work-table to
her and took out a pair of Shawn's stockings that needed darning.
Margaret McKeon's eyes had been failing of late, and Lady O'Gara had
taken on joyfully the mending of her husband's things. Her darning was
a thing of beauty. She had said it soothed her when Sir Shawn would
have taken the stocking from her because it tired her dear eyes.

Nothing could have seemed quieter than the figure of the lady sitting
mending stockings by rosy lamplight. She had put on her spectacles.
Terry had cried out in dismay when he had first seen her wear them, and
she had laughed and put them away; her beautiful eyes were really
rather short-sighted and she had never spared them.

But while she sat so quietly she was gripped by more terrors than one.
She was trying to keep down the thought, the question, that would
return no matter how she strove to push it away--had she been told all
the truth about Terence Comerford's death?

There had always been things that puzzled her, things Shawn had said
under the stress of emotion, and when he talked in sleep. There had
been a night when he had cried out:

"My God, he should not have laughed. If he had wanted to live he
should not have laughed. When he laughed I felt I must kill him."

She had wakened him up, telling him he had had a nightmare and had
thought no more about it. There were other things he had said in the
stress of mental sufferings. She began to piece them together, to make
a whole of them, in the light of this horrible accusation. And--Patsy
had been lying, had been ready to lie more if necessary. Patsy was a
truthful person. Conceivably he would not have lied unless there was a
reason for it, unless there was something to conceal.

She got up at last, weary with her thoughts, and went upstairs to
dress. Before doing anything else she opened her window and leant out.
It had come on to rain. She had known the beautiful strange sky was
ominous of wet weather, although for a little time in the afternoon it
had seemed inclined to freeze. The heavy raindrops were falling like
the pattering of feet. A wind got up and shook the trees. She said to
herself that she _would not_ fancy she heard the horse's hoofs in the
distance. When they were coming she would have no doubt.

She dressed herself finely, or she permitted Margaret McKeon to dress
her, in a golden brown dress which her husband had admired. Through
the transparent stuff that draped the corsa