table, a thing I have known
him to do when in trouble, and again the tears overflowed my
grandmother's eyes and ran down her cheeks. And I felt that something
was coming.

Then my grandfather cleared his throat, and leaning his face in his hand
so that I should not see it, he said--

"There is something that concerns you, Bawn, which I wish to lay before
you. You have been a good child always, kind and obedient to us. And now
it is in your power to do more for us than ever you have done before."

He paused, and in the silence I heard the rain falling on the gravel
path. It had been threatening all the afternoon. The wind soughed; it
was going to be a wild night.

"Mr. Dawson has been with me this afternoon," he went on. "We talked of
you, Bawn. Bawn, child, Richard Dawson wishes to marry you. Can you
marry him, Bawn? If you can do it Garret Dawson gives up to me on your
wedding-day certain documents which hold in them the disgrace of our
family. We are old, Bawn, and we have loved you and been good to you.
There are some things we could not bear. Child, can you say 'Yes?'"

I felt now as though I had known it all the time. I had a queer memory
of a room in which a man lay imprisoned, the walls of which came closer
and closer every day till they should press him to death. It was a tale
I had read somewhere. So this had been closing in on me all those
months. I was to marry Richard Dawson, I who loved Anthony Cardew with
all my heart and soul.

CHAPTER XXV

THE LOVER

"And Theobald," I asked, after that pause--"what about Theobald?"

"Theobald is y