ady,--if Baker was to come back--you wouldn't
let him claim me? The Master wouldn't let him claim me? I'd drown
myself and the child before we'd go back to him. He did knock us about
something cruel. And my Georgie, so gentle that he'd move a heart of
stone. I frightened Baker from laying a hand on Georgie; I told him
I'd kill him if I was to be hanged for it."

The woman's eyes, no longer gentle, blazed at Lady O'Gara.

"Hush! Hush!" she said. "He shall not trouble you. If he should come
back..."

"He's found us out no matter where we've been. Even good Christians
got tired at last of Baker comin' and askin' for his wife and son and
makin' a row and the police fetched, and it gettin' in the papers.
They give us up. Oh, Lord, if they knew what they was givin' us up to!
They'd better have shot us."

"If he comes back he will be prosecuted for deserting you. We shall
not give you up to him. You may be sure of that. Here is my hand on
it."

She held out a firm white hand which showed a couple of beautiful
rings. Susan looked at it for a moment in amazement before she took
it. The colour flooded back into her face. Her eyes became quieter.
Then she took the hand and kissed it, hard.

"Thank you, m'lady," she said. "I trust you."

Lady O'Gara walked to the door and paused to ask for news of Georgie,
who was already at school. He was doing very well. It was so easy for
him to reach the school by this gate, and he was beginning to get on
well with the boys; and Mr. McGroarty, Mr. O'Connell's successor, gave
a very favourable report of him.

"We feel so safe inside the big wall, me and Georgie," said Susan
Horridge. "It isn't likely he'd come on us from the Park." She looked
a little apprehensively over the beautiful prospect of trees in their
early Summer beauty, and the shining greensward; with the hills beyond.
Through an opening in the trees there was a glimpse of a deer feeding.

"No one here associates you with that man. Patsy and I have taken care
of that," Lady O'Gara assured her. "If he came back looking for you no
one could tell him where you were. Would you like a dog for company?
There is a litter of puppies of Shot's breed in the stable-yard. You
shall have one, if you like it."

"Is it like it?" asked Susan, her face lighting up,--"I should be very
pleased to have it. So would Georgie. That boy's fair gone on
animals."

"Those dogs make very good watch-dogs, though they are