nderfully fresh beauty--the beauty
of a clear soul--that it would be hard on her to be tied up to a sick
man. But her face, which had been changing during his speech, was now
uplifted.

"If I can only keep him," she said, "all the rest will be nothing. He
is going to be so happy with me."

She said it as though she made a vow.

CHAPTER XXIX, AND LAST

THE LAKH OF RUPEES

Mrs. Comerford acted with characteristic thoroughness. Perhaps she
felt that she had much to atone for.

It was Christmas Day by the time Stella could be moved to Inch, where
amazement reigned. Mrs. Comerford had given her orders. Miss Stella's
room was to be prepared. She was coming back again, with her mother.
The Bride's Room, which was the finest bedroom at Inch, was to be
prepared for Mrs. Terence Comerford.

Mrs. Clinch, to whom the order was given, gasped.

"Mrs. Terence Comerford, ma'am?" she repeated.

"Yes: I hope you're not becoming deaf. My son was married, and Miss
Stella is his daughter. He chose to keep his marriage a secret. I
have only just learnt that his wife is living."

No more than that. Mrs. Comerford was not a person to ask questions
of. She went her way serenely, with a queer air of happiness about her
while Inch was swept and garnished. Of course Clinch and Mrs. Clinch
debated these amazing happenings with each other; of course the
servants buzzed and the news spread to the village and about the
countryside with amazing swiftness.

Christmas morning saw the transference from the Waterfall Cottage to
Inch accomplished. Stella was by this time able to sit up for the
journey, and since there could be no proper Christmas festivity at
Castle Talbot Terry O'Gara was to lunch at Inch. He was witness of the
strange ceremonial air with which Mrs. Comerford laid down her seals of
office, so to speak.

"Mrs. Terence Comerford will take the head of the table," she said.

Then she passed to the foot of the table while Mrs. Terence, flushed
and half tearful, took the vacated place.

Terry was in the seventh heaven. There was no longer anything between
him and Stella, who had accepted him as though their happiness had
never been threatened. Stella, with that air of illness yet about her
which made her many times more dear and precious to her lover, looked
with shining eyes from her mother to her grandmother.

In the drawing-room afterwards, while Stella rested in her own pretty
room, and her mother, r