d to herself, although she
loved the river; and its backwaters, full of wild duck and dabchick and
the moorhens, were enchanting places.

The grounds which she remembered as neglected and overgrown had become
orderly. The little beds cut in the turf were neat in their Winter
bareness, despite a few dead leaves which had fluttered on to them.
Her eyes fell on a pair of gardening gloves and a trowel lying on the
grass by one of the beds. From the open mouth of a brown paper bag a
bulb had partly rolled before it became stationary. There was a hole
dug in the turf. Some one had been planting bulbs and had gone away
leaving the task unfinished.

From the house-wall hung a branch of clematis torn down by the rough
wind. A ladder stood close by. Some one had had the intention of
nailing up the branch, and had not carried it into effect.

She lifted her hand to the knocker and found that the door yielded to
her slight touch. It was open. For a second she had a wild thought
that Miss Brennan might have been wandering in her wits--that Mrs.
Wade, or Bridyeen Sweeney--she had come to calling her that in her
mind--was still in the house.

She looked into the little hall. It was bright with a long ray from
the white sun that peered below a cloud, seeming to her dazzled eyes
surrounded by a coruscation of coloured rays. The white sun portended
rain to come, probably in the afternoon.

Shot had pushed his way before her into the hall. She had almost
forgotten that Shot had come with her when she had left the Poms at
home because of the muddy roads. He had disappeared into Mrs. Wade's
little parlour. The plume of his fine tail caught a flash from the
sun's rays on its burnished bronze. She heard the dog whine.

No one answered her knock nor did Shot return, so, after a second's
hesitation, she followed the dog.

She was not prepared for what she saw. The only occupant of the room
beside the dog, who had dropped on to the hearthrug, and lay with his
nose between his paws and his melancholy eyes watching, was
Stella--Stella kneeling by a chair in an abandonment of grief, her face
hidden.

The little figure kept its grace even in the huddled-up attitude. The
face hidden in the chair, childishly, as though a child suffered pain,
was lifted as Lady O'Gara touched the bronze-brown head. The misery of
Stella's wide eyes shocked her. Stella's face was stained and
disfigured by tears. The soft close hair, which she