tune enough without bringin' it on us? Come along with me, my
darlin' lamb, and let me get it off you. 'Tis in a fever you are this
minute."

Then suddenly I lost consciousness of everything, and would have fallen
on the floor in a faint if my lover had not caught me in his arms.

The next thing I knew was that the window-panes were showing themselves
as lighted squares in a grey, misty world, and I could hear that
somebody was speaking and what was said, even before I was awake.

"I've seen it comin' this long time," said a bitter, querulous voice
that was Maureen's. "She'll go through with it, but it'll be the death
of her, my darling jewel. If she's married before Master Luke comes,
then he'll come too late, after all."

"Haven't I suffered enough, Maureen?" my grandmother asked
pitifully--"having lost my one boy, and now to see this child slipping
away from me! And there's a change in Lord St. Leger; there is, indeed,
Maureen. Am I to lose them all, all?"

"Whisht, honey, whisht!" Maureen said, with sudden relenting in her
voice. "God's good. Sure, He wouldn't be so hard on you as to take his
Lordship, not at least till Master Luke comes home."

"And that will never be," my grandmother went on. "I've given up hope,
Maureen. Luke is dead and gone, and my husband is slipping out of life,
and this child is breaking her heart."

And then I opened my eyes, and they saw I was awake.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE NEW HOME

I had frightened them all by my fainting-fit, but after all it was
nothing. The doctor who had been fetched hastily by my frightened lover
reassured them.

"Did you think she was sickening for the small-pox?" he asked, looking
from one face to the other with bright intelligence. He was a young
doctor not long settled in our neighbourhood, and we used to say among
ourselves that he was too clever to stay long with us. "Well, then, she
isn't doing anything of the sort. I expect she's been taking the
troubles too much to heart. A bit run down and nervous. The honeymoon
journey will be the best prescription for that. I should like to see
more flesh on her bones."

He patted my hand as he spoke; and I could see the relief in the faces
about me. In those days any feverish attack suggested the small-pox.

"Dr. Molyneux should see grandpapa," I said. "Grandpapa is not well."

"You've seen it, Bawn?" my grandmother said. "I thought no one saw it
but myself. But it is no use. He refuses to see a doc