d set me free and that his
manner showed it was irrevocable. But I could not look beyond that to my
Anthony's return, because how was I to tell the old people who looked to
me for deliverance that I had failed them? I knew something of Garret
Dawson, and that he had never in all his life been known to show mercy.
His old granite face with the tight mouth and beetling eyebrows was
enough. I quailed in the darkness as a vision of his face rose before
me. I had no doubt that, as soon as he knew I was not going to marry his
son, he would do his worst. He had been known, people said, to sacrifice
business advantages even to obtain revenge.

At the thought of that I stretched out my arms as though I would take
the two helpless old heads to my bosom to shelter them from the storm.
How was I going to tell them? The carriage went like the wind, and I
could hear the clashing of the boughs under which we passed. The
stillness of the afternoon had been but the prelude to a storm.

Also the memory of Richard Dawson's face remained with me like a sore.
Now that I was free of him and need dread him no more, I remembered that
he had been generous and patient, and I was grieved for him. And I was
troubled about that consolation which he was on the way to seek. But my
own troubles were so imminent and pressing as almost to push that out.
How was I going to tell them--at the last hour, too--with my
wedding-dress home, and the wedding-breakfast cooking in the big
kitchens, with a stir of life we had not had in Aghadoe for many a day?

It was well the journey did not take very long, or I don't know how I
should have endured the strain on my nerves.

While my mind was still in confusion the carriage drew up at the front
door of the Abbey. I alighted and went up the steps. The hall door stood
open, and as I entered Neil Doherty came from the back. I thought he
looked pale.

"Miss Bawn," he began; but I could not wait to hear him. I ran up the
stairs to the drawing-room. There was no one there. I went back to the
library. As I went in my grandmother came to meet me.

"I thought I heard a carriage," she said in a trembling voice. "Did
Richard bring you home? What is the matter, Bawn?"

"The matter!" I repeated, "the matter! Why, the matter is that Richard
Dawson will have none of me. He knew nothing of his father's bargain.
When he found that I had been bought and sold for that he would have
none of me. I would have gone through with it,