to her child? It
seemed so.

"Oh, the poor boy!" Lady O'Gara said, with sudden tears, clasping her
hands together. "Is he to have no word in it?"

"Not if I am Mrs. Wade's daughter. She told me how she lived with her
grandmother who kept a shop in the village long ago. Of course Sir
Shawn would not like it. I see that quite well, and I am not thinking
of marrying Terry or any one. I am only thinking that Mrs. Wade may be
my mother. I've always wanted a mother. How I used to envy the
Italian children when I was little. They had such soft warm, dark-eyed
mothers. And I had only Granny--and Miss Searle. Miss Searle was fond
of me but she was often cross with me. Granny never _loved_ me as a
mother would have. I was sometimes afraid of her though she was good
to me"--her cheeks were scarlet by this time,--"I am going to stay here
and wait for Mrs. Wade to return. If _she_ does not come I must go to
look for her. Terry need not trouble about me, nor Sir Shawn...."

"Oh, the poor boy!" said Lady O'Gara again, with the soft illogicality
that her lovers loved in her. "But, Stella, love, you cannot stay
here. Think how people would talk. Come home with me. You can wait
just as well at Castle Talbot. Every day you shall come and see if she
has returned. It would be better, of course, for you to go back to
Inch..."

"But Granny will lock me in my room. I cannot go to Castle Talbot, for
Sir Shawn would look coldly at me and I should not like that."

Lady O'Gara was suddenly decided. "You cannot stay here, Stella," she
said. "It is quite out of the question."

In her own mind was a whirl of doubt and fear. Who was going to tell
Stella? Who was going to tell her? Apparently Stella suspected no
worse than that she was peasant-born. She had not yet arrived at the
point of asking for her father. At any moment she might ask. What was
any one to answer?

"Come with me, dear child," she said. "My husband comes home
dead-tired these hunting days, has some food and stumbles off to bed.
I am all alone. We can have the days together. I will write to your
Granny that you are paying me a visit. Let us lock up here."

Some one paused in the road outside the window to look in, leaning
impudently on the green paling. It was a ragged tramp bearded like the
pard.

As he shuffled on his way Lady O'Gara said with a rather nervous laugh.

"There, Stella! You see the impossibility of your being here alone.