the adoring dogs, Lady
O'Gara let her thoughts wander on away from Eileen. How deep and
passionate was Shawn's love when it was given. He had shrunk from that
first meeting with Mrs. Comerford after all those years. He had turned
pale when she had taken his hand in hers, looking at him with a long
gaze that asked pardon for her past unreason and remembered that he and
her dead son had been dearer than brothers. After all those years that
touch with the past had opened the floodgates of grief in Shawn O'Gara.
Only his wife knew the anguish, the disturbed nights and the weary days
that followed. Grief in him was like a sharp physical suffering.

Dear Shawn! How glad she was that she was so strong and healthy and
had such good spirits always, so as to be able to cheer and comfort
him. She smiled to herself, remembering how some of her friends had
pitied her because she must always be uplifting his mood. She had
never wearied nor found it an irksome effort. A serious sad thought
came to her; when the hour of the inevitable parting came she prayed it
might be her lot to be left desolate rather than his.

She looked at her little watch, a delicate French thing, with a tiny
painted picture on the back framed within pearls ending in a
true-lovers'-knot, one of Shawn's many gifts. Six o'clock. It was
time Shawn was home. She was very glad he had not ridden Mustapha, as
he had wanted to. Patsy Kenny had dissuaded him. Terry must have
stayed on at Inch for tea. It had been a cold bright day, and it must
be turning to frost, for the fire was burning so redly. The cold was
on the floor too, for the little dogs had left their baskets and taken
to the chairs, a thing supposed to be strictly forbidden, although as a
matter of fact Chloe and Cupid were always cheerfully disobedient. She
wished Shawn was home. He had gone up the mountains to a
shooting-lodge, where was a party of men gathered to shoot red deer.
He had been out overnight and he would be very tired when he came home
after a long drive on an outside car. Well, after all, it was better
than Mustapha. Patsy's unwillingness to see Sir Shawn go out on
Mustapha had infected her, little nervous as she was where horse-flesh
was concerned.

She comforted herself. It was not like those dreadful days when there
had been trouble with the tenants, and she had sat in this very room,
listening in anguish for the sound of the horse's hoofs coming fast.
Terry had b