her little lad does."

"Susan seldom ventures out, I think," Lady O'Gara said, while she
sipped her tea. "I am glad you get her beyond her own gate."

"She's a scared creature. She dreads the road. Mr. Kenny gets her all
she wants from the village. She comes to me across the Mount. She
doesn't mind that way even in the dark, though the people about here
wouldn't take it on any account. Perhaps she doesn't know the stories.
Perhaps, like myself, she thinks a ghost is better company than humans
sometimes."

"Ah; you are not afraid of ghosts!"

"If I was," Mrs. Wade's eyes suddenly filled with tears,--"would I be
settled here? It's not thinking of the Admiral's ghost I'd be. Maybe
there's some you'd welcome back from the grave, if you loved them well
enough. I can't imagine any one not wanting the dead back, if so be
that you loved them."

Her voice died off in a wail, and suddenly it came to Lady O'Gara that
just outside, where the water fell over the weir, Terence Comerford had
met with his death.

"No," she said softly, "I cannot imagine any one being afraid of the
dear dead."

As she said it she remembered the shadows about her husband's face and
her heart was cold.

It was only later that she wondered if Mrs. Wade had chosen that lonely
spot to return to because there Terence Comerford's handsome head had
lain in its blood. It occurred to her at the same time that not one
word had passed between them which could indicate that she knew
anything of Mrs. Wade beyond that she had been a dweller in these parts
long before she had come to be a tenant of Sir Shawn O'Gara at the
Waterfall Cottage.

A curious thing that there should be there side by side, thrown into an
odd companionship, two women who had reason to be afraid and had chosen
these lonely places to hide. Poor Susan! The reason for her hiding
was obvious. With Mrs. Wade it was another matter. Why need she have
come back if she so dreaded her past? Or was it the memory of Terence
Comerford that drew her, the thought of the old tragedy and the old
passion?

CHAPTER XI

THE ONLY PRETTY RING-TIME

Castle Talbot took on new lightness and brightness when Terry came
home. His mother said fondly that it was like the Palace of the
Sleeping Beauty where life hung in suspense between his goings and
comings. The mere presence of this one young man seemed to put all the
servants on their mettle. The cook sent up such meals as she did