Sir Shawn trottin' his horse up the road in front o' me, an'
Spitfire--that was Mr. Comerford's horse--was unaisy an' refusin' the
dark road under the trees. You couldn't tell what the crathur saw, God
help us all! No horse liked that road. Thin I heard Spitfire
clatterin' away in the dark an' I ran, draggin' the little goat after
me to get past the place where the unchancy ould road dips down.
Somewan cannoned into me runnin' out o' the dark road. I couldn't see
his face, but he cursed me, an' I felt his hairy hands round me neck
and me scratchin' and tearin' at them. It was that villain that's
comin' here to annoy the master, or I think it was. Mind you, I never
seen him. But he took me up be me little coat an' he dashed me down on
the road an' nigh knocked the life out o' me. The next thing I knew I
was lying in the bed at home an' me sore from head to foot, an' able to
see only out o' wan eye be rayson of a bandage across the other: an' me
grandfather an' the neighbours wor sayin' that Mr. Terence Comerford
was kilt, and that Sir Shawn O'Gara was distracted with grief. But the
quarest thing at all was hearin' the ould man sayin' that I was a good
little boy, after all the divils and villains he'd called me, as long
as I could remember."

Patsy stopped, still turning his hat about in his hands, his velvety
eyes fixed on Lady O'Gara, where she stood leaning by the mantelpiece,
her face turned away, one slender foot resting on the marble kerb. If
Sir Felix had been aware of the expression of the eyes he might have
been startled, but even the pince-nez were not equal to that.

"Thank you very much," he said. "That story should knock the bottom
out of our friend's statement. Merely vexatious; I said so to D.I.
Fury. Sir Shawn and Mr. Comerford parted in perfect amity?"

"Like brothers," said Patsy with emphasis, "as they wor ever an'
always. Sure the master was never the same man since. I often heard
the people sayin' how it was the love of brothers was betwixt them, an'
more, for many a blood brother doesn't fret for his brother as the
master fretted for Master Terence. He was never the same man since."

CHAPTER XXIII

THE HOME-COMING

After Sir Felix had gone off, profuse in his apologies, and
anathematizing Mr. Fury's zeal, Lady O'Gara went to a desk in the
corner of the drawing-room, a Sheraton desk which she did not often
use. She found a tiny key and unlocked a little cupboard door bet