t seems," he said. "I think he will recover
consciousness presently. He must have been thrown rather violently."

She went away somewhat comforted. Outside the door she found Patsy
seated on a chair, his head fallen in his hands. Shot was sitting by
him, his nose on Patsy's knee. They looked companions in suffering.

"The doctor is hopeful," she said, with a hand on Patsy's shoulder.
"Go down and tell Reilly to come. The doctor wants him."

The flat-faced, soft-footed Reilly was to prove indeed in those sad
days and nights an untold help and comfort. Patsy watched him
curiously and enviously, going and coming, as he would, in and out the
sick-room.

Absorbed as she was Lady O'Gara noticed that sick look of jealousy on
Patsy's face. She herself was content to sit by her husband's bed and
let others do the useful serviceable things, unless when by the
doctor's orders she went out of doors for a while.

"We don't want him to open his eyes on a white face he doesn't know.
The better you look, my Lady, the better it will be for him," said Dr.
Costello.

The afternoon after the accident a watery sun had come out in fitful
gleams. It had been raining and blowing for some hours. There was
still no sign of returning consciousness in the sick man. Sir Shawn's
face looked heavy and dull on the pillow, where he lay as motionless as
though he were already dead.

"Concussion, not fracture," said the doctor, lifting an eyelid to look
at the unseeing eye. "He will come to himself presently."

And so saying he had sent her out to walk, bidding her exercise the dog
as well as herself, for Shot was a heartbreak in these days, lying
about and sighing, a creature ill at ease.

"So long as he does not howl," she said piteously, "I do not mind. I
could not bear him to howl."

"Dogs howl for the discomfort of themselves or their human friends,"
said the doctor. "You are not superstitious, Lady O'Gara?"

"Oh, no," she said, huddling in her fur cloak with a little shiver.

"You must believe in God or the Devil. If in God you can't admit the
Devil, who is the father of superstition as well as of lies."

"Oh, I know, I know," she said. "But, just now, I cannot bear to hear
a dog howl."

On the hall table she found a telegram from Terry. He hoped to be with
her by eleven o'clock.

The news from Terry turned her thoughts to Stella. For twenty-four
hours she had not remembered Stella. Terry would ask first for his