ng tortured, and her caressing
hand felt the cold sweat ooze out on his forehead. How sensitive he
was! How he grieved for his friend after all those years!

"He did not really lift his eyes to me as you say," she said. "His
mother wanted it. He never did. A woman is not deceived."

"But you cared for him--to some extent?" he asked jealously.

"I never cared for any man but one," she answered. "I used to think
you would never ask me. Perhaps you never would have only that I came
to you when you were so broken down after your illness; and you had not
strength enough to resist me."

She finished with a certain pathetic gaiety. With all his deep love
for her she had not brought him joyfulness. Many people had noticed
it. Her own well-spring of Joy had never run dry. It had survived
even his sadness, and had made the house bright for their one child,
but there had been moments, hours, when she had felt oddly exhausted,
as though she had to bear a double strain of living.

"You saved me from utter despair,--'an angel beautiful and bright.'
That is what you seemed to me when you showed me your exquisite pity."

"Poor Terence!" she said softly. "Do you know, Shawn, I believe he was
often on the edge of telling me his secret. Over and over again he
began and was interrupted, or he drew back."

"Hardly, Mary. Men do not tell such things to the ladies of their
family."

"Oh!" She coloured like a girl. "It was,--that. I thought it was ...
a lady ... some one he knew in Dublin perhaps."

"It was a girl in Killesky. Her grandmother kept a little
public-house. She looked like an old Gipsy-Queen, the grandmother.
And the girl--the girl was like a dark rose. All the men in the county
raved about her--the gentlemen, I mean. It was extraordinary how many
roads led through Killesky. The girl was as modest as she was
beautiful. Terence was mad about her. He knocked down a Connaught
Ranger man who made a joke about her. That last leave--before he was
killed--he was never out of the place. She had been at a convent
school--the old woman had brought her up well--and she used to go on
visits to school friends in Dublin. Terence told me he met her in
Dublin when we were at the Royal Barracks. I implored him to let her
alone, but he was angry and told me to mind my own business. That last
time it was more serious. Poor little Bridyeen! I told him he ought
to marry her. I think he knew it. It made him sh