g-room talk. No one looking on could have guessed at the web of
difficulties they were snared in, at the tragedy that menaced so many
harmless joys. Again Lady O'Gara felt surprise at her own attitude
towards Mrs. Wade, at Mrs. Wade's towards her. She had no feeling of
inequality, nothing of the attitude of the woman who has always been
securely placed within reverence and affections, to the woman who has
gone off the rails, even though she be more sinned against than
sinning. Mrs. Wade met her so to speak on equal grounds. There was no
indication in her manner of the woman who had stepped down from her
place among honoured women.

And yet, the mere saying that Terry was in the house had somehow
affected Mrs. Wade. There was agitation under the calm exterior. In
the atmosphere there was something disturbed, electrical.

She hardly seemed to hear Lady O'Gara's answer to her inquiry about Sir
Shawn. She got up after a few minutes, and, saying that she would get
some tea, went out of the room; to recover her self-possession, Lady
O'Gara thought.

When she had gone Stella turned her eyes on Lady O'Gara's face.

"When I get well," she said, "I am going away with my mother. It will
be best for everybody. I shall begin a new life with her."

"Oh, Stella, child! You can't give us up like that! You have made
your place in our hearts."

There were tears in Mary O'Gara's kind eyes and in her voice.

Stella reached out and patted her hand as though she were the older
woman.

"You needn't think I shan't feel it," she said. "You have been dear to
me, sweet to me; and I shall always love you. And poor Granny----" A
little shiver ran through her and for a second she closed her eyes. "I
am sorry for her, too, poor woman! but it will be kinder to you all for
me to go away. I did think that I was going to die and that would have
made it so much easier for every one. Only, now that my mother has
come back and needs me, I must go on living--but at a distance from
this place. Terry will forget me and marry Eileen and be very happy."

The tired voice trailed off into silence. Evidently the long speech
had been an effort.

"Terry is obstinately faithful," said Lady O'Gara, with a sound like a
sob in her voice. "But now, I think you have talked enough. Go to
sleep, child. We shall have plenty of time for talk, even if you do
keep to your resolve to leave us all."

Stella opened her eyes again to say:

"No o