oherty, only that he did so
many things in the house that he never had much time for sitting in
state in the hall. She took Dido's paws in her lap and began anxiously
to examine them for any injury, while the dog moaned with self-pity.

"I don't think she has any hurt," I assured her. "The trap did not
altogether meet on her paw, although it held her a prisoner."

Neil Doherty looked on with an interested face.

"Twould be a kindness to the poor baste," he said, "to drown her, not to
be keepin' her alive. Sure, what has she to live for?"

My grandmother looked up at him with a sudden illumination of her face.

"Who knows, Neil," she said, "but Dido may have something to live for
yet? And that the thing others of us are living for?"

"Ah, sure you're right, your Ladyship," Neil returned. "Sure God send
it! Wouldn't we be all young again if that was to happen?"

CHAPTER XII

THE ENEMY

My grandmother asked me no more of the gentleman who had come to my help
in the wood. Being old she forgot easily, and, besides, she was absorbed
in these days in the preparations for my going to Dublin.

For the moment my own interest in the great matter had waned. I used to
like to slip away from the perpetual fitting on of garments to ride or
drive about the roads outside the Abbey. I was afraid now to walk in
unfrequented places, lest I should meet with Richard Dawson; and there
are few places in the neighbourhood of Aghadoe which are frequented. I
grew quite zealous about afternoon calls, and would remind my
grandmother of her neglect of her social duties, a matter which had
never troubled me before.

"Why, what has come to you, Bawn?" she asked at length. "You have always
been unwilling to make calls before, from the time you were a little
girl of six, and I thought it would be a fine thing to take you and
Theobald in the barouche to call on Mrs. Langdale, but when I looked for
you I could find you nowhere and afterwards I discovered that you had
both hidden in the loft in the stable-yard. Well, I suppose you are
growing up and this is a sign of it."

I did not undeceive her. I had always abhorred the afternoon calls and
the dinner-parties, and most of the other social functions to which I
had gone; but now it was another matter. To be sure, when I made my
calls I had always the dread of meeting Richard Dawson; but then on the
other hand there was always the chance that I might meet that other.

Although he had