ted in Eileen's manner. Eileen was indifferently
polite.

Terry and his father were out when the party arrived for luncheon, but
they returned very soon afterwards. Lady O'Gara's attention was
otherwise absorbed so that she did not notice the sudden delighted
friendliness in Terry towards Stella nor the quick withdrawal into
sullenness which spoilt Eileen's looks for the luncheon-hour.

Lady O'Gara was wondering about her husband. Why should he have looked
so startled when his eye fell on Stella? He had known that she was
coming. To Lady O'Gara's anxious eye Sir Shawn looked pale. He had
been pale of late, with curious shadows about his face, but when she
had asked him if he was not feeling well he had answered with an air of
lightness that he felt as well as ever he had felt.

At the luncheon table he sat with his back to the light. The
persistence of those shadows in his face worried her loving heart. She
wondered if Mrs. Comerford saw a great change in him. It ought to have
been a very happy occasion. Mrs. Comerford had met Shawn with an air
of affection mingled with deprecation, as though she asked pardon for
the old unreason. If she saw that the years had changed him she made
no sign.

"I have stayed away a long time from you and Mary," she said. "I had
made it difficult for myself to come back: but I have wanted to come
back. Now I hope we shall remain neighbours to the end."

Sir Shawn had not responded as he ought to have done. He had worn a
queer look. After a while his wife had found the proper adjective for
it: his eyes were haunted. He might have seen a ghost. It distracted
her from her talk across the table with Mrs. Comerford, happy talk of
friends long parted and re-united, full of "Don't you remember?" and
"Have you forgotten?": arrears of talk in which so much had to be
explained, so many fates elucidated. It might have been so happy if
only Shawn had not worn that odd look.

Once Lady O'Gara thought she caught his eyes fixed with a gloomy
intentness on the group of young people at the other end of the table.
She glanced that way, and the ready smile came. Terry was making
himself very agreeable to the two pretty girls. It was obvious, even
at a glance, that Eileen had little chance against the new-comer's
vivacity. She sat with her lips pursed a little and something of gloom
on her face. Terry, between his sallies with Stella, who was at once
shy and bright, full of those c