me to do it.' My dear lady, don't look so terrified. Of
course there's nothing in it. Your husband will have to answer the
charge at Petty Sessions. It won't go any further. If it were true
itself they couldn't bring it in more than manslaughter. Indeed, I
doubt if any charge would lie after so many years."

He stopped, panting after the long speech.

"It was very kind of you to ride over this dark night to tell us. Of
course it is a ridiculous tale. But the mere suggestion will upset my
husband. As you say, they were so devoted, dearer than brothers. Why
should this person come with such a tale at this time of day?"

"That is exactly what I asked, my dear lady. Trumped up, every bit of
it, I haven't the smallest doubt. Only for Fury it would end where it
began. The fellow says--I beg your pardon, Lady O'Gara,--that Sir
Shawn paid him to keep silence--that he has grown tired of being bled
and told him to do his worst. As I said to Fury, you had only to look
at the fellow to see that the truth wasn't in him."

Lady O'Gara was very pale.

"Would you mind waiting a second, Sir Felix?" she said gently. "You
were not here at the time of the dreadful accident. The one who really
all but witnessed it is here, close at hand. You might like to hear
his version of what happened."

She rang the bell and asked the servant who came in answer if Mr. Kenny
was waiting. Patsy was Mr. Kenny even to the new butler.

Patsy came in, small, neat, in his gaiters and riding breeches, his cap
in his hand. He stood blinking in the lamplight, looking from Lady
O'Gara to Sir Felix Conyers.

"Sir Felix would like to hear from your lips, Patsy, the story of what
you saw the night Mr. Terence Comerford was killed."

There was a wild surmise in Patsy's eyes. Not for many a year had that
tragedy been spoken of in his hearing.

"I would not recall it," Lady O'Gara went on in her gentle voice, "only
that Sir Felix tells me some man has been saying that Sir Shawn flogged
Mr. Comerford's horse, using words as he did so which proved that he
knew the horse would not take the whip and that he had it in his mind
to kill Mr. Comerford."

"Who was the man said the likes of that?" asked Patsy, his eyes
suddenly red.

"It was a sort of ... tramping person," said Sir Felix, putting on his
pince-nez the better to see Patsy. "He has been in these parts before.
A most unprepossessing person. Quite a bad lot, I should say."

"A f